Autumn Scene 2016 by Colgate University

scene Autumn 2016

News and views for the Colgate community

To the limit of his ability The Class of 1965 Arena Generation WHY Force of nature A Celebration of Colgate: Inauguration of Brian W. Casey

scene

Autumn 2016

22 To the limit of his ability

The namesake of Colgate’s new rink, Steven J. Riggs ’65 was a hockey legend who spoke softly and carried a big stick.

28 The Class of 1965 Arena

Step inside Colgate’s new athletics facility.

30 Generation WHY

Student-professor partnerships ask probing research questions.

34 Force of nature

With his new superheroine La Borinqueña, Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez ’93 is taking the world by storm.

Message from President Brian W. Casey

13346 — Inbox

Work & Play

Tableau: “Return to Kabul”

Raider rituals: pregame prep

Life of the Mind

Arts & Culture

Go ’gate

New, Noted & Quoted

The Big Picture

Stay Connected

Class News 72 Marriages & Unions 72 Births & Adoptions 73 In Memoriam

“A smartened parsing” (President anagrams), Rewind

DEPARTMENTS

On the cover: Leading with a smile, President Casey prepares for his inauguration — and Colgate’s bright future. Photo by Mark DiOrio Left: Autumn returns to the hill. Photo by Andrew Daddio

News and views for the Colgate community

scene team

Contributors

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

“Photography has been a way of life for me since I was a child,” said Mark DiOrio, who joined our staff as university photographer in August. “At the age of five, I purchased a plastic 110 Kool-Aid camera for a dime at a thrift sale. Once I started clicking, there was no turning back.” Originally from Utica, N.Y., he previously worked as photo editor of the ObserverDispatch. “I’ve learned a lot from the people I’ve photographed,” he said. “They’ve helped me to broaden my understanding about life and what’s important.”

David Plunkert’s illustrations (Generation WHY, pg. 30) have been featured in the New York Times, Newsweek, and Time magazine as well as in ad campaigns for Motorola, Nike, and Gatorade. He has received gold medals from the Society of Illustrators in New York and a best film poster award from the SXSW Festival. He is the creator of Heroical, an ongoing superhero anthology, and in 2015 he illustrated and designed Edgar Allan Poe: Stories & Poems for Rockport.

Hailing from Seattle, Wash., Lee Tremblay ’16 was one of our summer interns who wrote pieces including “Oh, baby — O. Henry!” (pg. 51) and contributed to longer articles like “Generation WHY” (pg. 30). Over the summer, she also helped out with the Colgate Writers’ Conference and assisted with preparations for Living Writers, for which she is currently a teaching assistant online. The English major is back in her hometown now, fostering a love of language with the younger generation as a GED and ESL teacher.

colgate.edu/inauguration The university inaugurated Brian W. Casey as its 17th president on September 30. Watch the ceremony, view photos, and much more via our inauguration website.

Picture this

colgate.edu/flickr From arrival day to Australia semester abroad, our Flickr photostream captures Colgate spirit.

Core strength

colgate.edu/core Professors discuss what makes Colgate’s core curriculum so successful in developing students into well-rounded thinkers. What was your favorite aspect of the core? Write to us at scene@colgate.edu.

Engage online

colgate.edu/scene Visit us online to read articles you may have missed, add your comments, and share them with friends via social media.

Go paperless

To stop receiving the printed Scene, e-mail Scene@ colgate.edu with your name, class year, address, and e-mail address, and put Online Mailing List in the subject. We’ll send you an e-mail when we post new online editions (colgate.edu/scene).

scene: Autumn 2016

Contributors: Daniel DeVries, Admission Marketing and Media Relations Manager; Matt Hames, Communications Strategist; David Herringshaw, Digital Production Specialist; Jason Kammerdiener ’10, Lead Information and Digital Architect; Brian Ness, Video Journalism Coordinator; John Painter, Director of Athletic Communications; Gerald Gall, Freelance Designer Contact: scene@colgate.edu; 315-228-6669 colgate.edu/scene Colgate University: 315-228-1000

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

What’s online

Watch Colgate make history

Interim Vice President of Communications Rebecca Downing Managing Editor Aleta Mayne Editorial Director Mark Walden Creative Director Tim Horn Senior Designer and Visual Brand Manager Karen Luciani Senior Designer Katherine Laube Mutz University Photographer Mark DiOrio Production Assistant Kathy Owen

If you’re moving... Please clip the address label and send with your new address to: Alumni Records Clerk, Colgate University, 13 Oak Drive, Hamilton, NY 13346-1398 or call 315-228-7453. Opinions expressed are not necessarily shared by the university, the publishers, or the editors. Non-discrimination notice: Colgate University does not discriminate in its programs and activities because of race, color, sex, pregnancy, religion, creed, national origin (including ancestry), citizenship status, physical or mental disability, age, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, veteran or military status (including special disabled veteran, Vietnam-era veteran, or recently separated veteran), predisposing genetic characteristics, domestic violence victim status, or any other protected category under applicable local, state, or federal law. The following person has been designated to handle inquiries regarding the university’s non-discrimination policies: Marilyn Rugg, Associate Provost for Equity and Diversity, 13 Oak Drive, Hamilton, NY 13346; 315-228-7288. Title IX notice In compliance with requirements under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, Colgate University does not discriminate on the basis of sex in its educational programs and activities. Colgate’s Title IX Coordinator is Marilyn Rugg, Associate Provost for Equity and Diversity, 13 Oak Drive, Hamilton, NY 13346; 315-228-7288; mrugg@colgate.edu.

Message from President Brian W. Casey

I’ve only been here

on this campus a few months — weeks, really. But even

in these first few weeks, you can pick up the rhythms of this university. library room looks remarkably beautiful. It’s full of wood shelves and they're covered with books, and there's a large table in the center of the room and leather chairs all around. On Tuesday and Thursday evenings, a class is held there. By the time I’m usually walking by, the class is typically in full force. The professor is speaking and the students are typing, or writing out notes, or some student is offering a point in the discussion. You can imagine the beginning of that class — the students walking in, backpacks put on the floor. They’re saying hello, they’re sitting down. The professor is at the head of the table, taking a last glance at her notes. Maybe, after the students settle in, she stands up and she pushes her chair in — a signal. Maybe she puts her hands on the back of the chair and she leans forward just a bit, about to begin the seminar with some point. She has thought long and hard about that point. And at that exact moment, every book she has ever read in her field, every sabbatical she’s ever taken, every departmental discussion about the curriculum, every moment of her graduate education is now in play. Every research project she started in a summer, and finished in the mornings when she was back on campus, is in that moment. Every time she has talked with her colleagues about this course, or the courses she has taught in the past, is in that moment. And everything the founders of Colgate ever dreamed about is now in play. Thirteen men and 13 dollars, and all the faculty who have been here before are now in the Classics Library in Lawrence Hall with that professor. We are with her. She takes in a breath, she looks at her students, and she starts the discussion, and thus enacts one of the most important moments in our culture. This is our best moment. We long to advance knowledge. And the more that we support that moment, and enrich the steps that led to it, and the more we gather students for whom this is the right form of education, and the more we support them, the more time that we afford for that moment — the more we honor the past 200 years, and the more we shape the next 200. I can think of no greater calling, to be one more person, on this campus, longing to advance knowledge, to perpetuate it to posterity, and with this faculty, this administration, this board, to alter the world with the power of our ideas. It is why we’re gathered here, all of us, each to our part, and we are the luckiest people in the world to have this work, this virtuous work before us. President Brian W. Casey, spending a quiet moment polishing his inauguration speech, from which this column is excerpted. For more on that historic day, turn to pg. 8, and visit colgate.edu/inauguration.

Mark DiOrio

Mornings on this campus, the buildings and grounds employees come out first, taking care of the lawns and the trees and the buildings, driving up the hill in university-marked trucks and vans, setting things right for the day. Soon the staff and the faculty begin driving up the hill, and they climb out of cars, holding cups of coffee, heading into Lathrop and Olin and Little halls. The staff start up their computers in James B. Colgate Hall and the ALANA Cultural Center. The athletes walk slowly back from morning workouts — the swimmers with wet hair, loud. Very loud. By 9:00 in the morning, the campus is alive with students on paths. Department chairs read messages from the administration and they reluctantly set up more meetings. Faculty leave their offices and head to lecture halls and seminar rooms, and Colgate is awake. The rhythms of the day are in full force and there’s another day on the hill. And all of us, those who are here, play out our part on these days. By night, after a day of meetings, I’m usually in my study, up in the house, answering e-mails, trying to write, and at some point the dog comes over and nudges me for a walk. Inevitably, we head down the hill into the Residential Quad, past all the first-years who want to say hello to the dog, and then we go into the Academic Quadrangle. We pass by the Classics Library that faces into the Quad from the first floor of Lawrence Hall. Peering in from the Quad at night, the

News and views for the Colgate community

Inbox

Our inbox was empty this summer (Where’d everyone go? Bueller? Bueller?), so we looked at what you’re saying online. Facebook feedback

The Scene welcomes letters. We reserve the right to decide whether a letter is acceptable for publication and to edit for accuracy, clarity, and length. Letters deemed potentially libelous or that malign a person or group will not be published. Letters should not exceed 250 words. You can reach us by mail, or e-mail sceneletters @colgate.edu. Please include your full name, class year if applicable, address, phone number, and/or e-mail address. If we receive many letters on a given topic, we will print a representative sample of the opinions expressed.

Tony Steratore I have had the pleasure of knowing and working with Wayne for many years. There are not better men in the world. It has been my privilege to be associated with Wayne and his wonderful wife Tonya. (Read the profile on Wayne Mackie: colgate.edu/ waynemackie)

Picture this: stunning Colgate University photography, just a click away Visit our galleries at

colgate.photoshelter.com to order customized photographic prints in a variety of sizes. Bring home images you’ve seen in the Colgate Scene and other university publications as well as scenic views from around one of America’s most beautiful campuses.

scene: Autumn 2016

Petra Van Baar I remember dropping our daughter off in 2013. We are West Coast, and she is our youngest. From the moment we pulled up, and were greeted on the lawn, to her being serenaded in her dorm room, to the tears in her father’s and my eyes as we looked around the stunning campus, knowing she was home, to now, her senior year. What a dream come true for our family. Go, ’Gate! Forever grateful!

From the Twitterverse

Insta-fans

Follow us on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to keep up with what's happening at Colgate. Watch for student and department takeovers on Twitter and Instagram.

News and views for the Colgate community

work & play

Campus scrapbook

Blake Nair ’20 analyzes the DNA of cancer cells using a fluorescent microscope in Professor Engda Hagos’s biology lab. Photo by Andrew Daddio

First-year students have to pull their own weight during the annual orientation field day festivities.

Konosioni leads the Class of 2020 toward Founder's Day Convocation, carrying torches of knowledge that will burn brightly for the next four years. Photo by Andrew Daddio

Students make room for an exciting academic year to come.

One potato, two potato… Caroline Boudreau ’17 gets her hands dirty at Common Thread Community Farm as part of a community service afternoon coordinated by the Max A. Shacknai Center for Outreach, Volunteerism, and Education.

StairMasters are no longer necessary when classes are on the hill.

Raider and friends let loose at ALANApalooza, featuring DJ Jordan Henderson and the Camden Sophisticated Sisters. Photo by Zoe Zhong ’17

At dining services’ Meet the Farmer event, students learn where their food comes from and sample local produce.

Photos by Mark DiOrio unless otherwise indicated

scene: Autumn 2016

News and views for the Colgate community

Mark DiOrio

Andrew Daddio

Connie Harsh, interim dean of the faculty, presents President Casey the faculty gavel — and with it, "the authority to help shape debate and conversation."

scene: Autumn 2016

difficult work of the pursuit of truth, the mastery of a field, was by its very nature essential to our culture.” — President Brian W. Casey

An inauguration for the ages

The campus was buzzing with activity September 24–October 2 with A Celebration of Colgate — a series of events in honor of the Inauguration of President Brian W. Casey — and the dedication of the new Class of 1965 Arena as the highlight of Homecoming 2016.

Gerard Gaskin

work & play

What a week

“ The gathering of faculty and students, engaged in the

Within the historic precincts of Memorial Chapel, the community looked forward to a bright and exciting future during the inauguration of Brian W. Casey as Colgate’s 17th president on September 30. Hundreds of well-wishers packed the chapel for the ceremony. Jill Harsin, former interim president and history professor; Matthew Swain ’17, president of the Student Government Association; Thomas Cruz-Soto, associate dean of campus life and director of the ALANA Cultural Center; and Hamilton Town Supervisor Eve Ann Shwartz all offered words of welcome to Casey. Daniel B. Hurwitz ’86, P’17’20, chair of the Board of Trustees, presented Casey with the University Key, and Connie Harsh, interim dean of the faculty and English professor, handed the faculty gavel to him. By special request from Casey, Peter Balakian, recipient of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and Colgate’s Donald M. and Constance H. Rebar Professor in humanities, professor of English, and director of creative writing, delivered a five-part poem he wrote especially for the occasion.

In his “welcome from the academy,” Marvin Krislov, president of Oberlin College, praised Casey’s energy, wisdom, and commitment to the liberal arts. Casey himself spoke of his awe and great respect for liberal arts college campuses as places set apart — one of America’s best settings where we expect great things to happen. “There has always been — present in our quieter, deeper notions of a college — the belief that the essential work of the academy was a good in itself, necessary. That the gathering of faculty and students, engaged in the difficult work of the pursuit of truth, the mastery of a field, was by its very nature essential to our culture. “The great liberal arts college assumed that encountering profound ideas, meeting the sublime on quiet campuses, offered one perspective. And it was thought that character developed on a campus would teach one how to live a life marked by knowledge, even wisdom. This was always the virtue of the campus.” As a benediction, the presidents of Colgate's student religious and spiritual communities offered blessings from their traditions.

Mark DiOrio (3)

Inauguration Week kicked off with a community picnic on the Village Green celebrating two centuries of town-gown collaboration on September 24 — the 199th anniversary of the legendary meet-

Inauguration Poem for Brian W. Casey

ing in Hamilton of 13 men who offered $13 and

B Y P E T E R B A L A K I A N

13 prayers to found the institution that would

(excerpt, from part four of five)

become Colgate. Early Hamiltonians contrib-

We bless you under the signs Athena and Hermes.

uted $6,000 to help secure the institution’s establishment in their hometown.

We hug you to the beautiful unfathomable wreck of knowledge and pedagogy —

Colgate On Screen

the heart of our insistence that liberal education remains the human process that keeps civilization glued together.

Inauguration filmmaker series

Lalee’s Kin: The Legacy of Cotton NUTS! Colgate professor Penny Lane, director Xan Parker ’92, associate producer 2001, 89 minutes 2016, 79 minutes Who Killed the Electric Car Chris Paine ’83, director 2016, 79 minutes

Here Alone! Rod Blackhurst ’02, director 2016, 89 minutes

Welcome to our pit of many discourses the dense green hills of our syntax, our paradigms and labs of discontent — our babel of disbelief.

Under African Skies Joe Berlinger ’83, director 2012, 108 minutes

We are a mad lot of scholars, artists, writers up on metaphysical bennies and other speedballs of intractable force —

Mark DiOrio

We believe in the classroom as the playing out of the social and intellectual life of our nation —

"Keep on Making a Way" — a gospel welcome by the Sojourners Gospel Choir and Colgate University Chamber Singers

Pulitzer Prize winner Peter Balakian is Colgate’s Donald M. and Constance H. Rebar Professor in humanities, professor of English, and director of creative writing. Balakian wrote a poem for the occasion, upon Casey’s request. Find it at colgate.edu/inauguration.

Gerard Gaskin

Inauguration Week panels of Colgate experts considered topics of interest to the institution and the community.

The Media and Communications in the 21st Century

Colgate’s History: Reflections on the Past and Future

Cultivating Community Leaders: From the Local to the Global

“ We try to shed light in dark places.”

“ There was a movement over the years toward a more liberal Christian civic religion and that, to the institution’s credit, gave our approach to a liberal arts education (thanks to Core 17 and 18 and its predecessors) a kind of moral dimension that I haven’t seen at other colleges and universities.”

“ Push students to think deeply, to talk about their experiences and share it with someone else. Why was it meaningful? How did it shape you?”

J eff Fager ’77, executive producer of 60 Minutes, former chairman of CBS News

Fager’s panel colleagues were Howard Fineman ’70, global editorial director, AOL Huffington Post Media Group; Goldie Blumenstyk ’79, senior writer and editor, The Chronicle of Higher Education; Amanda Terkel ’04, political reporter, politics managing editor, Huffington Post; and Alicia Simmons, assistant professor of sociology. Tim Byrnes, Charles A. Dana Professor of political science, moderated.

J ames Allen Smith ’70, director of research, Rockefeller Archive Center, and author of a forthcoming history of Colgate University

Smith was joined by President Brian W. Casey; Robert Garland, Roy D. and Margaret B. Wooster Professor of the classics; Jennifer Hull, assistant professor of history and bicentennial fellow; and Mel Watkins ’62, Colgate NEH Professor of the humanities in the Department of English. Jill Harsin, professor of history and chair of Colgate’s Bicentennial Committee, moderated.

Mark DiOrio

work & play

Colgate In Discussion

Ayanna K. Williams ’08, a health care policy professional at The Lewin Group, who, as a student, helped to write the selection criteria and charter for the National Abolition Hall of Fame in nearby Peterboro, N.Y., as an Upstate Institute Summer Fellow

The other panelists included Roger Ferlo ’73, president of the Bexley Seabury Episcopal Center for Learning & Discipleship; Mark Golden H’14, CEO of Golden Artist Colors in nearby New Berlin, N.Y.; Peter A. Dunn, president of the Central New York Community Foundation; Katie Redford ’90, co-founder and director of EarthRights International; and Jo Kroes Randell ’91, director of development, Sustain for Life. Ellen Percy Kraly, William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of geography and former director of Colgate’s Upstate Institute, moderated.

You can watch many of the Inauguration Week events via Colgate’s Livestream archive, and read more about President Casey at colgate.edu/president.

scene: Autumn 2016

A homecoming for the books Gerard Gaskin (2)

The highlight of Homecoming Weekend 2016 — with

The Class of 1965 Arena

the Raiders hosting nine athletic contests in two days — was the grand opening and dedication of the new Class of 1965 Arena. Members of the class, along with more than 2,500 other fans, were on hand for the first games in the Steven J. Riggs ’65 Rink, where women’s hockey defeated New Hampshire, 4–2 (their second win Mark DiOrio

at Riggs Rink), and men’s hockey tied Army, 2–2. “ I believe this new facility empowers all of us. It’s something that all coaches and student-athletes can rally behind, not just the six programs that are in this building, but the broader community as well. It enhances the pride in all of us... “This beautiful Class of 1965 Arena and Steven J. Riggs ’65 Rink will help set a new standard of pride and excellence in everything that we do. It will inspire all of us to work harder every day and bring home more championships, which is what we aspire to do every day.” — Head Men’s Hockey Coach Don Vaughan

Read more on pg. 22.

Tableau

Return to Kabul By Naseema Noor ’06 It’s never a good sign when your parents don’t want you to go home. But home can mean different things, and here it refers to homeland; in my case, to Afghanistan, where I was born during the jihad against the Soviet Union in the 1980s. During the Russian occupation, my family left Kabul to escape the conflict and pursue a better life in America. In 2012, shortly after finishing graduate school, I decided to move back to Afghanistan for work. My parents discouraged me because they were worried about my safety and puzzled by why I wanted to return to the hardships they left behind. But having studied international relations, including at Colgate, I was determined to see and understand more of the world. One reason I selected Afghanistan was that I knew I had a good chance of finding a job there; the country was receiving a lot of international assistance, which opened up job opportunities. Additionally, I thought I would learn more about my heritage. I initially got a job in Kabul as a freelance writer and editor, and continued doing similar work later for a U.S. Agency for International Development contractor. Over the next few years, the security situation and my freedom in Kabul deteriorated drastically. In the beginning, I walked to work, as well as to nearby shops and vegetable stands. By 2015, I could only travel in an armored Land Cruiser accompanied by an armed guard. Part of this reflected my employers’ different risk thresholds, but it also reflected the reality that Kabul was becoming more dangerous. In my first year, when there was a terrorist attack, my expatriate friends and I often didn’t know who or what was targeted. By 2014, when presidential elections were held, the attacks had increased and seemed to be getting closer. The night before Nowruz, the Persian (and Afghan) New Year, the city’s Serena Hotel was attacked. The next day, I got the shocking news that an Afghan friend of mine, Sardar Ahmad, a journalist for Agence France-Presse, and his family had been gunned down there. My perhaps inevitable close call with terrorism occurred in December 2015, when terrorists attacked the Spanish Embassy, next door to where I both lived and worked. That bewildering evening, I was reading in bed when I heard a dull thud and felt the room shake. Dust crumbled down from the ceiling. My immediate thought was earthquake. But then I recalled that earthquakes don’t make noise. Car bomb. I jumped out of bed and scurried up to the roof of the guesthouse, the security protocol in case of an emergency. It was only after my colleagues joined me that I looked down and realized I had forgotten to put on shoes. As I came to learn on that roof, people who experience life-threatening situations have drastically different reactions to them. One colleague — a consultant who had recently arrived in Kabul — was hyperventilating and praying at the

scene: Autumn 2016

same time. I barely knew her, but she clung to me as we ducked low and listened to the gunfire a few hundred feet away. Another co-worker became irate after calling authorities for help and finding out they couldn’t determine our location. He cursed while bullets whizzed by. In contrast, I discovered that I can be eerily calm when adrenaline kicks in. I remained quiet and focused during the attack. I repeatedly checked my cellphone, responding to text messages from concerned family and friends. I left a voicemail message for my parents that an attack was underway, but told them not to worry too much because we didn’t seem to be the target. A millennial, I even updated my Facebook status to let everyone know I was safe. But, at one point, when the gunfire got so loud and seemed so close, I — despite not being religious — unconsciously uttered, Allah. Luckily, because my company employed international security consultants, we had armed staff who advised us throughout the evening. They had us put on bulletproof vests and helmets and moved us from the roof of the guesthouse to the next building, farther away from the Spanish compound, where we would be safer. As we rushed across the courtyard, I saw Afghan security forces holding position in case the attackers managed to make it over our walls. Afghan Special Forces had also positioned snipers with night-vision goggles atop neighboring buildings, according to our security personnel. We were in for a long haul. Terrorist attacks in Afghanistan typically begin with a car bomb to breach a gated building; then terrorists rush inside to kill as many “foreigners” as possible. After the killing spree, they hole up and wait, sometimes many hours, to fight until they become, in their eyes, martyrs. Throughout that night, long moments of quiet were punctuated by sudden gunfire and rocket-propelled grenades as security forces cleared the embassy’s compound of terrorists. We hunkered down in someone’s bedroom, trying to fall asleep, but found it impossible with the continuous fighting. I must’ve fallen asleep around 5 a.m., after the last round of gunfire ended and the last terrorist was presumably killed. Two hours later, when we were cleared to go outside, my colleagues and I walked around inspecting the damage. Most of our windows had been blown out by the impact of the car bomb; broken wood and shrapnel were strewn across the compound. My cat, the only apparent casualty on our side, had disappeared (he returned the next day, still jittery). I was too weary and numb to react. I wandered aimlessly, then returned to my bedroom. I noticed soot on my bed, but climbed in anyway and fell asleep. I didn’t care. Sometimes home is not hospitable. The close call persuaded me to return to my other home, the United States, and I’ve been back since July 4. Even with terrorist attacks casting a long shadow over the time I spent in Kabul, I don’t regret the experience. By taking myself out of my comfort zone — or, literally in this case, a safety zone — I learned as much about myself as I did about my homeland. Naseema Noor ’06 is living in Washington, D.C., while she decompresses from her time in Afghanistan and plans her next steps.

Raider rituals PREGAME PREP By Aleta Mayne

Box score. Every year, MEN’S LACROSSE coach Mike Murphy buys an old-school– style metal lunchbox that his team will carry with them everywhere throughout the season. “It signifies hard work, toughness, and blue-collar mentality,” Murphy explained. Each week of practice, the coaching staff picks a player based on his performance and puts his number on the lunchbox. Whenever the team wins, a talisman representing the opponent’s mascot goes into the lunchbox.

“ It signifies hard work, toughness, and blue-collar mentality.”

Ashley Eve '14

Anne-Marie Lemal Brown

— Mike Murphy, men's lacrosse coach

Mark DiOrio

Let them eat cake. Former FOOTBALL head coach Dick Biddle used to tell his players: “Don’t be cake eaters” — meaning “don’t be soft,” explained current head coach Dan Hunt. On Halloween in 2012, Biddle’s admonishment came out a little sweeter when he brought in an actual cake, saying, in frosting, “Don’t be cake eaters.” It was a Wednesday, and the team won their game that Saturday. “Coach Biddle is very superstitious,” Hunt said, “so we started the tradition that every Wednesday after practice, there is cake in the locker room.”

13 men, 13 dollars... 13 jumping jacks. Before each Saturday game, the MEN’S HOCKEY team warms up with a 13-minute morning skate. Their pregame stretch finishes up with 13 jumping jacks.

Mark DiOrio

Brotherhood bonds. MEN’S RUGBY begins each game with a solemn moment of silence in tribute to former player Victor Krivitski ’12, who died of cancer before the start of his senior year. The team’s practice shirts and jerseys all have a “VK” stitched on them. “We play for Victor and the hundreds of former Colgate rugby players who made it possible for us to play the sport today,” said Eli Brick ’17.

’stache

Splish splash Hotshot. To keep his cool before and during a match, VOLLEYBALL coach Ryan Baker eats Atomic FireBalls. “It stops me from yelling at the team,” Baker said.

A month before big meets like the Patriot League Championships, MEN’S SWIMMING AND DIVING team members renounce their razors. A couple of days before competition, they shave off everything except for their mustaches — which they dye black. “It looks absolutely ridiculous, but it helps bring us together as a team,” said captain Dominic Wilkins ’17.

As a Raider fan, what pregame traditions do you have? And what rituals do you remember from your student days? Write to us: scene@colgate.edu

Game face. Before every match, the WOMEN’S RUGBY team forms two lines. The two captains walk down the lines: one with a black Sharpie, the other with a yellow highlighter. “May the force of the cheetah … ,” says the first captain as she marks each player’s cheek with three black dots. “ … Be with you always,” the second captain says as she swipes the dots with yellow highlighter. The whole team then runs, roaring, through the uprights. Coach Anne-Marie Lemal Brown says that the team’s biggest strength has always been speed, like a cheetah. Last year, they zoomed right into the National Small College Rugby Organization finals.

13 Page 13 13 is is the the showplace showplace Page

for Colgate Colgate tradition, tradition, history, history, for and school spirit. and school spirit.

Top: It’s estimated that there are 50,000 pieces of plastic per square mile in the world’s oceans. Bottom: Professor Bob Turner has helped to expand the environmental studies program to include environmental economics.

scene: Autumn 2016

Rich Carey

A capital experience

Mark DiOrio

life of the mind 14

Live and learn

Art and environmental perceptions

Does seeing an image of plastic bags floating in the ocean influence people to be more environmentally friendly? That’s what Bob Turner, professor of economics and environmental studies, hopes to find out. In Turner’s current research study, participants are asked a set of questions designed by psychologists that assesses their opinions on the state of the environment’s health. Next, one group is shown an artistic image of a whale, accompanied by text explaining that the whale image is composed of 50,000 plastic bags — equal to the estimated number of pieces of floating plastic in a square mile of the world’s oceans. Other groups see different combinations of image and/ or text. Sometimes, a photograph of bags in the ocean replaces the whale image. Afterward, all participants answer a subset of the initial survey questions and questions on their beliefs about plastic bag pollution. Although the study is ongoing, so far, Turner has found that those who are shown either one of the images and/or the text become more proenvironment. “It’s an open question

whether environmental art, by itself, has an impact, but clearly information seems to matter,” he said. “I’m hoping the research will narrow down the ways, and in what circumstances, the art has an impact.” Turner first started thinking about the effects of art on people’s thoughts about the environment during a 2008 visit to Colgate by the Canary Project, which produces art and media about ecological issues. But it wasn’t until several years later, when Turner was invited to speak at a conference on scientific communication, that he decided to pursue it further. In the fall of 2014, Turner designed a new Scientific Perspectives class, called Environmental Activism, Science, and the Arts. Through working with students in the class, which discussed art, psychology, statistics, and the environment, Turner modified his study to this current iteration. Students from that class worked with him on the design of his survey instrument.

Geography alumni: on the map

It’s relatively uncommon for alumni to publish their student theses in a professional journal, but even more so when it happens within the same department and in the same issue. Geography majors Sal Curasi ’15 and Wil Lieberman-Cribbin ’14 did research under the tutelage of Professor Mike Loranty and then wrote their honors theses. Environmental Research Letters recently published the papers, co-authored by Loranty, in a special issue focusing on arctic and boreal vegetation dynamics. Curasi traveled to Siberia, Russia, with Loranty in the summer of 2014

My internship was full of unforgettable memories, but I will always remember the days following the tragic shootings in Orlando, Fla., when I sat in the House gallery watching Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y. participate in the gun control sit-in. It was a rare opportunity to witness civic action firsthand at the highest levels of our democracy. I spent the summer as a legislative intern in her Washington, D.C. office, gaining valuable experience in government and politics. Slaughter, the oldest woman in Congress, has represented the Rochester, N.Y., area for nearly 30 years, and currently sits as the ranking member of the Rules Committee, which she chaired from 2007 to 2011. During that time, she was instrumental in moving landmark legislation — such as the Affordable Care Act and the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act — through Congress. My job varied from day to day, but primary tasks included researching policy issues to reply to constituent inquiries, relaying information that I gathered at policy briefings to legislative staffers, giving tours of the Capitol building to visiting members of the district, and answering phone calls. Some of my most enriching experiences in Washington were listening to famous speakers, including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Senator Jeff Merkley, and Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson. At the end of the internship, I completed a research project, including a set of memos to be delivered to the congresswoman, on a piece of pending legislation of my choice. Spending the summer on Capitol Hill affirmed my commitment to public service as a personal passion and long-term career goal. While I was sad to leave a place that so often felt like the center of the universe, I know I’ll be back in the future. — Doug Whelan ’19 Fanned out across the globe to apply their liberal arts know-how in real-world settings this past summer, students wrote about their experiences: colgate.edu/ internships16

work — using geographic information systems to study lung cancer and racial disparities across New York State — involves similar tools and problemsolving approaches that he used in his research with Loranty. “These two papers are a really nice illustration of what geography is,” Loranty said. “Sal and I were looking at a pretty small area in northeastern Siberia, but Wil’s research was looking at the entire arctic and subarctic.”

Chris Linder

Singapore swap

Pictured here doing field research, Sal Curasi ’15 (left) recently published his senior thesis in a special issue of Environmental Research Letters that focuses on arctic and boreal vegetation dynamics.

researching the topic. “The research I did as an undergrad led me to the position I’m currently in,” Curasi said. “I actually met my graduate adviser at a conference while presenting the research I did with Mike.” Lieberman-Cribbin began working with Loranty as a researcher the summer before his senior year. The pair co-authored a paper that focuses on vegetation change and soil in arcticboreal permafrost ecosystems. Lieberman-Cribbin is now pursuing a master’s in public health at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City. His current

Mark DiOrio

to research water flow, vegetation growth, and carbon cycling. Loranty was part of a National Science Foundation project designed to take students to the region for fieldwork. “We picked a research site and turned them loose,” Loranty said. “Sal was the driving force on this project.” Curasi found that areas of subsurface water flow, called water tracks, can help scientists make predictions about carbon cycling in arctic ecosystems, which influences climate change. Now in his second year of a biological sciences PhD program at Notre Dame University, Curasi is still

Matt Shelley ’17 and Maia Dinsmore ’17, both cellular neuroscience majors, collect male crawfish for their research project that examines anxiety and stress levels in the crustaceans.

Students looking for a dynamic offcampus experience that also allows them to engage in scientific research will have more options in 2017, thanks to a new agreement between Colgate and the National University of Singapore (NUS). Representatives of the two schools signed a memorandum of understanding in June, creating a new exchange program to benefit students from both institutions, and to act as a catalyst for faculty collaboration. The agreement affords new research options for students in the departments of mathematics, computer science, biology, chemistry, and physics and astronomy. Jason Meyers, associate professor of biology, will lead the first group of Colgate students to Singapore in the fall of 2017 but, unlike other full-semester study groups, Meyers will accompany students for just a few weeks before returning to campus in Hamilton to teach. In the spring of 2018, NUS students, already acquainted with students from Colgate, will then come to Hamilton to take courses, conduct research, and experience the liberal arts curriculum. “Undergraduate research isn’t common at large institutions internationally, so there was a short list of places that are rigorous and strong in the sciences, but that also applaud undergraduate research,” said Nicole Simpson, associate dean of the faculty for international initiatives. Because NUS has existing relationships with Yale and Cornell universities, NUS’s faculty and administrators are already familiar with the liberal arts, and their curriculum has rigorous standards akin to Colgate’s. The new partnership was developed, in part, thanks to Ed ’62, P’10 and Robin Lampert P’10, who supported the founding of Colgate’s Lampert Institute for Civic and Global Affairs.

Syllabus Environmental Problems and Environmental Activism in China Carolyn L. Hsu, Associate Professor of Sociology April K. Baptiste, Associate Professor of Environmental Studies MW 1:20–2:35 p.m., Alumni Hall 207 Course description: This course explores China’s complex environmental issues — including their historical roots and social implications — as well as the rise of environmental social activism. At the end of the semester, students will travel to Beijing, Kunming, and Lijiang, China, for two weeks to examine sites of environmental problems, meet with activists to discuss their work, and conduct research on air pollution, waste disposal, and environmental education. Key assignment: The class will prepare a final research project on a range of topics, including water and air pollution, wilderness protection, endangered species, and renewable energy. Students will work together to examine the complexities of the problem that they studied during their trip in a geographical, sociological, historical, political, and scientific context. The professors say: “Students will learn about China’s environmental issues and all of their complexities from an interdisciplinary perspective, as well as the ways that power, privilege, and identity intersect with these concerns.” — Carolyn Hsu “This course highlights the innovative pedagogy of intergroup dialogue that encourages students to engage in conversations about difficult and often controversial topics. Students will be challenged in new ways by recognizing how their intersecting identities influence and shape their worldviews about environmental issues.” — April Baptiste

News and views for the Colgate community

Something to say

Estonian multimedia artist Marko Mäetamm tells stories, both personal and global, in I Want to Tell You Something, an exhibition on display at the Picker Art Gallery through January 8. The exhibition features paintings, drawings, sculptures, ceramics, and video installations through which Mäetamm shares with viewers his life, his problems, and his perspective on the world around him. “For me, making art is always about saying something, or at least provoking communication or dialogue,” said Mäetamm, who is Colgate’s 2016 Christian A. Johnson Artist in Residence. “If I don’t have anything to say, then I don’t see why I should paint, or do anything.” Many of the works are intended to provoke conversation about everyday life and cultural issues. The installation titled Bookshelf (pictured above) looks like a small room covered with books on the outside, and inside is the video Just Checking if There’s Something New, showing a man continuously checking his smartphone. “I don’t know if it’s good or bad,” said Mäetamm, reflecting on social media and texting as new forms of communication, “but it’s different now, and it’s exciting, and that is what interests me: observing it.”

Gerard Gaskin

arts & culture

Top left: Bookshelf, 2016 Top right: Self-Portrait in the Cage, 2015

“If I don’t have Mäetamm is also teaching anything to say, then I an advanced don’t see why I should studio art course, paint, or do anything.” presenting a lecture, and — Marko Mäetamm completing a project with the theater department during his four-month residency. Behind the scenes, summer intern Katie Jean Colman ’18 assisted gallery staff with the exhibition. She wrote an essay for the catalogue, organized a student event, and started a project with Estonian fashion designer Reet Aus to make sustainably sourced T-shirts complementing the exhibition. “I did all sorts of work during my internship, from curation to collections management,” says Colman, an art history major. “Each day held something new.” Internships at the Picker Art Gallery, like Colman’s, satisfy the internship requirement of the museum studies minor, a new interdisciplinary program that focuses on cultural property, public history, and museum theory.

scene: Autumn 2016

This kava bowl from the Republic of Fiji (left) and a prayer scroll from Ethiopia are two of the pieces that are part of In Dialogue: How Objects Communicate. The exhibition examines objects from different historical and cultural contexts — originating from Australia to Ethiopia, Panama to the United States — to explore their role in human communication. To deepen our appreciation of everyday things around us, the show examines objects as markers of identity and as storytellers, as well as their roles in design and performance. It runs through December 22 at the Longyear Museum of Anthropology.

Warren Wheeler

LMA

If these objects could talk…

More than just movies

They came. They saw. They confabbed — on culture and identity politics, the ethical responsibilities of a documentarian, and the proper balance of race and ethnicity in a program lineup. Then the 170 attendees of this year’s Flaherty Film Seminar, held at Colgate June 18–24, disbanded. For the university — the seminar’s home base during the past nine summers — that’s just the trailer. The full story plays out during the academic year, because six to eight Colgate professors attend the seminar each summer, meeting filmmakers and broadening their understanding of the international documentary film landscape. “We’re using those contacts to integrate film into our courses,” said Mary Simonson, assistant professor of film and media studies and women’s studies. Simonson uses the Flaherty submission Lovely Andrea, by Hito Steyerl, to engage students in conversation about intellectual property and ethics. Flaherty films end up exactly where you would expect: in courses like Introduction to Film and Media Studies as well as The Documentary Impulse, taught by Ani Maitra, assistant professor of global film and media. “I’ve used astounding shorts and features that my students and I would not have seen otherwise,” Maitra said. “Flaherty extends the boundaries of our documentary knowledge,” Simonson added. “For example, watching the curators’ approaches has changed how I think about gender and race representation when programming Colgate’s Alternative Cinema and Friday Night Film Series.” The university also provides scholarships for up to three high-achieving film and media studies students interested in the seminar. Matt LaPaglia ’17, a history major from Cicero, N.Y., was around the Flaherty table in 2015. “I came to understand that by pursuing filmmaking, I would not only be entering into a profession or an industry,” he said, “but also a community of brilliant people.” The university maintains the 8mm, 16mm, and 35mm projection equipment that the seminar needs for its screenings. And the Chenango Valley is a perfect setting for inspiration, reflection, and conversation. “Part of the allure of the seminar is that you’re taken out of your normal context, and you can focus on the movies and people around you,” said Professor Penny Lane, who attended the seminar even before she joined the Colgate faculty. Flaherty programmers are back on campus this fall, accompanied by filmmaker and 2016 fellow Sandra Kogut, thanks to the Colgate/Flaherty Distinguished Global Filmmaker Residency program. Together, they are engaging with students in classroom conversations, film screenings, project critiques, dinnertime discussions, and more.

“Hundreds of thousands of city residents in Saint Louis alone followed the easy path out of town created by the modern highways.” — Michael DeFilippo ’78

On the road

The Interstate Highway System and photographer Michael DeFilippo ’78 both turned 60 this year. To celebrate, DeFilippo created a 60-photograph series called The Interstate at 60, St. Louis at 252 to document the impact that the highway system has had on his home city of St. Louis, Mo. The photographs — showing semitrucks speeding past 200-yearold churches and bustling stretches of highway cutting through abandoned neighborhoods — illustrate the contrast between the old city and a modern form of transportation. The population of St. Louis has dropped by 50 percent since 1970, and many other old American cities have seen a similar trend. “Hundreds of thousands of city residents in Saint Louis alone followed the easy path out of town created by the modern highways,” DeFilippo wrote in his mission statement for the project. Many cities have recognized that interstate highways harm city life and have started projects to either tear them down or build walkways across them to encourage walking and biking. DeFilippo himself mostly travels by bike, so he’s been up close and personal with the highways. For this project, “I spent some time on the shoulders of busy roads, under highway overpasses, walking up and down access ramps at interchanges,” he told the Huffington Post.

The last photo in DeFilippo’s 60-part series depicts an overpass park that was built over I-44 to allow pedestrians to walk from the Gateway Arch to downtown St. Louis. The image captures DeFilippo’s hope for the city’s future. He told the Huffington Post that the park is “a start toward undoing some of the damage done to St. Louis by this highway system.” — Emily Daniel ’18 News and views for the Colgate community

Lauren Schmetterling ’10, fourth from left

Rio Olympics: Schmetterling ’10 wins gold

The U.S. Women’s Eight, with crew member Lauren Schmetterling ’10, won the gold medal in the 2016 Olympic Women’s Rowing final. The Americans finished the race in 6:01.49, defeating silver medalist Great Britain by 2.5 seconds at Lagoa Stadium. Schmetterling is the first Colgate athlete to win a gold medal at the Olympics, and the third Olympic medalist. Dick McGlynn ’70 scored a silver with the U.S. Hockey Team at the 1972 Olympics in Sapporo, Japan, and Frank Castleman 1906 won the silver in the 200-meter hurdles at the 1904 Olympics in St. Louis. Schmetterling is also the first Patriot League studentathlete to win an Olympic medal in

New GoColgateRaiders.com

Colgate’s athletics site has recently been relaunched with responsive design to improve the user experience. Whether you’re using a desktop, laptop, tablet, or phone, the site will adjust to your device for optimal viewing. The new site also improves integration with the Patriot League Network for streaming video, as well as Colgate’s live stats platform. Another new Colgate feature is the Raiders Fan Zone, a social media feed pulling together Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. The Fan Zone is sortable by type and customized for each sport on its home page.

scene: Autumn 2016

the 26-year history of the league. Rio marked her first Olympic appearance after winning gold medals at the 2013 and 2014 World Rowing Championships. The U.S. Women’s Eight has now won three straight gold medals dating back to the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, and four gold medals overall.

Labbe named to Canadian Development Team

Just weeks after being invited to the ice hockey selection camps in Calgary, Alberta, Shae Labbe ’19 was chosen as a member of Canada’s National Women’s Development Team. The team played a three-game series against the United States in August. “It’s hard to put into words the feeling of wearing the maple leaf,” said

Hockey Canada Images

go ’gate

Labbe, who hails from Calgary. “This experience allowed me to learn from and grow alongside some of the best players and coaches Canada has to offer. Being in such a competitive environment teaches you what it means to be a high-performance athlete and what it takes to make it to the next level.” In the series, the Canadians won the first two games, clinching the series win, but fell to the United States in the final game. “I’m excited to bring everything I’ve learned back to Colgate and help the team continue our success this season,” Labbe said.

In her first year as a Raider, Labbe tied for third in points on an offenseladen Colgate team, finishing with 26 points from 11 goals and 15 assists. She helped Colgate achieve a No. 8 national ranking in the final NCAA 2015–16 polls.

Victory Scholar

Basketball player Randyll Butler ’16 is one of 23 athletes who participated in the Victory Scholar Program in Northern Ireland this summer. The opportunity gives postgraduates the chance to continue playing the sport they love while teaching the game to local youth and attending Ulster University. “[Being able to] continue my education, play basketball, and help disadvantaged youth is ideal,” said Butler, who is working toward her master’s degree. “It’s always a positive to work with the little guys — seeing them smile makes my day.” Nominated for the program by the Patriot League, Butler attended the celebration dinner with fellow scholars at Nike headquarters in

Bob Cornell

Beaverton, Ore. The evening featured the program’s new ambassador, golf champion Rory McIlroy. “Not every young person has the opportunities and advantages I had growing up,” McIlroy said. “I hope we make a difference in many young lives and are a force for positive change in communities most in need.”

+1.88 (record +1.70). He finished inside the individual top 25 in all 11 tournaments, posting four top-10s and 10 top-20s. During the Patriot League championship, Allison posted his best career result, with a tie for 11th place. This year’s performance included the first hole in one of his collegiate career during the second round. To be eligible for Cleveland Golf/ Srixon All-America Scholar status, an individual must be a junior or senior, compete in at least three full years at the collegiate level, participate in 50 percent of his team’s competitive rounds, have a stroke average under 76.0 in Division I, and maintain a minimum cumulative career grade point average of 3.2. A recipient must also be of high moral character and be in good standing at his college or university.

Houston named NAAC Rising Star

The National Association for Athletics Compliance (NAAC) selected Taurian Houston, Colgate’s assistant athletics director for compliance, for its 2016 Rising Star Award.

Golf All-America scholar

Bob Cornell

Ryan Allison ’17 continues to set the standard for Colgate Golf both on and off the course. He was named a Cleveland Golf/Srixon Division I AllAmerica Scholar for 2015–16. This latest honor from the Golf Coaches Association of America capped a standout junior season for the native of Melbourne, Fla. An economics major, Allison was one of five members selected for the 2016 Men’s Golf Academic All-Patriot League Team. He also is a three-time member of the Patriot League Academic Honor Roll and Colgate Raider Academic Honor Roll. On the course, Allison set the Colgate scoring record at 73.15 and was second all-time in relation to par at

“I’m honored to be recognized by my peers for trying to make compliance more advocacy [than] enforcement,” Houston said. A compliance specialist who came to Colgate in 2015 from Dartmouth, Houston manages all of the department’s guidelines for NCAA, Patriot League, and ECAC Hockey compliance. He also serves on the university’s Faculty Affairs Committee and Equity Grievance Panel and as athletics liaison to the Equity Diversity Office. Houston also holds the title of adjunct professor in the sports management program at nearby Morrisville State College.

Remembering Stanley Krohn Nov. 6, 1916–July 1, 2016

Known by his Colgate family as “Stan the Man,” Stanley Krohn, Colgate’s oldest athletics staffer, has died at age 99. Krohn was an usher for Colgate men’s hockey games for 21 years. He worked 382 consecutive games in his career, never missing a single match. His dedication to the university earned Krohn a legion of fans in the stands and on the ice, as well as accolades from the university. In 2007, he received the Silver Puck Award in honor of his service to the Colgate hockey program. Feb. 19, 2011, marked one of the most meaningful demonstrations of appreciation for Krohn. It was senior night, and the men’s hockey team was hosting Harvard. At the start of the game, Colgate’s three graduating seniors pulled a surprised Krohn onto the ice from his seat behind the team’s bench. As Krohn walked onto the ice, fans all around the rink — many dressed in “Stan the Man” T-shirts — rose to their feet to greet him with cheers. The seniors then asked him to perform the ceremonial puck drop. Later that evening, following a 2-1 win against the Crimsons, fans approached an emotional Krohn, Stanley Krohn (left) and Coach Don Vaughan asking if he would sign their shirts. He happily obliged. One of Krohn’s biggest fans was Don Vaughan, Colgate’s men’s hockey coach. Krohn joined Colgate in 1980 (after retiring from his 25-year career for Pabst Blue Ribbon Co.), and when Vaughan arrived at Colgate a year later, they became fast friends. “He was pretty special,” Vaughan told the Utica Observer-Dispatch. “I’m happy we were able to be a small part of his life.” A quiet man, Krohn was wont to share many details of his younger years as a member of the 8th Air Force during World War II. He flew 23 missions over Europe on a B17 Flying Fortress as a flight engineer and ball turret gunner. Vaughan noted that Krohn was reminded of his service in 1998 when he boarded a plane for the first time since the end of the war in order to attend an away game at the University of Michigan. Krohn looked silently out the window for the entire 50-minute trip, and he later told the coach that he was surprised by how quickly and smoothly the plane could fly. “I told him that’s because no one was shooting at us,” Vaughan said. Despite his reluctance to tell his war stories, Krohn never failed to share his opinions on Raider hockey with Vaughan and the team before games. He hated penalties, loved when Colgate beat rival Cornell, and always advised the Raiders to be selfish with the puck. Krohn’s wife of 55 years, Betty, predeceased him in 1998. He is survived by three daughters, a sister, 17 grandchildren, 25 great-grandchildren, five greatgreat-grandchildren, and many nieces and nephews. — Brianna Delaney ’19

Preseason picks

Four Colgate student-athletes — Kyle Diener ’17 (football), Eliza Doll ’18 (soccer), Kathleen Harris ’17 (volleyball), and Ethan Kutler ’17 (soccer) — earned elite preseason Patriot League honors this year. Harris was the pick for overall player of the year, while Diener

earned the nod for defense, Kutler for offense, and Doll for midfielder. All four earned All-Patriot League honors last season, with Harris, Diener, and Kutler selected for first teams. Kutler was the league’s offensive player of the year last season in men’s soccer. News and views for the Colgate community

new, noted , & quoted 20

scene: Autumn 2016

Books, music & film

Story behind the story The Apology

I Am Not Your Guru

Directed and produced by Joe Berlinger ’83 A Netflix original documentary film about life coach Tony Robbins, I Am Not Your Guru follows Robbins and his team for six days. Joe Berlinger and his film crew go behind the scenes of Robbins’s annual seminar in Boca Raton, Fla., to examine the event — from its production to its impact. In addition to helping the seminar’s 2,500 attendees, Robbins counsels more than 200,000 people a year. The film captures his methods and his approach to achieving success.

Imagining Sovereignty: SelfDetermination in American Indian Law and Literature David J. Carlson ’92 (University of Oklahoma Press)

“Sovereignty” is perhaps the most ubiquitous term in American Indian writing today — but its meaning is anything but universally understood. This is as it should be, suggests David Carlson, for a concept frequently at the center of multiple (and often competing) claims to authority. In Imagining Sovereignty, Carlson explores sovereignty in terms of the United States as a settlercolonial power in opposition to tribal communities. His work reveals the complementary ways in which legal and literary texts have generated politically significant representations of the world, which, in turn, have advanced the cause of tribal selfdetermination.

A filmmaker encounters a Japanese advertising agency that is controlled by a transnational crime syndicate called the Yakuza. If this sounds like fiction, that’s because it’s part of the plot of The Apology, a political thriller and first novel by Eric Haggman ’70. But it’s also partially based on a true story: the author’s life. An award-winning advertising executive who, with his wife Emily, co-owns an agency, Haggman started forming the story when the couple traveled to Vietnam and Japan in 2014 and 2015. During their travels, Haggman began imagining a character — Christian Lindstrom, commercial filmmaker for the tourism industry — and a plot like those created by his favorite authors, Stieg Larsson and James Patterson. Haggman writes Lindstrom as an ex-Marine who fought in the Vietnam War. Returning to Vietnam on a business trip for the first time since the war, Lindstrom is finally forced to confront his past. Inspired by Haggman’s own memories and experiences, the novel also borrows from true-crime stories told by his son, a former Miami Herald reporter. For background research, Haggman even arranged a meeting with a Yakuza gang member while in Japan. The Apology isn’t just about Haggman’s personal history, the history of Vietnam, or corruption in Japan. It’s also about the whitewashing of history and the question of atonement. To view the book’s video trailer, visit TheApologyBook.com. — Lee Tremblay ’16

Cosmology, Calendars, and Horizon-Based Astronomy in Ancient Mesoamerica

Edited by Anne Dowd ’78 (with Susan Milbrath) (University Press of Colorado) This book establishes the critical role that astronomy played in the religious and civic lives of the ancient peoples of Mesoamerica. It provides examples of how Pre-Columbian peoples merged ideas about the cosmos with those concerning the calendar and astronomy. Contributing writers — including Colgate’s Professor Anthony Aveni — explore new dimensions in Mesoamerican timekeeping and skywatching.

Symbols in the Wilderness: Early Masonic Survivals in Upstate New York Joscelyn Godwin (with Christian Goodwillie and Marianita Peaslee) (Upstate Institute and Richard W. Couper Press)

Freemasonry played a vital role in the social development of New York State. Symbols in the Wilderness covers the explosive growth (1790–1820s) of freemasonry and its iconic architecture, as well as its unusual examples of folk art, expressed in symbolic paintings, textiles, and graphics. Most of these works of art have remained unknown outside the Upstate Lodges that have preserved them, but their symbolism gives insight into a period and place unique in American history. Joscelyn Godwin is a professor of music emeritus who retired from Colgate last spring.

In the media The Fleet at Flood Tide James D. Hornfischer ’87 (Bantam)

Drawing on new primary sources and personal accounts by Americans and Japanese alike, James Hornfischer has written about the personalities and technologies of the climactic end of the Pacific War. He focuses on the U.S. invasion of the Mariana Islands in June 1944 and its outcome. From the seaborne invasion of Saipan and the stunning aerial battles of the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot to the largest banzai attack of the war and the first mass suicides of Japanese civilians, the Marianas became the fulcrum of the drive to compel Tokyo to surrender, with consequences that forever changed modern war.

Wolf Boys: Two American Teenagers and Mexico’s Most Dangerous Drug Cartel Dan Slater ’00 (Simon and Schuster) In Wolf Boys, journalist Dan Slater travels from the smuggling ports of Veracruz to cartel training camps, holiday parties, and the dusty alleys of South Texas, painting a harrowing portrait of what it’s like to be a cartel’s teenage recruit. The book tells the true story of the cat-and-mouse game between Gabriel Cardona — a 15-yearold American who went from star quarterback to star cartel assassin — and Mexican-born Robert Garcia, the Laredo, Texas, detective determined to capture him.

The Wilhelm Conspiracy Charlie Veley ’65 (Thomas & Mercer) The possible link between a prominent banker found dead in an unsavory part of London and the charred remains of another body on a beach in Dover attracts Sherlock Holmes.

The Secretary of War then summons Holmes with catastrophic news: On the eve of war, a British superweapon has fallen into the wrong hands and must be recovered. Lucy James — an actress and Holmes’s recently discovered grown daughter — insists on helping Holmes find the weapon and solve the murders. The pair, along with Dr. Watson, meet Nikola Tesla, King Edward VII, and Kaiser Wilhelm II on their way to solving the mystery.

“It’s too bad that our U.S. Supreme Court justices weren’t in [my] classes, because the subtleties of corruption are an important lesson they seem determined to forget.”

Also of note:

— Avery Blank ’08 in the Globe and Mail on why female CEOs fall off the “glass cliff” (See pg. 52 for more on Blank.)

Writing under the pen name Jeff Kelly, Pete Berrall ’60 looks at how public education is carried out in juvenile detention centers in his book Flexin’ in Hell (Xlibris). Manhattan, 1926: A wealthy businessman has been found dead and a priceless elephant figurine belonging to an Indian prince has gone missing. In The Precious Pachyderm (self-published) by Karen Christino ’81, famous astrologer Evangeline Adams is a primary suspect. Howard Love ’83 outlines the predictable patterns of start-up growth in his new book, The Start-Up J Curve: The Six Steps to Entrepreneurial Success (Greenleaf Book Group Press), which gives detailed advice to ensure success and avoid common pitfalls. In Mrs. Parsley Makes a Delivery, and Other Stories (Sunquills/Ravenswood) by Julian Padowicz ’54, Mrs. Parsley is a good witch who, with the help of her magical cat, Laptop, substitutes for the likes of Santa, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, and various fairy godmothers when they have more work than they can handle.

— Michael Johnston, Charles A. Dana Professor of political science emeritus, in the New York Daily News, referring to the unanimous Supreme Court decision invalidating former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell’s conviction

“Society expects a man to be a leader and a woman to be superwoman. When women fail to move heaven and earth and turn around struggling companies, they are seen as unsuccessful.”

“The war made many parts of the country ungovernable and, thereby, untapped. The country has vast mineral and oil reserves in areas that will be newly coming online.” —Teofilo Ballve, peace and conflict studies and geography professor, in Bloomberg Businessweek on how Colombia is recovering after civil war

“As an athlete, I was always looking for ways to share the best sports moments from my teams, but there was no single place where I could upload, share, and search for videos, and where the audience would be focused on sports. So I created Gipper.” — Matthew Glick ’19, in Forbes, on his new app

“Grab a glass of Riesling at the bar and go exploring.” — Ben Goldman ’05, in Food & Wine, encouraging visitors to stroll the grounds of his farmhouse restaurant, The Velveteen Habit, in Maine

“Each type of cicada — there are some 3,000 species worldwide — has its own distinctive song.” — Vicky McMillan, biology professor emerita, in the Island Packet

News and views for the Colgate community

BY MARK WALDEN

TO THE LIMIT of his ability REMEMBERING STEVEN J. RIGGS ’65

Dave Healey ’65 and Lee Woltman ’65 are looking toward the heavens. It’s dedication day, Oct. 1, 2016, at the Steven J. Riggs ’65 Rink, and although they’re watching the scoreboard, they could easily be in conversation with the long-departed hero for whom this stretch of ice is named. A quiet and competent, yet human, leader. A legend of North Country and Colgate Raider hockey, born on skates. The victim of a war synonymous with discord, incompetence, and waste.

Their eyes ask, “What do you think, Rigger?” There’s no answer, except for the roar of the crowd behind them.

The game of hockey might have changed radically in the 51 years since Steve Riggs earned his place in the Hall of Honor. Players skate faster, hit harder, and often have all their own teeth. But the sound of the fans is the same, and it can transport anyone back to the beginning of the story, once upon a time, when the world claimed to be simpler — and then, quite suddenly, became fatally complex.

scene: Autumn 2016

STEVEN JAMES RIGGS was born on March 10, 1943. He was raised in Potsdam, N.Y., the land of mother, country, and apple pie; carved from the sandstone that surrounds the Raquette River. Solidly working class, fathers labored at Alcoa, Central Power and Light, the paper mill, the lumberyard, General Motors, or one of several universities in the area, including St. Lawrence, SUNY Potsdam, and Clarkson. Mothers might be stenographers or department store clerks, but they were more than likely at home. Hockey was a pastime for some and a religion for most. “In the wintertime in Potsdam, you didn’t do anything but hockey — no one did. There’s nothing else to do,” said Steve’s older brother, Bill Riggs.

home run to Pinky Ryan, first man to bat for the Indians. It was the last hit the Indians got in the game.” That reputation came with an attitude. Bill remembers his little brother as a 9-year-old hockey goalie, protecting the net against an opposing team of neighborhood friends on the backyard rink in the dead of winter. One of those friends made the mistake of scoring. Young Riggs, already a three-year veteran on the ice at 10 State Street and unable to contain his rage, skated up behind him, grabbed his collar, and ripped the sweater off of his back. Over time, Bill said, the rage settled down and converted itself into an intensity, on and off the ice, that would become a hallmark of Riggs’s personality. PROXIMITY TO CLARKSON and St. Lawrence universities meant that Riggs had access to some of the greatest coaches in the country. Joe Thompson from the undefeated 1956 Clarkson hockey team lived in the Riggs home and played with the youngest family member in the rare moments when he wasn’t studying or practicing. All-Americans like Bill Sloan from St. Lawrence and Jack Porter from Clarkson helped train Riggs in his formative years with the Sandstoners. “He absorbed it,” said Dave Healey ’65, a fellow rink rat who moved to Potsdam just as Riggs’s name was beginning to appear in the sports pages of the newspaper. “He was an ideal student, because he had the skill sets and the ability, and he was easy to work with.” During his junior year at Potsdam High, Riggs and fellow Sandstoners John Fiske and Marty Manley became known as the Fabulous Three and were the first full line to be named to the All-Northern Class A Hockey Team. Riggs was elected captain for his senior season, and the team went undefeated until

the last game of the Clarkson Invitational Tournament, when they lost by two points to fierce rival Canton. Off the ice, Riggs’s leadership was also well established. He was elected class president his last three years at Potsdam High and student body president as a senior. In addition to captaining the hockey team, he also led the school's 1960 football squad. It’s tempting to think that Riggs might have been the kind of leader who gave a rousing pre-game speech. But that wasn’t the case. “He wasn’t talkative or inspirational in a vocal sense,” Healey said. “He was there with purpose and commitment, and he was somebody you didn’t want to disappoint.” Riggs led by example rather than exhortation, even in his earliest days. That approach would only become stronger as he took on more responsibility. RIGGS HAD PLENTY TO SAY one spring afternoon when Clarkson head hockey coach Len Ceglarski dropped by the Riggs family’s house. Steve, Bill, and Frank were planting the lawn, and Ceglarski had a captive audience as he talked hockey while sitting on the front porch. According to Bill, as Ceglarski wrapped up his visit and walked toward his car, he turned and said, “Steve, you know, if you want to come to Clarkson, it’s all free.” When the coach’s car cleared the curb, Frank said, “Well, you know where you’re going to college.” But Riggs had met head Colgate hockey coach Olav Kollevoll ’45 and freshman team hockey coach Howard Starr. “Steve worshipped Howie Starr,” Bill said. “He thought he was the Lord God Almighty.” So when it came to a choice between a full-ride scholarship across the street and the opportunity to play in heaven, the answer was obvious. “And that was the end of that,” Bill said.

“HE was there with purpose and commitment ” — D AVE H E A LE Y ’65 When Riggs was old enough to strap on skates, he played in the backyard on a homemade rink. At 9 years old, he hiked through the snowbanks to the Clarkson University arena for peewee training. He was picked for a traveling team at age 10, hoping that, after years of driving up and down the Northern Tier, he would play for the Potsdam Sandstoners’ high school squad. When he wasn’t playing, he watched college games at St. Lawrence and Clarkson. Between hockey seasons, there was baseball at the high school playground, tennis, and swimming at the local beach. The second son of Wm. Frank Riggs, a local oil and gas company owner, Riggs was Potsdam’s golden boy. He started making the newspaper headlines for his sports prowess in the fourth grade. A small paragraph in the paper on July 5, 1956, simply reads, “Opening game of the Senior League in PeeWee baseball Monday night provided an oddity. Steve Riggs, pitching for the victorious Yankees, gave up a

News and views for the Colgate community

“IT WAS SELDOM THAT HE SAID ANYTHING BEFORE THE GAME, BUT ON THE ICE, HE WAS ON FIRE.” — BOB MEEHAN ’65 STEVE RIGGS ARRIVED IN HAMILTON at the beginning of September 1961, and the points started rolling in on December 2. At that time, first-year students couldn’t play varsity, so Riggs and Healey joined the freshman team, coached by Starr. In their premiere game against Rochester, Riggs scored the first goal unassisted and followed up with three more before the final buzzer. Rochester lost 11–1. Graduating to the varsity team in the 1962–63 season, he launched a 72-game career and logged 123 points — 51 goals and 72 assists. He played 65 fewer games than today’s varsity hockey athletes, yet he remains on the top-25 list of all-time Colgate hockey goal scorers, one of only three from that era to secure such an accomplishment. If today a hockey-stats nerd were to play out average points per game for an additional 65 contests, Riggs would still be securely placed at the top of the scoring pantheon, where he originally finished in 1965. Competing against Riggs was no pleasure. He had a hard, accurate shot that could light the lamp from the blue line and concuss a goalie who wasn’t quick enough to evade the puck. He was a fast skater who 24

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knew how to protect himself. “Wherever you wanted to go to hit him, he wouldn’t be there when you got there,” Healey said. When he took to the ice, his eyes grew wide — so wide that, a half-century later, his teammates still mention them first if they’re asked about Riggs’s leading characteristics as a hall of famer. “They never blinked,” Bob Meehan ’65 said. Riggs was elected captain during his final year at Colgate, again leading by example rather than words. “Sometimes, between periods, he would say nothing,” Meehan remembered. “And it was seldom he said anything before the game, but on the ice, he was on fire.” And those who weren’t as fiery? “He never made judgments or looked down on that in any way,” Healey said. “As long as you were trying as hard as you could," he added. RIGGS STILL HOLDS one Colgate hockey record: the most goals scored in less than a minute. It happened, of all places, back in that old Clarkson University rink, during his senior year. It hovered just below freezing inside the arena

on the evening of Friday, Dec. 11, 1964, but a capacity crowd of nearly 2,000 fans was far from frigid as the Raiders and the Golden Knights took to the ice. Riggs, Healey, and the rest of the team had been in town since the evening before. Riggs had spent the night in his own bed; the rest of the squad bunked at a local hotel. If Carolyn Riggs had hoped to spend time with her son and maybe have lunch together on Main Street, she was sorely disappointed. Riggs spent the majority of the day sitting in the family’s living room, staring into space, lacing and relacing his skates. “It’s hard to wear out a pair of new hockey laces,” brother Bill said, “but Steve went through three pairs that day, just tying and untying them.” The roar that greeted Riggs as he skated out in front of the crowd proved why preparation was so important. Although it was an away game, the men, women, and children packing the four tiers of wooden benchwork were cheering as much for him and for Healey as they were for Clarkson. Some, including Clarkson coach Ceglarski, would say they were screaming more for the away team.

The game began well for the Raiders. After only 52 seconds of play, Healey fed the puck to Barry Tait, who put it into the net to draw first blood. But, after two periods, Clarkson had redressed the balance and upped the ante, and the score was 3–2. During the break, they took a quick drink, heard a word from Kollevoll, and fully realized that they were losing, even though Healey’s little woolwrapped siblings were banging their pots and pans so loudly, they were told to quiet down or leave the building. The Zamboni did its work. Then the Raider six were back on the center line, and the clock started its final countdown from 20:00. Riggs’s skates, so carefully tied, cut back and forth across the smoothed ice trying to find an opening in the Golden Knights’ sdefenses. Healey’s job was to work the corners — the dangerous hinterland of the rink where unprotected faces could be mashed against wire-mesh netting with terrible consequences — and feed the puck to Riggs for a shot on goal. “I was on the left wing,” Healey said. “Steve just had an instinct for where to be.” At 14:35, Riggs received Healey’s pass and sunk the puck in the back of the net. The crowd went wild, the team returned to the center line, and the whistle blew. Riggs was in the right place again. And again. In 59 seconds, Riggs scored a hat trick against one of the top teams in the league. The ceiling shook, the floorboards rang, and the lead held. Clarkson managed one more goal at 5:25 but, in spite of the 46 shots they aimed at Colgate goalie Casey Knobel ’65 that night, they couldn’t make a comeback. The final score was 5–4. In the locker room after the game, Rigger gave Healey a bear hug and, with a smile, simply said, “We did it.” And that was the last time that the Potsdam crowd would see him do it, the last time the sound of his powerful shot would ring off the walls of Clarkson Arena — his true home ice since age 9.

GOALS CAME MORE EASILY than grades for the psychology major. Those who knew him best remember Riggs as someone who had to work hard to keep his balance in the classroom. According to teammate Win Guilmette ’65, Riggs chose his fraternity, Phi Delta Theta, because the house was more studious and disciplined than some others, and Riggs spent his spare time at his desk rather than at Hickey’s bar. “Steve was never a big party guy,” Healey said. “You had to encourage him to come along, and then he would always be one of the more sane or moderate influences.” For all of his hard work and moderation, Riggs would just scrape the GPA required to earn his degree. But earn it he did. He received his diploma in 1965 from President Barnett, shook his hand, and said a quick goodbye to his friends and classmates. Then he headed home to Potsdam. RIGGS KEPT BUSY in the year after graduation. He took courses toward a master’s degree in education at St. Lawrence University. He coached his former rival, Canton High, to a 14–2 record that included the Northern League and Clarkson Tournament championships. And he continued to make local headlines by playing for the New York Rangers farm team, the Lake Placid Roamers. The safe world of the Northern Country spun as it ever did. But the rest of the globe was far less tranquil. While Riggs was teaching teens how to scoop the puck between skate and stick, President Lyndon Johnson was increasing military draft numbers to more than 35,000 men per month, and personnel levels in Southeast Asia were rising to more than 385,000. As Riggs played his final game with the Roamers, the 3rd Marine Amphibious Force and other elements operating as Task Force Oregon were on their way to leveling 70 percent of the houses in a particularly contentious portion of South Vietnam called Quang Ngai Province.

The summer of 1966 was so peaceful in Potsdam, though, Riggs joined the volunteer fire squad for excitement. Only weeks later, he was invited by the U.S. Government to become a public servant of another kind, and the lull was over. The draft had found him. From September to November he was in basic training at Fort Dix, where he received an early promotion to private, thanks to his excellent physical condition and his aim with a rifle. Then he was off to infantry officer’s training at Fort Benning, Ga. Riggs was always physically fit, and confidence was a part of his bearing even before entering the service. But friends did notice a change. Riggs visited Guilmette on a weekend pass, and his classmate saw that “he was more edgy, more intense.” This changed Riggs was sent to the 46th Direct Support Group at Ft. Devens, Mass. He became the fort’s athletic director and an anchor of the post’s new hockey team. In the early days of fall 1967, he received a call from Colgate Athletic Director Everett “Eppy” Barnes ’22, asking if he’d like to try out for the 1968 National Hockey Team and represent his country in the Olympics. The army helped out by granting him leave to head an hour north to Framingham, Mass., where he spent a week dusting off his skills. Meehan, by then a first lieutenant in the Air Force, also received the call and met up with Riggs on the ice for the first time in more than two years. They skated hard against competition from the East and the Midwest, and on the last day of tryouts, Coach Murray Williamson cut both Raiders. “We sat on the steps outside the rink,” Meehan remembered. “Steve said, ‘I know I’m going to Vietnam.’” AFTER LOSING OUT on his Olympic bid, Riggs was invited out to a movie with his Ft. Devens's hockey buddy Leo Gould and a bunch of friends. It was Thursday, Oct. 12, 1967, and Leo’s wife, Judy, invited her cousin Janet Deschenes to come along. Only later did Janet realize that, while the evening was pitched as a group outing, it was actually a setup. “Steve and I paired up really fast,” Janet said with a laugh. “I guess we had an attraction. He was very handsome, very humble, very quiet. I probably did most of the talking.” One date led to another. Janet, who knew nothing about hockey, started to appear in the stands at Ft. Devens matches. “I’d ask, ‘How come you’re down there and everyone else is back there?’ He’d smile and say, ‘Well, they just haven’t caught up yet.’” The instant attraction grew into a deep connection. She learned to read Steve’s eyes (“chocolate brown”) for information about how he was feeling rather than waiting an eternity for him to say something. She could see his growing love there, and she could see when he was angry, worried, or jealous. Somewhere inside, that fierce 9-year-old goalie still lurked, and Janet caught glimpses — when she told Steve at the beginning of their relationship that she had previously made a date with another man and felt like she had to keep it, or when she loaned her car to a male friend, thinking it was no big deal. “He was very jealous. You knew when he was mad. You knew the look. He’d shut down, and it was definitely quiet time, but I never heard him raise his voice.” News and views for the Colgate community

scene: Autumn 2016

IN spite of being in charge of 30 men, riggs still found time to write.

Keith Kolozie

March 19, 1968, was Janet’s birthday, and Riggs didn’t bother with the teddy bear or flowers for a present. Although he and Janet had only been dating for five months, he opted for an engagement ring, and they set a wedding date for July 4, 1968. Worried that Janet’s Catholic family wouldn’t permit her to marry a Protestant, or that she wouldn’t be allowed to be married in the church in which she grew up, Riggs started taking classes to convert to Catholicism at Ft. Devens. “He was a man who always wanted to do the right thing, and he totally loved me,” Janet said. “He didn’t want anything to go wrong.” Ecstatic to be engaged, the couple traveled to Potsdam to make introductions, and they stayed a week. They returned Sunday night, and Monday Riggs went to work as usual. Unusually, he called Janet before lunch and told her that he was coming to take her to their favorite restaurant and then to the mall for a shopping trip. While she thought that was odd, she chose to enjoy the outing. That night, the cousins descended on Leo and Judy’s place for dinner. Janet chatted happily about wedding preparations, but there was a dark mood in the house. No one was joining her in the enthusiasm. When she expressed her exasperation, Riggs took her by the arm, led her into a bedroom, and told her that he had just received orders to deploy to Vietnam. Riggs was well aware that Janet’s brother, Specialist Fourth Class Thomas Deschenes, had been killed on June 22, 1967, just four months before the couple met. Riggs was ready for the response that his news would bring and the wounds it would reopen for the entire Deschenes family, but could think of no other way to soften the blow than with a special lunch and the purchase of a new dress. His brave attempt failed miserably. “I went totally hysterical,” Janet said. “Steve was just quiet — totally quiet — there was no talking.” Physically ill and in an emotional tailspin, Janet took her fiancé to visit the family priest. “He calmed me down,” Janet said. “He said, ‘I know Steve is coming back, and it’s only going to be for a year.'" He also convinced the couple to marry immediately rather than waiting for the end of Riggs’s tour of duty. The wedding was rescheduled for April 6, less than six months after the couple first met. To Janet, it was the miracle wedding. She borrowed pink silk bridesmaids dresses from a friend who had recently wed, and they fit her wedding party without any alterations. The Riggs family appeared in Massachusetts and Bill served as his brother’s best man. For three months, Mr. and Mrs. Riggs made a home together in a Fitchburg, Mass., apartment, although they spent most of that time traveling. They honeymooned in Bermuda (where Steve, ever the volunteer firefighter, became a local hero by putting out a midnight fire in the hotel kitchens). They spent several weeks in Potsdam with Frank, Carolyn, and Bill. Then they flew to San Francisco for a week. On July 4, the day they had originally intended to marry, Janet flew east, back to her parents’ house, to resume her job styling hair at a local salon. Second Lieutenant Riggs flew west to LZ Liz in Quang Ngai

Province, known among soldiers as a hotbed of malaria, mud, and Vietcong guerillas. RIGGS REPORTED to the headquarters of the Americal Division and assumed command of Second Platoon, Bravo Company of the 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry (a.k.a. Sykes Regulars) on July 7, 1968. Americal had taken over where Task Force Oregon left off, and Riggs was at a disadvantage. While he had been earning his gold bar in Georgia and starting a hockey team in Massachusetts, the 1/20th had been training at the Jungle Guerrilla Warfare Training Center at Schofield Barracks in Hawaii. Yet they expected him to live up to the Sykes motto and fight with them: “Tant que je puis/To the limit of our ability.” In spite of being in charge of 30 men, Riggs still found time to write regularly to his wife, the rest of his family, and some of his old Colgate classmates. To Janet, he wrote about plans for their apartment in Fitchburg, whether to buy a new cartridge-style cassette player, a reel-to-reel system, or a turntable. He checked to make sure she’d paid the rent and the credit bill at the gas station. He sent her a picture of a Vietcong prisoner who spent the night tied up in

his hut. He outlined the basic way they spent their weeks, sending out ambush parties at night and occupying local huts for sleeping quarters during the day. “Every day is the same,” he wrote. “The easiest way to tell what day it is: every Monday, the medic gives us our malaria pills. Otherwise, we would have no conception of the day of the week.” Her letters kept him going, and the snapshots she enclosed lifted his spirits. “I know that this separation is causing you plenty of grief and pain,” he wrote in return. “I’m going to make it up to you.” A month after deploying, Riggs received a letter from Janet. On the envelope, she had written “IMPORTANT.” This is how a husband found out that he was also to be a father. The initial reaction was far from positive. It was unplanned, and he wasn’t there to help her through the process — to carry out his responsibilities. In letter after letter during the remaining days of August, he tried to pedal back from his first words of surprise and dismay. On August 19, he wrote, “I am with you 200 percent.” On August 20, he reminded her that, “I hope my first letters about your pregnancy have been forgotten. It was my first reaction, and I just couldn’t hold it back. I’m becoming as excited as you are.” He suggested a name for the baby: Thomas William Riggs. Meanwhile, when he wasn’t using his pen, he was carrying his rifle through rivers and streams, sleeping naked to find relief from clothes made wet by the jungle humidity. Warm food was a luxury, tinned rations the norm. Riggs and his men were often relieved to leave the supposed safety of their base camp and wander into booby-trapped rice paddies. At base camp, on the high ground and surrounded by perimeter wire, they were tempted to relax. But they were prey for snipers who took regular potshots through the gates. “We were shot at all times of day and night,” said Keith Kolozie, a sergeant and radioman in Riggs’s platoon. On patrol, at least they were on guard, always expecting an ambush. Riggs earned his men’s trust in much the same way he earned the captaincy of his college hockey team. He never gave rousing speeches, never yelled or hectored his men for a lack of skill. Instead, he led from the front and by example, turning to seasoned sergeants for advice and engaging in the fighting himself. “If we were calling in a fire mission for air support and he wasn’t sure of the ordinance and the plot lines on the map, he would ask for assistance,” Kolozie said. “Unfortunately, some officers who elected to go it alone brought fire down right on their own heads.” His care and concern were noted by the brass, and he was promoted to first lieutenant while in the field. He didn’t wear the silver bar, because the Vietnamese aimed for officers first in a fight. On August 25, Riggs wrote to Janet, saying, “It’s been two days since I’ve had a chance to write to you. There has been a change in our location, and we’ve been very busy getting settled.” He failed to mention that, in those two days, during that change of location, he also engaged in such fierce combat with the enemy that he earned his first bronze star for individual acts of heroism.

by doing his duty with Quiet and uncommon skill, riggs won the loyalty and admiration of his peers.

SECOND PLATOON FILED OUT through the base camp perimeter with the rest of Bravo Company on the afternoon of Sept. 3, 1968. In a constant nearsighted search for booby traps, they followed the sun west across Duc Pho District for four hours, the squelching mud of the rice paddies and the grit of unpaved roads sounding off beneath their steeltoed boots. Kolozie carried the radio and walked in front of Riggs. Behind the L.T. came Sgt. Joaquin Garcia. Behind them, past the bombed-out huts and defoliated treeline of Quy Thien, the South China Sea lapped at darkening beaches. As the humid day ended in Southeast Asia, it was dawning back home in Fitchburg, gray, cool, and foggy. Janet switched off her alarm clock, feeling for signs of movement in her belly. Time to get ready for a day cutting hair. On the other side of the world, Riggs worked the evening shift. He began to set up an ambush near a fork in the Song Ba Lien river, preparing to kill Vietcong — to prevent them from slipping into the caves and tunnels that were as much a feature of the landscape as the jagged stumps of hopea trees. While Janet turned on the percolator in her parents’ kitchen, a squad of Vietcong detonated three mines under Second Platoon, and the ambushers were ambushed. Garcia still remembers the flash. The bang. The sight of Kolozie, flung 25 feet into the air, a rag doll strapped to a radio. Riggs prone on the ground. “I just remember thinking, ‘The L.T. is down. The L.T. is down,’” Garcia said, the confusion still audible in his voice after 47 years. “I’ll never forget the smell of blood and gunpowder as long as I live.” Life continued, but not for First Lieutenant Steven J. Riggs. The 26-year-old newlywed, father-to-be, brother, son, hockey captain, soldier, classmate, friend was dead. It happened so quickly — after such a slow, long hike. Kolozie was standing directly on top of a mine when it exploded; the force launched him clear of the worst danger. Riggs, immediately

behind him, absorbed the shrapnel, leaving Sgt. Garcia unscathed. “He was a shield,” Garcia said. “I would have caught all the frag.” The explosion was followed by small-arms fire, which Garcia and other Americans returned with interest. Within two hours, Bravo Company tracked eight Vietcong to a hut near the coast and took revenge with a series of carefully placed grenades. “Anytime you killed any of our guys, it hurt,” Garcia said. “Once you started killing our brass…” But vengeance couldn’t bring Riggs back to life, and it couldn’t keep Janet from feeling an unusually strong sensation of fear and apprehension as she fixed her hair. By the time she brushed away her foreboding and walked out the door for work, her husband’s body was being prepared to fly the first klicks of a long journey between two republics. The hometown boy made good again, but he couldn’t know that his last moment on earth was spent protecting a teammate. He would never rest his kind, competitive, chocolate-brown eyes on the story of his achievements in Potsdam’s Courier Freeman or pass off praise for his second bronze star with a quiet grin. ON FRIDAY, SEPT. 13, 1968, Riggs’s body lay in state at the Seymour Funeral Home in Potsdam. “I knew I had to take him home,” Janet said. The next day, under a clear sky, the community turned out in force to pay their respects at the funeral, presided over by a Protestant minister and a Catholic priest. Healey, who had severely fractured his leg during a softball game only weeks before, helped carry the casket while wearing a walking cast applied specifically for the event. Members of the Canton and Potsdam high school hockey teams sat together in the pews. A full honor guard drove in from Ft. Devens. Eleven months after meeting Riggs on a blind date, five months after celebrating their marriage, Janet found herself in the middle of a very different

sacrament. “I kept accidentally calling the funeral ‘the wedding,’” she said. The relationship that began with such fireworks ended with the crack of 21 guns. The following spring, Janet gave birth to Steven T. Riggs. Within seven years, she remarried and had another son, Tom. Although she never thought she could leave her hometown and her family, she eventually moved to Florida where she lives today, a picture of her first husband and his 1965 Colgate hockey team on the wall of her Delray Beach condo. When Steve T. was in high school, he met members of the Class of 1965, and they made him an honorary member of their cohort. Young Steve and Janet were there in 1990 when the class dedicated the hockey locker room in Reid Athletic Center in Riggs’s memory. When the class signed the beams that would go into the Class of 1965 Arena during their 50th Reunion, Steve put his — and his father’s — name on the steel. Naming Colgate’s new rink after Riggs might seem counterintuitive, given his personality. This was, after all, a man who never spoke of his own accomplishments. He never lorded over those with less skill. He gloried in being a member of a team. But every team needs a captain. By doing his duty with quiet and uncommon skill, Riggs won the loyalty and admiration of his peers, and by displaying the spirit that is Colgate, he secured a place in the heart and soul of his campus. In the decades to come, heads will tilt upward to read his name on the wall of the Class of 1965 Arena. “Riggs” will become synonymous with a Division I athletics program that punches hard above its weight on the field, the court, the rink, and in the classroom. When players and visitors discover who he was, how he lived, and how he died, Riggs will demonstrate more leadership by example. And although he never would have asked to become the symbol of the ethic he lived — the principles that ultimately cost him his life — no one can argue that he earned it.

News and views for the Colgate community

THE CLASS OF

1965 ARENA 6 teams, 1 home: With heart and hand, now weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll win for thee

scene: Autumn 2016

OCT. 1 — HOMECOMING MEN’S HOCKEY GAME: A sellout crowd of 2,222 people attended, including 600 students.

28 members of the Class of 1965 returned.

WOMEN’S HOCKEY GAME: A victory over New Hampshire, 4-2.

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

5, 5 00

GAL.

of paint

1 ,000

TONS

of steel

3,600

CUBIC YD.

MILES of refrig-

erant tubing in rink

of concrete

THE BIG REVEAL

3, 5 00

LB.

INNOVATIVE ICE-MAKING TECHNOLOGY,

each step on the main staircase

which is ammonia-free and which integrates with the building systems to supplement heating and cooling

1 0, 6 00

ENERGY-EFFICIENT BUILDING

GAL.

of water that makes up the ice

employing 166,000 square feet of air-vapor barrier and insulation

34 0 201

LOCKERS AUDIO SPEAKERS

G O , ’ G AT E !

members of the Board

6 TEAMS are headquartered in the new arena: men’s and women’s

of Trustees put 13

hockey, men’s and women’s soccer, men’s and women’s lacrosse.

dollars, 13 prayers, and 13 pucks under center

559 CONTRIBUTORS helped make this project a reality.

ice at the official

CLASS OF ‘65 named the arena and the Steven J. Riggs ’65 Rink as

groundbreaking.

their 50th Reunion gift. (Read more about Riggs on pg. 22.)

GENERATION WHY COUNTLESS POSSIBILITIES. That’s what researchers expect

when they propose a hypothesis and embark on the unknown. At Colgate, students are oftentimes the ones who are forming the questions, while their professors look over their shoulders — sometimes in the same room, sometimes virtually from a different country — to ensure that students stay on course.

The result is a rich experience that gives students

independence and the chance to work as professionals — collaborating with authorities around the world and periodically getting their findings published in journals.

There are certainly times when the results are contradictory

or inconclusive to the original hypothesis, but that’s OK — in fact, failures can be fortuitous.

“Failure is an integral part of worthy research,” noted

Professor Roger Rowlett, who is the immediate past president of the Council on Undergraduate Research, a national organization. “My students’ ‘failures’ are often anomalies that wind up being discoveries worthy of publication and further exploration,” added Rowlett, the Gordon and Dorothy Kline Professor of chemistry, who has supervised more than 100 students’ research. “Although it’s self-affirming to confirm one’s initial ideas, it’s often far more personally and professionally rewarding to have discovered something unexpected after successfully defeating challenges along the way.

“As Louis Pasteur famously said, ‘Chance favors

the prepared mind.’ Undergraduate research prepares young minds," he added.

So, join us — no lab coat required — as we observe

recent projects that attempt to answer the unanswered.

Illustrations by David Plunkert 30

scene: Autumn 2016

Student-professor partnerships ask probing questions By Aleta Mayne, Lee Tremblay ’16, and Renee Olson

Some early birds might steal the worm

Cheating and risky behavior are influenced by people’s circadian clocks.

hen’s the best time of day to make decisions? That can depend on whether you’re a night owl or an early bird. Psychological factors aren’t the only part of our behavioral equation. Biology can also influence why we do what we do. A Colgate group has taken a closer look at this, specifically people’s ethical decision making and risk taking as it relates to our sleep cycles. The findings were recently published in the journal Nature Scientific Reports, in an article by Professor Krista Ingram (biology), Professor Ahmet Ay (biology and mathematics), Soo Bin Kwon ’16, Angela Escobar ’15, Molly Gordon ’15, and their collaborators. Our circadian clocks — a set of genes involved in our internal rhythm — help determine our sleep cycle and affect alertness during the day. “There’s a master clock in our brains, but we also have clocks in our kidneys, livers, and skin that also keep time,” Ingram explained. There’s even a “hair clock,” which is how the researchers were able to noninvasively track their subjects’ internal rhythms by obtaining RNA samples from hair follicles. With the help of Professor Ay, Kwon (a computer science major who is now pursuing her advanced degree in bioinformatics at UCLA) wrote a computer modeling program to track if the subjects’ RNA was cycling early or late. The subjects then took an ethics test and a risk-taking measurement at various times of day. The researchers found that, “on average, larks [morning people] are more likely to make unethical or risky decisions in the afternoon,” Ingram said. “Not only is their circadian rhythm not at its peak in the afternoon, but also, their homeostatic energy — the pool of energy individuals have when they wake up in the morning — is depleted as they go through the day.” The same can be said about night owls making riskier and less-ethical decisions in the morning, but the correlation isn’t as strong, according to the team’s research. The reason being, while night owls aren’t at their circadian peak in the morning, they still have more energy at that time than larks who run out of steam at 3 p.m. Having just wrapped up their two-year grant from Colgate’s Picker Interdisciplinary Science Institute, the team is still analyzing data and writing more papers on their findings. Stay tuned. Next up: this group will explore how circadian rhythms affect athletes’ academic and athletic performance.

News and views for the Colgate community

Have microfossils, will time travel

Taking a census of what’s buried deep in the ocean floor is helping to chart our future.

E Power outage

Observing the potential impact of nuclear decommissioning on a community

ith a research topic straight out of the headlines — the scheduled closure of the FitzPatrick Nuclear Power Plant in Scriba, N.Y. — Julia Feikens ’18 and Angelica Greco ’18 spent this past summer entrenched in that community. The pair’s goal was to examine the socioeconomic effects of the proposed nuclear plant decommissioning. Feikens had a previous summer’s experience of analyzing two closed New England plants as comparison. And the two students Skyped weekly with their adviser, Professor Daisaku Yamamoto (geography and Asian studies), who was on sabbatical in Japan. Shouldering a weak economy that depends on the utility sector, Scriba and the surrounding area were predicted to reel from the plant closure, scheduled for January 2017. “It’s a big deal, especially because there are so many people who are unemployed and little income coming into the county,” said Feikens, who is majoring in environmental geography. The reason behind the proposal to shutter the plant? “It’s not profitable,” said Greco, a geography major. “The price of natural gas is so low. Because nuclear energy costs more [to make], the plant has been losing money.” The FitzPatrick plant, owned by Entergy Corp., isn’t an outlier in its fragility. “Overall, nuclear plants in the United States are disappearing,” she added. To get a fix on the potential impact, the pair combed through financials, including several years’ worth of school district budget plans. Their methodology also relied primarily on interviews with local players, including Scriba’s town supervisor, the school superintendent, members of the plant workers’ union, and people representing the energy company. To learn more about the environmental implications, the students spoke to renewable energy advocacy groups. “We tried to talk to as many different stakeholders as possible,” said Greco, who also spent time studying the grassroots movement, called Upstate Energy Jobs Coalition, that was rallying around keeping the plant open. Even though the school district in Mexico, N.Y., derives a significant portion of its support — $12 million or 23 percent — from plant taxes, Greco’s takeaway on the closure took her by surprise. “They seemed prepared for what could happen.” There is a growing debate about whether nuclear power is a risk to the environment (potential accidents and nuclear waste disposal problems) or an environmental savior (low carbon emission during operation), according to Yamamoto. “Local viewpoints are often overlooked in these global discussions, and that’s what we’ve been trying to address,” he said. For the moment, the debate is moot: On August 9, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that Exelon Corp., the owner of two other plants in the state, will purchase FitzPatrick and keep it open. Although the students remained objective in their research, they also recognized the real impact on lives. “We’re glad that the people are feeling more relief economically, because it was obvious that they were struggling with that worry,” Feikens said.

scene: Autumn 2016

ach summer, Professor Amy Leventer returns to campus with samples from the bottom of the world. Leventer, who has traveled to the Antarctic 23 times with a team of scientists, collects sediment core samples that are recovered from the seabed. Back on campus, her students study the fossilized microorganisms to reconstruct climate patterns dating from the recent past to 8 million years ago. “These organisms are proxies for past climates and oceanic conditions,” said Kaylie Patacca ’17, an environmental geography major who is minoring in geology. She and Meghan Duffy ’18 spent the summer carefully preparing slides from the core samples, slipping them under a microscope, and painstakingly counting unicellular algae — called diatoms — to look at how the ocean has changed over time. “You can tell how the patterns of each species have fluctuated,” said Duffy, a geology major. If there’s an abundance of a certain species that has a strong association with sea-ice presence or open-water conditions, “you can make inferences about what the oceanic conditions would have been like millions of years ago,” Patacca said. The microfossils indicate changes in oceanic productivity, nutrient concentrations, light levels, and sea ice and glacial ice extent. “Learning things about these past climates can help us figure out how oceans might look in the future,” Patacca explained. Meanwhile, Glenna Thomas ’17, an environmental geology major, catalogued and studied protozoa called radiolaria, with a similar goal. Because few people specialize in radiolaria (and Leventer isn’t one of them), Thomas has been consulting with scientists around the world. Patacca and Duffy, too, have been collaborating with U.S. scientists who have been helping with the analyses. In addition, for a paper that Leventer and the students are co-authoring, she is having colleagues around the country review their findings. So, with funding from the National Science Foundation, this small group of students in Hamilton, N.Y., has had the opportunity to work with experienced scientists around the globe — and, most importantly, develop theories about the future of the world.

Attempting to settle the unsettled

Why do antianxiety and antidepressant medications work differently for women vs. men?

“

That’s what science is at its core: trying to find an answer to a question, and if that leads you to seven new questions, you have new directions to aim for. — Chris Higham ’18

”

t’s well known that women have higher rates of anxiety than men. But it’s also been proven that certain treatments work better for women than men, and vice versa. The reason why is a mystery. Professor Christina Ragan and her students set out to learn more. “Women don’t respond well to tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs), whereas men’s symptoms of anxiety and depression subside,” Ragan said. “On the other hand, women will respond more favorably to a serotonin selective reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) like Prozac.” Led by Ragan, Chris Higham ’18 and Jaime Ransohoff ’18 first tried to replicate the natural differences in anxiety with the sexes. Next, they wanted to figure out some of the underlying brain mechanisms that differ in males and females. “We used a rodent model, because the biology is similar to humans,” Ragan explained. To test for baseline anxiety in the animals, the students used an elevated plus maze: a maze with two open arms and two closed arms that is raised off the ground. Like humans, rodents are innately fearful of open spaces, bright light, and height. The students observed the animals in the maze to gauge how long it took them to approach an open arm and how much time they spent there. Finding that the female rodents naturally spent more time in the closed arms than the males, “it was encouraging that we were able to replicate [the natural differences in anxiety],” Ragan said. The animals were then divided into male and female groups. Those two groups were each divided into “acute” and “chronic” groups. Each animal in the acute groups received a single injection of either saline, a low dose of the TCA clomipramine, or a high dose of clomipramine. Meanwhile, the chronic groups were also divided into those three categories, but they each received one injection daily for three weeks (approximately the amount of time that it takes for TCAs to work in humans). On the last day of treatment, the students put the rodents into a second maze that was slightly different so that it would be a new testing environment. “We found the opposite of what we expected,” Ragan said. Males that were given a low dose were significantly more anxious than the females in the same group. And animals in the high dose group, regardless of sex, exhibited more anxiety than the acute low and acute high dose groups. The reasons for the unexpected outcomes could be many, the researchers explained. One possibility: the researchers didn’t induce anxiety in the animals, and the clomipramine could cause anxiety in animals that weren’t previously anxious. Also, the high dose may have been too high. “Which happens in humans, too — we sometimes have to optimize the dose that we give people,” Ragan said. Chalking it up to the nature of the beast, Higham said, “I didn’t expect we’d be solving all the problems we set out to.” He added, “That’s what science is at its core: trying to find an answer to a question, and if that leads you to seven new questions, you have new directions to aim for.” This fall, the researchers are working on the next phase: studying the animals’ DNA methyltransferase 3a, a protein that is associated with anxiety. They’re also conducting a followup experiment by adding a group that receives treatment for seven days — to bridge the gap between one day and 21 days. Looking beyond this semester, Higham, a cellular neuroscience major who has been involved in research since his first year at Colgate, has folded this continual pursuit of knowledge into his career plans. “I’ve always known that I want to be a doctor,” said the pre-med student whose Alumni Memorial Scholar grant helped fund this study. “But now I’m aiming for an MD/ PhD, which would allow me to do research as well as be a practicing physician. It’s a lot of fun being able to develop a question and an experiment based on that question.”

News and views for the Colgate community

E C R O F ATURE N OF

B Y A L E T A M AY N E

scene: Autumn 2016

EDGARDO MIRANDA-RODRIGUEZ ’93 likes to joke that he’s gone from des-

graciado (disgraceful one) to destacado (distinguished one). At this summer’s National Puerto Rican Day Parade, MirandaRodriguez was an honoree — alongside actress Rosario Dawson and NBA player Carmelo Anthony. Miranda-Rodriguez had been named the 2016 Outstanding Boricua (Puerto Rican). Eighteen years ago, it was a whole different story. In 1998, he was “a red-hot radical,” MirandaRodriguez said. He was part of a group called Muevete (Move) that was invited to participate in the parade, held annually in New York City. At the time, Puerto Rico’s governor, Pedro Rosselló, was looking to privatize some of the island’s industry. “We were a group of activists focused on raising awareness of Puerto Rican issues,” MirandaRodriguez said. “We decided to make a political statement.” Marching up Fifth Avenue, Muevete members chanted while carrying a banner that read “PUERTO RICO IS NOT FOR SALE.” Agitated by the disruption, the then-president of the parade descended from the VIP stands and started tugging at their signage. He ordered the mounted police officers on the sidelines to corral the group off the route, which they did using a fluorescent-orange net. “Remember when we got kicked out of the parade?” Miranda-Rodriguez’s longtime friend Melissa Mark-Viverito

asked him at the 2016 parade press conference. They’ve both gained prominence after being in Muevete together. She is now the speaker of the New York City Council — the first Puerto Rican and Latina to hold a citywide elected position. In her press conference speech with the honorees, she noted the irony of the two of them being treated remarkably different that day. Miranda-Rodriguez, meanwhile, has been spotlighted by every major media outlet — from Telemundo to the Times — for his creation of the Afro-Latina superheroine La Borinqueña. His latest form of activism, she represents an amalgamation of the issues he holds close to his heart. One of them continues to be drawing attention to Puerto Rico, whose economy now suffers more than ever with a crippling debt crisis.

“ This became an opportunity to create a character that can connect to a real, relevant, social, historical, political issue.” EDGARDO MIRANDA-RODRIGUEZ

CULTIVATION AND GROWTH As a kid growing up in the South Bronx, MirandaRodriguez was captivated by comic books and funded his collection by returning bottles. He liked to copy the characters, so friends persuaded him to turn his notebook doodles into comic books for them. Miranda-Rodriguez’s hobby, which he called “pure escapism,” also sustained him through tumultuous times — particularly being uprooted from New York City and moving to Puerto Rico as a teen. “It was difficult to acclimate to, because I went from living in a very urban environment to a rural neighborhood in a small town called San Lorenzo,” he said. “I was miserable, and I didn’t understand the language.” Miranda-Rodriguez ended up moving in with his uncle, Joaquin, who would forever change his life. “He transformed my view of what it meant to be Puerto Rican,” Miranda-Rodriguez said. In his backyard, Joaquin grew plantains, starfruit, breadfruit, avocados, and more. “He had just a little plot of land, but he was able to till so much from that earth,” Miranda-Rodriguez said. “He showed me the value and power of nature.” Joaquin was also deeply rooted in the church and plugged in politically. “He showed me a connection to the island

that I had never experienced before,” MirandaRodriguez said. “It stayed with me.” Miranda-Rodriguez spent just under a year living in Puerto Rico before his family moved to Syracuse, N.Y., where he attended high school. In the mid’80s, anti-apartheid protests at nearby universities awakened the young Miranda-Rodriguez to social justice issues. It foreshadowed his future — as did his taste in music. “One of my favorite groups was Run DMC,” he said. “It’s crazy that thirty years later, DMC [Darryl McDaniels] is my business partner, and we’re running our own publishing company.”

BUDDING ACTIVIST At Colgate, Miranda-Rodriguez remembers himself as “an artful radical on the fringes,” but the sociology and anthropology major was quite woven into the fiber of the university. A leader in both the ALANA Cultural Center and La Casa, he organized events and fostered the community among students of color. Silvia Alvarez ’96 recalls meeting him through the Office of Undergraduate Studies (OUS) program, which eases incoming students’ transition to college during the summer before their first year. “Edgardo made himself available to make

“ Empowering a community is just ingrained in him.”

sure we were supported as newcomers to Colgate,” Alvarez said. Miranda-Rodriguez took on a big brother role, introducing the OUS students to the various student organizations and activities that were available. “Empowering a community is just ingrained in him,” added Alvarez, who today is the head of marketing and communications at New York Law School as well as the former press secretary for Senator Cory Booker. Through his Colgate experience, MirandaRodriguez was also feeling empowered himself. “Colgate gave me the opportunity to expand my awareness and knowledge of my own culture,” he said. He gained a better understanding of Latin America’s history and became fluent in Spanish, thanks to the prodding of Professor Lourdes Rojas-Paiewonsky. “Studying under her helped me to become the bilingual orator that I am today” — a boon for doing recent media interviews in both languages, Miranda-Rodriguez said. “Edgardo was a gentle and respectful student,” Rojas-Paiewonsky recalled. “I remember his creativity and his desire to do more, yet he wasn’t completely sure then of what it would be.” At graduation, he received the Adam Clayton Powell Jr. ’30 Award, which recognizes the person who enriches the students of color community. “That was the ultimate honor I could have received from the university,” Miranda-Rodriguez said, “given the work that Adam Clayton Powell Jr. did for the Civil Rights movement.”

S I LV I A A LV A R E Z ’ 9 6

FROM GRASSROOTS TO THE GALAXY

Left: Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez (seated in the middle, wearing a Malcolm X hat) with friends in the Coop, 1993 Above: This 1993 Salmagundi photo shows a sign that Miranda-Rodriguez repainted to change the name from La Residencia Hispanica to La Casa Pan-Latina Americana, reflecting the group’s desire for a more accurately representative name.

scene: Autumn 2016

After spending six years at the Brooklyn-based grassroots organization El Puente as an events coordinator and arts instructor for its high school, Miranda-Rodriguez got into graphic design. In 2010, he founded his design studio Somos Arte (We are art). He wanted to use his artistic skills to help the nonprofit groups he’d worked with get more visibility. Somos Arte also ended up attracting bigger-name clients like Marvel and HBO. Miranda-Rodriguez was invited to curate two exhibitions for Marvel — both of which highlighted diversity in comic books. “Edgardo was able to open [the] eyes of people who were not familiar with how the world of comic art was so multicultural,” Marvel’s Chief Creative

“ Edgardo was able to open [the] eyes of people who were not familiar with how the world of comic art was so multicultural. It ’s not just guys in capes, but socially relevant content.” JOSÉ QUESADA C H I E F C R E AT I V E O F F I C E R M A R V E L C O M I C S

Officer José Quesada told the New York Times in 2010. “It’s not just guys in capes, but socially relevant content.” Another pivotal moment for Miranda-Rodriguez came a few years ago when he met fellow comic book buff Darryl DMC McDaniels, of Run DMC fame. They teamed up to start their own company, Darryl Makes Comics, of which McDaniels is the publisher and Miranda-Rodriguez is the art director and editor-in-chief. Marvel gave them a shot with their idea for Guardians of Infinity, a comic book spinoff of the Guardians of the Galaxy film. The book featured the Thing (from Fantastic Four) and Groot, a treelike character who spoke Spanish. Surprisingly, Miranda-Rodriguez’s character that attracted the most attention was Abuela Estela. She saved Groot by educating him about his ancestors, the ceiba trees, which have been long venerated by Puerto Rico’s indigenous people. “People were excited that there was a Latino creating Latino characters for Marvel, discussing issues of diversity within the pages of a comic book,” Miranda-Rodriguez said. All of a sudden, Puerto Rican organizations came out of the woodwork to express interest in Miranda-Rodriguez, who is still owner and art director of Somos Arte as well as an illustrator and scriptwriter. The Puerto Rican Day Parade board approached him about doing something for this year’s event, but they didn’t know what. How about a table where he’d sell comic books? MirandaRodriguez envisioned something with more Pow! Thus, La Borinqueña was born.

WEATHERING THE STORM

scene: Autumn 2016

Meet Marisol Rios de la Luz, an environmental studies major at Columbia University. She lives in Williamsburg (like her creator) but is studying abroad in Puerto Rico. “‘Marisol’ means ‘sea and sun’ in Spanish. My last name means ‘rivers of light,’” she explains by way of introduction in La Borinqueña #1, MirandaRodriguez’s new comic book that will be released in December. “I wonder if my parents always knew what I’d become.” In the opening to the story, Marisol — a.k.a. La Borinqueña — is swimming underwater, leading leatherback sea turtles to the shore of Luquillo Beach. There, Puerto Ricans await the turtles’ arrival for the annual El Festival del Tinglar, which celebrates the animals’ nesting. It’s not explicitly stated that La Borinqueña needs to help the turtles because climate change has affected the tide, but the dialogue hints at the underlying message. It’s the first example of how Miranda-Rodriguez slips subtle messages into his script. “This island, my island, changed me forever,” she continues. “It was a rough start.” The words could have come from the creator’s own thought bubble. Like most superheroes, La Borinqueña gains her powers accidentally, while exploring a cave one stormy night for fieldwork. The mother goddess Atabex appears, telling Marisol that the island is suffering and needs a champion. Atabex summons her sons Huracan and Yucahu to grant Marisol her powers. Huracan tells her: “You shall fly with my winds, control my storms as your own.” Yucahu bellows: “Show me the strength of the sea and mountains!” In most other ways, La Borinqueña is unlike traditional superheroes. The obvious differences are the color of her skin and the way she is shaped. “I wanted her to be a realistic woman; a healthy, full-figured woman,” Miranda-Rodriguez said. “And it’s resonating — especially with women of color — because they love the fact that she has hips and a wide waist. I often hear ‘she looks like me.’” Miranda-Rodriguez also wanted her to have a practical outfit — like male superheroes. “I looked at Superman’s costume and thought, all you see are his hands, face, and neck,” he said. “So why is it that on Wonder Woman you see pretty much everything else — with high heels, a bustier, and a bikini bottom?” Raised by a single mom and noting that all of his reallife superheroes are women, Miranda-Rodriguez has

EDGARDO MIRANDA-RODRIGUEZ

respect for the opposite sex that shines through in his work. His characters are influenced by the women in his family — Marisol is named after his sister — and those who have mentored him. With a red, white, and blue costume that is modeled after the commonwealth’s revolutionary flag, La Borinqueña also symbolizes her creator’s Puerto Rican pride. She is even named after Puerto Rico’s national anthem. Through this character, Miranda-Rodriguez has been bringing attention to the island’s current debt crisis caused by a $70 billion burden. Years in the making, the recession has come to a head as residents face layoffs, school closings, and eroding public services — including hospitals as they try to control the Zika outbreak. Puerto Ricans are leaving the island for mainland United States en masse — an average of 230 people per day, CNN reported in May. “This became an opportunity to create a character that can connect to a real, relevant, social, historical, political issue,” Miranda-Rodriguez said. “It reminded me of why Captain America was created in the 1940s.” In the comic book, there is no overt text about the debt crisis, but signs of the recession appear: a national park is closed, university employees have been laid off, a newspaper headline reads “Crisis todavia afecta P.R.” (Crisis still affects P.R.). “The way I’m presenting it, she’s not taking so much of a position as her story is putting it out there to be absorbed and digested by the audience,” Miranda-Rodriguez explained. Drawing an analogy to how he learned about his heritage, he added that his goal is to present the information and hope that people become empowered.

Glynnis Jones

“ I wanted her to be a realistic woman; a healthy, full-figured woman. And it ’s resonating — especially with women of color — because they love the fact that she has hips and a wide waist. I often hear ‘she looks like me.’" Stephanie Llanes as the character La Borinqueña at the 59th National Puerto Rican Day Parade in New York City, June 12, 2016

WINDS OF CHANGE Superman didn’t appear in a parade until more than a year after he was introduced, while La Borinqueña premiered on a float before her comic book was even released, the New York Times noted. And, before she made her debut at the Puerto Rican Day Parade, media outlets including the Washington Post were already writing about her. Wanting a woman to represent the superheroine not just in looks but also principles, Miranda-Rodriguez asked Stephanie Llanes to dress as La Borinqueña for the parade. A recent University of California, Berkeley School of Law graduate, Llanes just started working at the Center for Constitutional Rights. To add to the character’s authenticity, Miranda-Rodriguez hired a professional costume maker to create her outfit based on his design illustration. It all came together on June 12. MirandaRodriguez brought his two sons and his wife, Kyung Jeon-Miranda (who’s Korean-American), to sit with him and La Borinqueña atop the float. But being perched up there didn’t feel right, he realized. The creator turned to his superheroine: “Why don’t we interact with the people?” They climbed down and walked into the crowd. “All these boys and girls — black, brown children — threw up their arms to get a hug from La Borinqueña,” he recalled. She embraced them and encouraged the children to “Show me your superpowers!” — to which they proudly displayed their mini-biceps. “It was amazingly beautiful experience,” reflected Miranda-Rodriguez — who had become the destacado.

There’s been an attempt to improve representations of diversity in the comic book world recently. The new Iron Man is a female 15-year-old black MIT student. Batwoman has been rewritten as a Jewish lesbian. Marvel introduced Kamala Khan, a Pakistani Muslim. And even Disney just released its first Latina princess. La Borinqueña, however, isn’t just a revised version of an existing character. She’s an original.

La Borinqueña #1 is available for preorder at www.laborinquena.somosarte.com

scene: Autumn 2016

News and views for the Colgate community

Chris Henke (2) Top row: Professors Antonio Barrera and April Baptiste. Bottom: Breanne Heath (owner of the Pie Patch) and professors Chris Henke, Rob Nemes, Mark Stern, and Peter Rogers

The Office of Alumni Relations is pleased to offer many ways for alumni to stay in touch with each other, and with Colgate! E-mail me with questions or concerns at tmansfield@colgate. edu. — Tim Mansfield, associate vice president, institutional advancement and alumni relations Questions? Contact alumni relations: 315-228-7433 or alumni@colgate.edu

scene: Autumn 2016

Feeding faculty knowledge This summer, a group of professors traveled cross-country to learn more about different food systems and how food history relates to other issues, such as inequality, gentrification, and deindustrialization. During their 11-day trip in June, they stopped in St. Louis, Detroit, and Chicago. In the Windy City, they first visited Cortney Ahern ’10 at the headquarters of Feeding America. Ahern is a project manager at the nonprofit, working with a nationwide network of food banks to fight hunger. She’s also a former student of sociology professor Chris Henke, who coordinated the trip. Ahern and her colleagues spoke to the professors, who represented a variety of disciplines, about food security — access to food that’s nutritious, plentiful enough to satisfy a healthy diet, and culturally appropriate. “Cortney is food savvy and knows a lot about these issues, so it was a natural for us to go to Feeding America,” said Henke, who’s kept in touch with Ahern ever since she took his Food class in 2009. The other professors on the trip included Ben Anderson (economics), April Baptiste (environmental studies), Antonio Barrera (history), Rob Nemes (history), Peter Rogers (university libraries), and Mark Stern (educational studies). Henke had invited anyone whose interests, research, or teaching were connected to food. Later in the day, the group met with approximately two dozen alumni from the Colgate Club of Chicago at the home of Linda Havlin ’72. Henke gave an overview of the trip, and then each professor shared something that was meaningful about the experience. The trip was backed by the Kallgren Fund, which supports faculty interests and professional development. “There are so many ways in which this trip is going to influence my teaching, especially in my Food class,” said Henke.

President Casey addresses Chenango club At the Club of the Chenango Valley’s first meeting this academic year, guest speaker President Brian W. Casey laid out his areas of focus for the university. “I think our fundamental act — my charge — is first to attract an extremely strong faculty to Colgate, support them in their research, [and] help them as they develop as teachers,” he said. “Then assemble a strong group of students and educate them through a strong curriculum.” Casey also talked about continuing diversity efforts and investing in the arts at Colgate. A record crowd of more than 50 people attended the luncheon in September at the Colgate Inn. It was the first time many of the members had the opportunity to meet or hear from Casey. “As I have seen him do with other audiences, he captured everyone’s full attention the whole time he was speaking,” said Sue Dolly Lathrop ’88, Colgate’s senior associate dean for admission operations, who introduced Casey at the luncheon. “I absolutely love this village,” Casey said. “I think it is beautiful, warm, and engaging. I hope that I am here for many, many years.”

“ I absolutely love this village. I think it is beautiful, warm, and engaging.” — President Brian W. Casey

Mark DiOrio

stay connected

Alumni programs, volunteer opportunities, career networking, and more

President Casey will visit several cities across the country for events with alumni and parents this academic year. See the events calendar at colgate.edu/alumni for details.

whereas the International Space Station has us working with the Russians and working with the European Space Agency, Canada, and Japan. We’re able to pool resources, talents, and money to do things.

Gerard Gaskin

Heldmann: SpaceX says that they’re going to launch their Red Dragon capsules to Mars in 2018. So, at NASA, we have a Space Act Agreement to try and put payload on some of those capsules. They have been coming to us, the scientists, saying, “We don’t know where the water is [on Mars], so can you tell us?” And, yes, we can. It’s a nice example of NASA working with the commercial industry, and I think it’s a good model to follow.

“Who needs the moon when we got the stars?” It’s a question for the ages — one that Colgate community members working in STEM fields asked as they helped to launch the new Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Professional Network in New York City in May. The event featured a panel conversation with NASA scientist Jennifer Heldmann ’98, a member of the Mars 2020 rover mission instrument team. Former astronaut Mike Massimino was also on the dais. He’s a veteran of multiple trips to the Hubble Space Telescope and author of the forthcoming book Spaceman: An Astronaut’s Unlikely Journey to Unlock the Secrets of the Universe. The talk was led by Jeff Bary, associate professor of physics and astronomy. Events sponsored by the Colgate Professional Networks move careers forward, expanding community connections by sparking dialogue around points of common interest. Here’s a sample of the discussion that took place in New York at the STEM launch.

Bary: What about your experience orbiting the planet impacted you the most, and what was that impact on you as a person and your perspective on life?

Bary: One of the most visible things that I think our culture has been aware of is women astronauts. I think of Sally Ride, Judith Resnick, and Christa McAuliffe. When I was ten to thirteen years old, they were such visible and recognizable names and figures — they did such important work to help break that barrier. eldmann: That’s a good point. You H need to have that visual representation of, yes, this is possible.

The budget for blastoff Bary: NASA began as a program in 1958, and during the moon program, the budget for NASA as a percentage of the GDP had gone up to more than 4 percent. It has steadily fallen to where it is today, which is at roughly .5 percent. How do we reverse that trend? Because I don’t think that, at .5 percent of GDP, we’re going to get to Mars. assimino: I think the only way we M can get to Mars is if we were to try to do it as an international effort... The moon program was a U.S. program,

Gerard Gaskin

Heldmann: I realize that, in order for women to be able to have these careers and be able to excel, you really need to have women in management positions, because that’s where the decisions are made ... people who can appreciate what needs to happen so that you can have your career and a balanced personal life as well. I think NASA, as an agency, does a very good job of that. I do things now to help girls who are coming up from high school. NASA has a program called Girls, in which you mentor a middleschool student, she does a project, and you have Skype conversations. They have a Women in NASA group where people get together and discuss things. So there are things happening, and I now appreciate the value of them even more.

Once you can grasp that concept, you can start thinking about how common life would be throughout the universe.

he driving force (beyond T rocket fuel)

Astronauts help launch STEM network

Bary: We [in the discipline] have been working really hard for the last several decades to try and reach even numbers of men and women in astronomy, and we’re making pretty good progress.

— Jennifer Heldmann ’98, NASA scientist

Massimino: The view where I was at Hubble. It’s a hundred miles higher than the station, so you see a little Bary: In your future work, what do you bit more of the curve of the planet, and it’s like looking into heaven. I hope to discover? What’s your most know there almost has to be some ambitious research goal? other place where there’s life, and Heldmann: I’m in it to try and address maybe there’s another place like this, the astrobiology question. That’s a lot but when I actually looked at Earth, of the mission proposal writing that I I wasn’t so sure. I don’t see how you work on — proposing missions to go to can have any place as beautiful as these very compelling locations in the this. And when you see how perfect it solar system to look for life. Because looks, and then you turn your head and one of the questions is: Is there a you see blackness for a pretty long common origin of life within our solar way — it’s made me appreciate how system? And then you can extrapolate lucky we are to live here. I know there’s throughout the universe as well. Does a lot of bad stuff going on in the world, all life have the same biochemistry? but it’s really a beautiful place to live. Are we all on the same tree of life? Or, was there some independent origin of For more information on life that occurred on Mars, on EncelaColgate Professional Networks, dus, on some other planet elsewhere visit colgate.edu/networks. that we don’t even know about yet?

NASA scientist Jennifer Heldmann ’98 visits with students and alumni.

On women in STEM

“ I’m in it to try and address the astrobiology question… Is there a common origin of life within our solar system?”

L to R: Professor Jeff Bary, Jennifer Heldmann ’98, and former astronaut Mike Massimino News and views for the Colgate community

Lasting impressions Harrington Drake ’41 Sept 2, 1919–June 7, 2016 A successful businessman and chair emeritus of the Board of Trustees, Harrington “Duke” Drake ’41 died at his home in Wickenburg, Ariz., at the age of 96. He was president of the H Donnelly Corporation 1972–75 and chairman and CEO of the Dun & Bradstreet Corporation 1975–85. Financial World magazine named him CEO of the Year in 1984, and Harvard Business School called him “one of the great American business leaders of the 20th century.” Throughout his life, Drake served on the boards of corporations including Dun and Bradstreet, Baxter International, Rockwell International, Irving Trust Bank, and Magnavox. An active alumnus, Drake chaired the Board of Trustees 1978–85, was a founding member of the James B Colgate Society, and received the Maroon Citation (1966) and the Wm Brian Little ’64 Alumni Award for Distinguished Service (1977). Drake established the Shirley and Harrington Drake Chair in the Humanities, the Shirley and Harrington Drake Endowed Scholarship Fund, and the Patricia and Harrington Drake Scholarship Fund. In 1995, Colgate recognized his service and support of the university by naming a newly constructed residence hall, Drake Hall, in his honor. Drake had majored in philosophy and religion, and was awarded an honorary doctor of laws degree from Colgate in 1985. As a World War II pilot, he helped to transport five-star US generals, Brazilian Chief of Staff Eduardo Dutra, and the Bob Hope Troupe. Drake rose to Lt Colonel in the Air Force Reserve and received the Air Medal and Oak Leaf Cluster in the 20th Troop Carrier Squadron of the 6th Air Force. He is survived by his wife, Patricia; three sons; his stepdaughter, Adriana Beckman ’86; three grandchildren; two great-grandchildren; his brother; and many nieces and nephews.

Ruth Hartshorne July 10, 1913–June 15, 2016 Hamilton centenarian Ruth Hartshorne, the widow of Professor Marion Holmes Hartshorne, has died. She was 103. After graduating from the University of Chicago in 1935, Hartshorne earned her master’s from Columbia University in New York City, where she met her future husband, Marion, with whom she would share nearly 50 years of marriage. The couple married in 1939 and moved to Hamilton, where Marion taught philosophy and religion at Colgate, and Ruth raised their four children. Ruth Hartshorne was a staple of the Hamilton community often seen at the First Baptist Church and the Hamilton Club. She was also a dedicated member of the Fortnightly Club (a women’s research group) and co-founder of both the Chenango Nursery School and the Education Unlimited lecture series. Hartshorne had numerous friends who, in her later years, helped her travel to her engagements

and visited her Victorian home. A sign on Hartshorne’s front door read: “Friends! Ring the doorbell, open the door, and holler! If I’m asleep, please wake me up! I’d rather have a visit from you than a nap.” Kerry Houston ’16 is one of these friends. Houston met Hartshorne four years ago when she became a member of Colgate’s Adopt a Grandparent Program. Houston said the pair would often take walks, even in the snow, because Hartshorne loved the outdoors and stressed the importance of staying active. Houston called the sharp-witted Hartshorne “a Colgate expert.” Hartshorne, who had worked at the Colgate library and graded coursework from her husband’s classes, enjoyed having students around to keep her up-to-date with life on the Hill. “Ruth loved learning about the experiences of current students, especially what materials we were studying in our classes and what types of projects we were working on,” Houston said. Hartshorne also relished the time she had to herself. She was an avid reader, enjoyed cooking, kept up with e-mail, and was writing a memoir. Clever and vibrant until the end, Hartshorne would remark, “I enjoy every minute of life, even when I don’t.” She was profiled in the autumn 2011 Scene article “Aging Our Way,” excerpted from the book of the same name by sociology and women’s studies professor Meika Loe. Hartshorne was predeceased by her husband, Marion, in 1988. She is survived by four children, 10 grandsons, and one great-grandson.

John LeFevre ’41 March 10, 1919–May 25, 2016 John LeFevre ’41, a man who dedicated more than 35 years of his life to the university, has died at age 97. “[He] represented the very best of Colgate,” said dean of admission Gary Ross. As a student, LeFevre was a member of Phi Kappa Psi, pep band, and Colgate’s ice hockey team all four years. His experience with Colgate hockey inspired his presidency of the Silver Puck Club and the university’s creation of the John LeFevre ’41 Appreciation Award given to individuals who make a positive impact on Colgate athletics. After retiring from a 40-year career at IBM, he returned to Hamilton in 1981, beginning his second career: Colgate’s director of alumni recruiting and special assistant to the dean of admission. LeFevre interviewed prospective students, which former co-worker Patty Caprio remembers he enjoyed because it allowed him to share his own experiences as a student. “There are hundreds of students who came to Colgate because of the way he greeted them and talked to them,” said Caprio, senior advancement executive for strategic initiatives. LeFevre retired 13 years later, but continued to volunteer in admission for another 22 years. An extremely active alumnus, he served as president of Colgate’s Alumni Corporation Board of Directors and received both the Maroon Citation and the Alumni Award for Distinguished Service. A member of the Presidents’ Club giving society, he established the John and Marian LeFevre Scholarship. Even into his later years, LeFevre attended alumni council meetings, went to hockey games, exercised in the Trudy Fitness Center, and periodically called classmates to catch up. “John lived a long life,” said Ross. “He lived life to the fullest up until the very end.”

Above all, friends remember LeFevre as someone who genuinely cared about people. “He would often ask, ‘What can I do for you?’” said Ross. “And he wasn’t just saying that. He actually expected an answer.” LeFevre was predeceased by his wife, Marian, and his son. He is survived by a daughter, 8 grandchildren, and 11 great-grandchildren.

James N Lloyd III ’54 Oct. 20, 1932—June 8, 2016 Physics professor, singer, Hamilton police commissioner, and more, James Lloyd III ’54 was a multifaceted man who shared his talents with both the university and the local community. He first came to Hamilton in 1950 to start his freshman year at Colgate, where he joined WRCU, University Chorus, Masque and Triangle, and Konosioni. After graduating Phi Beta Kappa with highest honors in physics, Lloyd went on to earn his PhD from Cornell University. Colgate recruited him in 1961 to teach in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, where he twice served as chair (1973–77, 1987–1990). During his 35-year tenure, Lloyd also was the long-term adviser to the department’s pre-engineering program, chaired the graduate fellowships committee, and — as the physics instructor to legions of pre-medical students — served on the Health Sciences Advising Committee. Lloyd brought calculus-based instruction into introductory physics and improved laboratory instruction at Colgate. A handy and practical person, he often purchased lab apparatus kits, which he assembled in his spare time. In the 1990s, Lloyd was a key player in the department’s efforts to invigorate the introductory curriculum for physics majors and was co-author of the resulting textbook, Modern Introductory Physics. He retired in 1996. “My hobby is collecting hobbies,” Lloyd was known as saying. His interests included model railroading, radio-controlled model airplanes, and amateur (ham) radio. As an undergraduate, he was on the technical staff of WRCU, and later, he was the station’s faculty adviser and technical director. Later, he took up photography and became known for his color photos of Colgate and the greater Hamilton area. In his darkroom that he designed and built, Lloyd mastered the exacting chemical processes. Talented and resourceful, Lloyd was a deft machinist, a clever electronics designer and troubleshooter, and the first to use liquid helium on the Colgate campus. Using his expertise in radio and cryogenics, he constructed an electron spin resonance spectrometer (an early cousin to medical MRI technology) to study the magnetic properties of amorphous metal alloys at low temperatures. In 1990, his interests shifted to surface physics. With funding from the National Science Foundation, he acquired an ultra high vacuum chamber, equipping it with a home brew electron diffractometer, a thin film evaporator, and a thermal desorption spectrometer. He and his students used this apparatus to deposit ultra pure, atomically flat films of palladium and measure the bonding of carbon monoxide to them (a process critical to the operation of automotive catalytic converters). Beyond Colgate, Lloyd also had a significant impact. He was twice elected trustee of the Village of Hamilton and served as its police

commissioner. An accomplished baritone, he was a member of the Blue Parsley Boys, a local group with whom he recorded two CDs. He is survived by his wife, Rachel; two daughters and sons-in-law; and two grandchildren.

Joseph Wagner Nov 21, 1945–June 8, 2016 An expert in the politics of morality, tolerance, and inequality, Joseph Wagner, a professor of political science emeritus, has died. He began teaching history at Colgate in 1974 as a visiting professor before earning tenure in 1980. The next year, Wagner joined the political science department, where he taught courses in the philosophy and psychology of politics until his retirement in 2015. He served as chair of Colgate’s political science department 2002–06 and as director of the international relations program. Committed to the pursuit of justice, Wagner chaired the Affirmative Action Oversight Committee in the 1980s and wrote the university’s first software to track affirmative action hires. He was passionate about the Office of Undergraduate Studies (OUS) Summer Institute, a program for accepted students to ease their transition to college and enhance their academic preparedness. Wagner helped design the program’s framework in the 1980s, taught its courses 1994–2002, and helped form its advisory committee in 2010. “You taught us to think on a higher level,” one former OUS student said. “You have touched the lives of thousands, and I am grateful to be one of them. Even though it’s been 21 years, there is not a month that goes by where I don’t think about you, a gentle giant with a great mind that you so kindly shared.” Well loved by students and faculty alike for his rationality, generosity, and commitment to human dignity, “Joe walked through life making friends everywhere he went,” according to his obituary. “He showed all equal respect, took a genuine interest in their lives, and was completely present for people at all times. He engaged in conversations that were not only humorous and caring, but also challenged people’s minds.” Wagner served on a number of committees, including First-Year Seminar, Nominating, Faculty Affairs, Promotion and Tenure, Academic Advising, and Middle States Review. He served as president of the Colgate Chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and editor of Vox Facultatis; he was instrumental in establishing the AAUP Professor of the Year Award, which he received in 2003. Wagner’s scholarly articles spanned a variety of subjects, including the media’s impact on elections, the role of moral values on political tolerance, and the relationship between justice and affirmative action. In 2004 he established the Harriette Wagner Memorial Award in honor of his mother. The award is given to the senior art and art history major whose work exemplifies the way visual arts enrich the spirit and express the dignity of human beings. Wagner is survived by his wife, Pat; two children; two grandchildren; and four stepgrandchildren. — obituaries written by Brianna Delaney ’19, with the exception of James Lloyd’s

News and views for the Colgate community

salmagundi

A smartened parsing (President anagrams)

Rewind

In honor of Brian W. Casey's inauguration in September, have some smart fun with presidents' names from Colgate's history.

1856

George Washington Eaton

1868

Ebenezer Dodge

1895

George William Smith

1899 1909 1909 1942 1942

George Edmands Merrill

Elmer Burritt Bryan

1988

Neil R. Grabois

1963

Everett Needham Case

2002

Rebecca S. Chopp

Vincent MacDowell Barnett Jr.

2016

Brian W. Casey

1. Harvested tee menace

6. See millwright amigo

2. Epoch crab spec

7. A teenagers hooting gown

3. Cabin sawyer

8. Smoldering merger deal

4. Mulberry brine tart

9. Brinier goals

5. Interjected BMW van 10. God need breeze cant roll

Answers: 1. Everett Needham Case 2. Rebecca S. Chopp 3. Brian W. Casey 4. Elmer Burritt Bryan 5. Vincent MacDowell Barnett Jr. 6. George William Smith 7. George Washington Eaton 8. George Edmands Merrill 9. Neil R. Grabois 10. Ebenezer Dodge

scene: Autumn 2016

Remembering Muhammad Ali Meeting one of your heroes is one of the most enduring things that can occur in one’s life. How it happens can be a miracle. During my 1969/1970 freshman year at Colgate, Muhammad Ali was speaking in the evening at a lecture series. It was a tumultuous time — a growing apathy to the Vietnam War, persistent black rights issues, and new emerging religious doctrines. I wanted to meet one of my heroes. I had heard through the grapevine that Muhammad Ali might be at our dormitory, West Hall. My friend Mike Graham and I (two Caucasian students) set out to find him. We approached a dorm door that was covered with black power posters. We were greeted by two black students who told us to go away, and in simple terms said that we were not wanted. Muhammad Ali and his close friend Bundini peeked into the hallway and invited us into the dorm room. For two hours, we were entertained by one of the most impressive people one could ever meet. And indeed, we all floated like a butterfly and were stung by a bee. — Kenneth Leon ’73 was inspired to submit this reminiscence when “The Greatest” died in June.

Do you have a reminiscence for Rewind? Send your submission of short prose, poetry, or a photograph with a description to scene@mail.colgate.edu.

Above (from left): Johnny Zeff ’18, Danny Rosen ’18, and Marshall Widham ’18 take a relaxing stroll along Oak Drive after a vigorous rugby match. Photo by Andrew Daddio Back cover: The hunt for red October. Photo by Andrew Daddio

News and views for the Colgate community

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