Summer Scene 2011

scene Summer 2011

News and views for the Colgate community

Central New York Road Trip Following 9/11 Faces of Fitness

scene

Summer 2011

24 Central New York Road Trip

Visits to five regional alumni-owned businesses sketch a picture of imagination, optimism, perseverance, and enterprise

30 Following 9/11

Through the lens of 9/11, Professor Christopher Vecsey examines how the New York Times helps us understand the many dimensions of religion

34 Faces of Fitness

Colgate people build more than muscle at the new Trudy Fitness Center

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Message from President Jeffrey Herbst

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Letters

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Work & Play

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Colgate history, tradition, and spirit

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Life of the Mind

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Arts & Culture

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Go ’gate

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New, Noted & Quoted

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The Big Picture

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Stay Connected

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Class News 56 Reunion award winners 73 Marriages & Unions 73 Births & Adoptions 74 In Memoriam

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Salmagundi: Puzzle, Rewind

DEPARTMENTS

On the cover: Flash mob, ’gate style. One lunch hour in Frank Dining Hall last semester, music started playing and dancers appeared out of nowhere. Watch the video at colgate.edu/ news/videos/flashmobvideo. Photo by Janna Minehart ’13. Left: Memorial Chapel. Photo by Andrew Daddio News and views for the Colgate community

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scene team

Contributors

Volume XL Number 4 The Scene is published by Colgate University four times a year — in autumn, winter, spring, and summer. The Scene is circulated without charge to alumni, parents, friends, and students.

James Leach (“Central New York Road Trip,” pg.

24) retired in 2005 as vice president for public relations and communications after 25 years at Colgate. He has redirected his energies to a second career as a higher education communications consultant, freelance writer, and nature photographer.

Religion professor Christopher Vecsey (“Following 9/11,” pg.

30), has taught at Colgate since 1982.

The author or editor of a dozen books, he has dedicated his scholarly life to understanding American Indian religion, history, and culture. For the past decade, he has incorporated an analysis of journalism into his religion courses, as featured on PBS Thirteen/ WNE’s Religion & Ethics Newsweekly in 2004.

As one of our communications interns, Kate Hicks ’11 (“Jewish author adds flavor,” pg.

9, and “Get to know: Andy Peng ’12,” pg. 45) wrote numerous pieces — from event coverage to news stories to profiles — for www.colgate. edu and the Scene.

After graduation, she moved to Washington, D.C., where she hopes to put her English and political science double majors to good use in the media.

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scene online

Listen

World Affairs: colgate.edu/about/president jeffreyherbst/podcasts President Jeffrey Herbst talks with influential campus guests in four new podcasts.

Watch

Reunion 2011: colgate.edu/video Enjoy sights and sounds from the many activities surrounding this year’s reunion.

Get connected

Community: colgateconnect.org/hillathome The Hill at Home puts Colgate at your fingertips with webcasts, Reunion College classes, presentations, event information, and more — visit today.

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scene: Summer 2011

Greg Herbowy (“Soul food, Thai style,” pg. 70), a former staff writer at Fashion Institute of Technology, spent the last six months in southeast Asia, traveling and writing. He has freelanced for Rolling Stone and Queen’s College and continues to write for Hue, FIT’s alumni magazine. And there’s a Raider in his family: his dad is Dr. Nestor Herbowy ’70.

Look

Success after Colgate: colgate.edu/success New microsite links alumni careers with specific majors and showcases newest graduates.

Talk

Tweet!: twitter.com/colgateunvrsty Join the more than 3,500 people following us on Twitter and share your news and updates.

Go paperless

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

Contributing writers and designers: Timothy O’Keeffe, Director of Web Content; Karen Luciani, Art Director; Katherine Mutz, Graphic Designer; Barbara Brooks, Director of Marketing and Public Relations; Mark Walden, Senior Advancement Writer; Jennifer McGee, Online Community Manager; Matt Faulkner, Assistant Director of Athletic Communications

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Opinions expressed are not necessarily shared by the university, the publishers, or the editors.

Notice of Non-Discrimination: Colgate University does not discriminate in its programs and activities because of race, color, sex, pregnancy, religion, creed, national origin (including ancestry), citizenship status, physical or mental disability, age, marital status, sexual orientation, 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, University Harassment Officer, 13 Oak Drive, Hamilton, NY 13346; 315-228-7288.

Message from President Jeffrey Herbst

One of Colgate’s many distinctions

is the emphasis

we place on our faculty, who will always be the heartbeat of our university. As I traveled the country and the world to meet Colgate alumni during my first year as president, it struck me how often alumni told me that their fondest memories involve the relationships they formed with their teachers.

Lorenzo Ciniglio

Over and over, they described profound and personal interactions that deepened their immersion in the liberal arts, and sometimes led to friendships and professional contacts that have lasted a lifetime.

As president, one of my most important responsibilities is to further strengthen the faculty. In the years to come, we must be able to promise Colgate students that they will enjoy the same unique opportunities as previous generations to engage intellectually with their teachers. We are taking major strides toward achieving that goal.

Next year, we will add five more teaching positions and also convert six visiting-faculty positions to the tenure stream. Combined with the eight new faculty positions we added during 2010–2011, this increase of 19 potentially permanent positions represents a 7.8 percent growth in teaching power at Colgate.

During 2011–2012, new searches will be held for assistant professor positions in English (African-American literature), geography (ecohydrology with a regional focus on Asia and Africa), history (South Asian), philosophy (non-Western), and writing and rhetoric (communication studies and public address). These new positions will strengthen our curriculum

and allow us to meet the new intellectual challenges of students who will live and lead in a much more global, ecological, and diverse society.

Colgate’s progress in this area stands in sharp contrast to national trends. For the past several decades, colleges and universities around the country have been reducing the number of tenure-track faculty positions on their campuses, replacing them with part-time teachers, graduate students, and adjuncts. Last year, a New York Times story pointed out that, while 75 percent of U.S. college instructors were full time and tenured in 1960, that number stands at only 27 percent today.

We have been able to afford these new opportunities because of the generosity of our alumni and the thoughtful manner in which our administration and Board of Trustees addressed the financial crisis that began in 2008. The $420 million raised to date through the Passion for the Climb campaign has greatly strengthened our finances, most notably in the faculty realm by endowing seven professorships. Making tough decisions on budget and administrative reorganizations, including the elimination of vice presidential–level positions, has also allowed us greater financial flexibility.

Of course, our work along these lines is far from complete. We face challenges posed by a major upcoming transition throughout our faculty ranks. Due to a high volume of faculty hires in the 1970s and 1980s, we project that approximately 30 percent of our tenured professors will retire in the next five to seven years. The departure of so many senior teachers represents the loss of many accumulated years of experience and disciplinary wisdom. These excellent teacher-scholars and friends have rendered tremendous service to the university for more than a generation; replacing them will be one of our greatest challenges.

At the same time, the prospect of hiring a significant number of new colleagues must be viewed as an opportunity. Given the number of hires we are likely to make in the next several years, we have a chance to shape another generation of outstanding professors. They will join superb colleagues — the next generation of senior faculty — in providing that deep immersion in the liberal arts so valued by our graduates. These transitions will allow us to explore new areas that are vital to the education of future students as well as energize and enhance existing subjects with new approaches and ideas.

As part of attracting new faculty members, now, more than ever, it is critical for Colgate to be an attractive employer. First and foremost, we want to enhance the intellectual home professors find on our campus.

Second, we want to encourage new members of the faculty to establish their family homes in Hamilton in order to foster their participation in the life of the university outside the classroom. We are working energetically to help enhance village life, with a focus on the Hamilton schools and daycare, as well as cultural and economic vitality.

Our conversations on campus about the faculty of the future are truly exciting and hold the promise of advancing this great university. This privilege is due in great part to the continuing support of alumni who recognize that maintaining and enhancing the excellence of the faculty must always be the central priority at Colgate.

News and views for the Colgate community

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Letters

scene

A great read Received the spring Scene today, and you do not disappoint! Smiling over the “Get to know” interview with Jen Servedio, the “Page 13” on Adam and

SPRING 2011

News and views for the Colgate community

I could, for example, decide that the 19th Amendment (women’s suffrage) doesn’t suit the times, or a sitting president could decide that the twoterm limit (the 22nd Amendment) is inconvenient and not what we want to “live” in our Constitution today.

It is hard to imagine the rule of law without a Magna Carta or a constitution with substance and durability. Is anyone thinking up there?

Robert Watson ’66 New York, N.Y.

Buhoma Bonds Great Reads A Supreme Victory

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scene: Summer 2011

Mills’s story elicits pride Eve, and then “A Supreme Victory.”

Very well done. I had goose flesh.

Wonderful writing. Thank you.

Jane Robertson (widow of Tom Robertson ’56) Unadilla, N.Y.

Questioning the notion of “lived Constitution” I was disappointed to read the fawning appraisal of Robert P. Moses’s talk to the student body (“Constitution must apply equally,” pg. 9, spring 2011). To wit: “the students and faculty members who crowded into the chapel seemed to hold their breaths.” Really, or were they just quiet?

Education as a constitutional right is an interesting concept, as if an education can be granted and not earned by studying and thinking seriously and analytically. Sounds like Dorothy’s friend the straw man getting his diploma. One’s education could simply materialize out of space by government or a wizard’s decree, I suppose.

But it gets worse when Moses speaks of the “lived Constitution.”

What on earth does that mean? The written Constitution doesn’t matter? Then why bother at all with a constitution? Certainly, then, it is a waste of time to write it down. Accordingly, each of us can have our own version floating around in our heads.

I just got through reading your article about David Mills’s Supreme Court victory (spring 2011). Wow! Sitting in my bathrobe, Saturday morning, sipping coffee, watching This Old House and reading the Colgate Scene, I obviously wasn’t expecting to need the Kleenex box. I’m proud of Colgate, David Mills, Ms. Ortiz, and central New York. Take that, ROW (rest of world).

We’ve got soul, dammit! David’s tenacity is a lesson to all of us.

Elsewhere in the Scene, an alum calls for turning Colgate into a real university by adding a law school; I’d

Steve Parker ’74 Matthews, N.C.

Proposes lecture series to honor Ted Herman I was a student of Ted Herman’s (“In tribute,” pg. 75, spring 2011) in 1979–1980. I would be interested in coordinating with others (preferably on the East Coast/in the NYC area) on a geography lecture series that would pertain to areas of conflict — Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, and other parts of the Arab world, Turkey, or Korea, for instance — with the idea that a better understanding of the physical realities of a place makes war harder to justify, and peace making a more natural response.

I believe this would be a beautiful way to celebrate Ted’s life and prolong his personal mission as well as ours.

I would like for the lecture series to focus on the natural landscape.

If you are at all interested, please

Jim Stroup

The Scene welcomes letters. We reserve the right to decide whether a letter is acceptable for publication and to edit for accuracy, clarity, and length. Letters deemed potentially libelous or that malign a person or group will not be published.

Letters should not exceed 250 words. You can reach us by mail, or e-mail sceneletters @colgate.edu. Please include your full name, class year if applicable, address, phone number, and/or e-mail address. If we receive many letters on a given topic, we will print a representative sample of the opinions expressed. On occasion, we may run additional letters online.

vote for schools of communications, government, and business, too. ’Gaters have left big marks in these fields, and it might be nice to “pay it forward.”

Thanks for a great read.

David Mills ’99

On Colgate’s Facebook page June 9/ColgateUniversity: Colgate bucks trend by expanding tenurestream faculty Mary Ellen Lane I’m going to get my checkbook now. This is good news.

Way to go, Colgate.

June 2/ColgateUniversity: A ‘before’ Reunion photo. The tents are up and ready!

Sande Pisik ’76 On my way. Do I need a ski parka?

Ted Herman

contact me by phone (646-326-4910) or e-mail (Kaitilin61@gmail.com). I am open to any interpretation of the above that you would like to explore.

Kaitilin Griffin ’83 New York, N.Y.

What they’re saying online At www.colgate.edu In response to the flash mob video shot during the spring semester in Frank Dining Hall and unveiled on May 13 to help celebrate Colgate Day (see this issue’s cover image): Thank you for this beautiful moment.

— Rico Rodriguez ’76 There’s nothing better than being at Colgate where you can see this spirit all around. GO, GATE! — Carolina Swift ’14 I’m a Class of 2015 student, and I can’t wait to arrive! I’ve been celebrating Colgate Day all day but my personal celebration has not been quite so epic!

— Michelle Cohen ’15

May 2/ColgateUniversity: How did you learn about the death of Osama bin Laden? Network news bulletin?

Facebook or Twitter? CNN email alert?

A friend? Here on campus, students studying for finals in the library broke out into chants of USA, USA, USA, and also sang the national anthem after hearing the news.

Gary Rubin Printed newspaper, believe it or not...

Paige Prigel an Afghan jeweler on an ISAF base :-) Cris Edward Johnson White House app alert Katie Briggs Freeman Morning news, local NBC affiliate (DC). Took me back to my Manchester semester in ’01.

Jessie Solcz A bunch of the London Study Group found out via Facebook about the excitement in the library and joined in with mini “God Bless America” music marathons before our morning finals :) Chris Wilhelm Honestly macabre chants and songs of national pride to celebrate the death of a murderer smacks more of revenge than the justice this event should represent.

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

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

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

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

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

Correction RV Smith was incorrectly mentioned as deceased in the Class of 1958 column in the spring edition of the Scene.

We apologize for the error.

— The editors

News and views for the Colgate community

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work & play 6

Campus scrapbook B

A C

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Students were on “Cloud 9” as they joined rap artist B.o.B. on stage at the spring party weekend concert in Sanford Field House. Photo by Ashlee Eve ’14

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As the semester wound down, students put their heads together to finish papers and projects. Photo by Andrew Daddio

C

These hips don’t lie. The Bellydancing Club shimmied and shook things up at Dancefest. Photo by Phuong Nam Kieu ’11

D

It was “time for a change” — of clothes! — after participating in Holi, the Hindu Festival of Color during which people splash a rainbow of powders on each other to celebrate the advent of spring. Photo by Phuong Nam Kieu ’11

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Geology professor Bruce Selleck ’71 led fellow alumni on a tour of energy collection facilities around Madison County during a Reunion College session on June 3. The tour included stops at wind towers, a shale outcropping, and a natural gas well near Lebanon Reservoir. Photo by Andrew Daddio

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Greeting old friends, introducing the new generation, reliving the glory days, and catching up — that’s what reunion at Colgate is all about. Photo by Andrew Daddio

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Using the human body as a percussion instrument — as well as actual drums and sticks — Step Afrika! combined traditional African dance with African-American stepping and spoken word for two upbeat, sold-out performances at the Palace Theater in March. Photo by Janna Minehart ’13

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From saris to kimonos, students modeled cultural couture at a fashion show that raised funds for the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Photo by Janna Minehart ’13

scene: Summer 2011

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F

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News and views for the Colgate community

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Colgate graduates are well prepared to enter an increasingly media-centric world because of their formidable liberal arts education and mentorship with alumni who are already playing key roles in this digital age. That was one of the messages delivered at the university’s 190th commencement exercises — in person and through a live webcast — by Howard Fineman ’70, editorial director of the Huffington Post Media Group.

The veteran journalist, a wellknown analyst for NBC News and MSNBC and the former deputy Washington bureau chief at Newsweek, provided a “crash course” in journalism to the 698 graduates of the Class of 2011, several of whom were live-tweeting images and impressions during the event in Sanford Field House.

The baccalaureate speaker was Rev. Maria A. Scates, the visionary founder and CEO of Johnson Park Center in Utica, which offers safe and supportive housing for homeless families with special needs, youth programs, mentoring, advocacy, food distribution programs, and community development. While restoring hope and transforming the Cornhill neighborhood since 1995, the center has welcomed Colgate tutors, Upstate Institute interns, and other volunteers.

Both Scates and Fineman received honorary degrees during the com-

mencement ceremony. Other honorary degree recipients were: Irene Brown, founder of both the Community Action Partnership of Madison County and the Lifelong Learning Program; J. Christopher Clifford ’67, outgoing chair of Colgate’s Board of Trustees and a passionate supporter of the university through decades of service; Frans de Waal, author, Emory University professor, and researcher on the social intelligence of primates; Robert H.N. Ho ’56, former Colgate trustee and supporter of the science center that bears his name as well as an endowed Asian studies professorship and an endowment that supports the China study group; and Gen. Thomas R. Morgan ’52, USMC (Ret), Colgate’s most celebrated and highestranking member of the U.S military.

At the senior awards convocation, Kiki Koroshetz was honored with the 1819 Award, the highest honor given to one member of each senior class.

An English major, Koroshetz was cocaptain of the women’s soccer team as well as a Charles A. Dana Scholar, and she earned the distinctions of Phi Beta Kappa and Phi Eta Sigma.

This year’s valedictorian was Jonathan Thomas Joelson of Stamford, Conn., a double major in computer science and mathematics. The salutatorian was Radoslav Svetlozarov Ivanov of Sofia, Bulgaria, a double major in mathematical economics and computer science.

Talking points

Andrew Daddio

work & play

Commencement weekend wrap-up

Rev. Maria A. Scates

“For the foundation of positive change to work in and through your life, you must A) be accountable for your action, B) set clear boundaries, C) be committed and available, and D) stand firm in the decision to be a person who brings positive change.”

— 2011 Baccalaureate speaker Rev. Maria A. Scates, CEO and founder of Johnson Park Center, Utica, N.Y. “Aid can be used well or it can be used poorly; it depends on the priorities of the government.”

— President Jeffrey Herbst, sharing some his research and experience in Africa as part of the Doing Well by Doing Good series “If the past four years that I’ve been here is in any way indicative for the future for LGBTQ students at Colgate, I can honestly say that students will find a safe and caring community here.”

Andrew Daddio

— Ben Pollok ’11 in Colgate’s video that was part of the national suicide prevention program It Gets Better project in support of LGBTQ youth

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scene: Summer 2011

An Evening to Benefit Autism Speaks and The Gillen Brewer School, held in partnership with the National Hockey League in March.

A campus landmark was bathed in blue as part of a worldwide effort to raise awareness about autism when the university participated in the Light It Up Blue campaign initiated

by Autism Speaks. Memorial Chapel joined buildings such as the CN Tower in Toronto and the Empire State Building in New York City to commemorate World Autism Awareness Day on April 2.

Ashlee Eve ’14

Jewish author adds flavor to Faith Week

The campus effort was led by the women’s hockey team and coach Scott Wiley, who together raised approximately $18,000 for autism awareness. Wiley and the team were recognized at the Face-Off for a Cure:

Go figure – Reunion 2011 1,777 attendees 1941 oldest class present 10,278 miles traveled by William ’84

and Erica ’85 Higbie, who came the farthest — from Southbank, Australia

21 colorful tents decorated Whitnall Field

3,638

photos taken by the university photographer, Andrew Daddio

1,106 people stayed on campus 68 classes taught during Reunion College 13 (seriously!) golf carts transported alumni and guests

55 student workers helped the event run smoothly

Having worked as a peace activist in Israel, Merle Feld is well suited to facilitate controversial yet eyeopening discussions. Appearing on campus March 22 as part of Colgate’s annual Faith Week, she met with a different kind of audience than the Palestinian and Israeli women she had been working with, but one no less interested in what she had to say. A self-described writer and teacher, Feld has published a play, a memoir, and most recently, a book of poetry, all of which pertain to her deep connection with her Jewish faith.

For her lunchtime talk at the Women’s Studies Center, she read from her memoir, A Spiritual Life: A Jewish Feminist Journey, and facilitated discussion about issues she addressed in the book, including faith, food, and feminism.

Feld chose a passage about preparing the Sabbath, or Shabbat, meal.

She described her process, emphasizing the interplay between food and prayer, and conveyed the sacredness of the weekly ritual through her careful attention to the details of its preparation. She also reflected on her identity in connection to making the meal, musing on the seeming disconnect between her feminism and domesticity.

“We are often asked, ‘What do you do?,’ indicating the way a paid occupation defines us. I had never thought of myself as a person who made Shabbat, and yet, that is so integral to who I am,” said Feld.

Sammi Steinfeld ’11, a member of the Colgate Jewish Union, said that this was her first Women’s Studies brown bag, and that she attended because of the connection to Jewish life. “That’s the great thing about Faith Week — it ties in these seemingly disparate groups, so organizations can get a new and wider audience than they ordinarily would.”

Additional Faith Week events included a gathering to celebrate Muslim culture and food; a dinner discussion on faith, sexuality, and gender; and group meditation and yoga.

— Kate Hicks ’11

Back on campus In preparation for this year’s commencement address, Howard Fineman ’70, editorial director of the Huffington Post Media Group, surveyed Colgate alumni working in the media to ask for life advice to share with the graduating Class of 2011. Here are some of their nuggets of wisdom: “Nothing is beneath you. To the contrary: accept and excel at everything in front of you, no matter how medial or tedious — and you will excel in life.”

— Jeff Fager ’77, chairman of CBS News “The single most important attribute, and most often ignored, is the ability to listen.”

— Ken Schanzer ’66, COO of NBC Sports “Always pursue your goals with passion and energy. And if things get really tough, call a Colgate friend for a beer.”

— Chase Carey ’76, president, COO, and deputy chairman of News Corporation “If you ever act in a movie, don’t do a nude scene on a cold day.”

— Kevin Heffernan ’90, part of the Broken Lizard comedy group As for one of Fineman’s own pieces of advice: “A Skyped person is not in front of you; Google Earth is not the actual Earth. Talking to people face to face — iris to iris — is indispensible because, sadly, it is increasingly rare; traveling to distant countries and cultures — as you did on your Colgate study groups — is crucial because doing it virtually is way too easy now. You need that third dimension.”

Loveless surprised with endowed scholarship

Although RuthAnn Loveless MA’72 retired from her post as Colgate’s vice president of alumni affairs, her name will forever be remembered at the university. At a dinner in April, Loveless was not only surprised to find a roomful of 170 well wishers, but she was also caught off guard when presented with an endowed scholarship in her name. A steering com-

mittee, led by former vice president for advancement and former Alumni Council president Ron Joyce ’73, had raised $350,000 toward the scholarship, which will give preference to applicants from Madison County.

Loveless retired June 1 after 19 years with the alumni office and 27 years total with the university. Although she expected a “small dinner” at the beginning of a long Alumni Council weekend, Loveless never real-

Heather Ainsworth

Light It Up Blue

News and views for the Colgate community

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Heather Ainsworth

The temporary Parkside Gallery in Hamilton

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scene: Summer 2011

“Every day, I’ve been able to interact with incredible alumni who are so committed to this special institution,” she said. “What could be better?”

Out with the old, Inn with the new

In April, the revamped Colgate Inn opened its doors for the first time since November 2010. The extent of the renovation effort reflects both the venue’s civic importance as well as the structural needs of the building itself, which hadn’t been addressed comprehensively in many years.

Every one of the inn’s guest rooms has been updated, and six new suites have been created, complete with luxurious bathrooms large enough for soaking tubs and walk-in showers.

Three suites feature balconies that can be accessed through French doors.

Downstairs, the tap room has been moved from the back of the building to the front along Payne and Madison streets, creating a vibrant corner with an outdoor seating area. To serve guest rooms and social spaces more

Goodwill took flight at the Hamilton Public Library when several volunteers made paper cranes in support of victims of Japan’s catastrophic earthquake Village Green in March. At Massage for Japan, a two-week fundraiser in May, people could donate a dollar to write their names on the cranes, which became a growing sculpture wall. Children could donate 25 cents to make their own origami or learn to write their names in Japanese on coasters. Chikako Ikeguchi, wife of Colgate

Maureen McKinnon

work & play

ized that the room would be packed with council members past and present, wishing to recognize her efforts on their behalf.

“For thousands of alumni, RuthAnn is their lifeline to Colgate. When she is in the room, you’re at Colgate, and that’s one of the many reasons why we’ve come together to celebrate her tonight,” said council president Gus Coldebella ’91.

President Jeffrey Herbst, who traveled around the world with Loveless during his inaugural tour, spoke of her profound impact on the alumni community and, by extension, the university itself.

Loveless came to her position by way of the Center for Career Services and the advancement office, where she worked for eight years prior to heading up the alumni office. While serving the university, she also built her family and carved a presence in the broader Hamilton community, holding positions on the Hamilton Central School board and with other local organizations.

efficiently, the kitchen was relocated to the center of the first floor.

The Green Room meeting space can now be joined with the quiet tavern and the tap room to form a single, large reception space.

Visit www.colgateinn.com for details.

Sustainability is second nature In June, Colgate received a Second Nature Climate Leadership Award in the Baccalaureate category from the American College & University

English professor George Hudson, organized the event and used her massage therapist license to raise additional funds. On two Friday evenings, she and six other massage therapists gave massages and reiki therapy to raise funds for the Japan Society, which sends 100 percent of donations straight to victims in Japan. “I was born and raised in Japan,” Ikeguchi said. “When the earthquake hit, even though my family wasn’t from that area specifically, I thought I must do something within my ability.”

Local art lovers and artists joined forces to fill the vacated premises of the former Parkside Deli in May and June, creating the temporary Parkside Gallery.

MAD Art member Jean Deming gathered her artist friends to set up an installation titled “Let It All Hang Out,” which ran from May 12 to June 5. The for-sale artwork on display included sculpture, pottery, watercolor paintings, and an eclectic collection of photographs.

Colgate students and Hamiltonians no longer have to leave town to satisfy their cravings for Indian cuisine.

India Café opened its doors on Broad Street in downtown Hamilton at the end of July. The owners’ third location is open daily for lunch and dinner. New items will be added to the menu every few weeks; lunch specials and a weekend lunch buffet will be offered.

Wine enthusiasts gathered at the Colgate Inn for a tasting and book discussion led by Evan Dawson, the author of Summer in a Glass: The Coming of Age in Winemaking in the Finger Lakes. Each chapter of Dawson’s book is dedicated to a different Finger Lakes vineyard; many of those wines were sampled at the event organized by the Colgate Bookstore.

Welcome aboard!

Ashlee Eve ’14

Happy Birthday, Raider! More than 40 children helped Colgate’s mascot celebrate his eighth birthday on April 30 at the Eaton Street Fields. The party was complete with face painting, a Raider piñata (filled with 8 lbs. of candy), and games.

Kara Bingham joined the Colgate staff as director of international programs on March 1. In addition to overseeing Colgate study groups, Bingham is charged with expanding the services provided to students by the Office of Off-Campus Study and developing new opportunities for study abroad in non-traditional destinations.

Previously, Bingham was director of study abroad at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colo. She holds an MA in intercultural relations from Lesley University.

In July, Debra Townsend joined Colgate as the vice president for communications. In addition to leading the Office of Communications, she will also serve as a strategic communications adviser to President Jeffrey Herbst and other senior administrators.

As the principal of Communications on Demand, a consulting firm based in Loudonville, N.Y., Townsend advised clients including more than 40 educational institutions and an equal number of charitable and health care organizations, corporations, and marketing and consulting firms.

Townsend has assisted her academic clients in developing successful alumni and enrollment management communications plans. On several occasions, she served in an interim role as head of communications at various academic, government, and corporate institutions. Over the years, she has worked with many liberal arts colleges, as well as several large state universities and technical institutes.

Get to know: Gert Neubauer

Andrew Daddio

mental concerns, these efforts give students a number of educational opportunities.

“When an organization like this recognizes our achievements among nearly seven hundred other colleges and universities, it recognizes the tireless efforts of dozens of Colgate students, faculty, and staff over the past year,” Pumilio said.

Now in the process of completing a three- to five-year Sustainability and Climate Action Plan, the university is continuing to explore a number of potential projects to continue reducing its carbon footprint, including switching to a cleaner alternative to fuel oil, reforestation projects, and carpooling incentives, Pumilio explained.

— Monica Dutia ’13

Presidents’ Climate Commitment (ACUPCC). At the organization’s Climate Leadership Summit on June 23 in Washington, D.C., John Pumilio, Colgate’s sustainability coordinator, and Lyle Roelofs, provost and dean of the faculty, accepted the award on the university’s behalf.

The ACUPCC is a network of college and university presidents and chancellors committed to eliminating net greenhouse gas emissions from certain campus operations. Colgate’s former president, Rebecca Chopp, joined 151 other presidents and chancellors in signing the commitment in 2009.

Colgate’s efforts include a significant decrease in campus greenhouse gas emissions between 2009 and 2010, which has saved the university nearly $300,000 in operating costs. In addition, the university has implemented an electronic waste recycling program, a composting program, and a new online rideshare program.

Colgate professors also offer numerous academic courses that focus on sustainability and climate change. In addition to helping address environ-

Deputy Chief of Campus Safety What are your main areas of responsibility? I oversee daily operations — dispatch, ID cards, and whatever the officers are doing, whether it’s building security, complaints, investigations, parking, you name it — plus our 25 student workers.

Do you only wear a uniform for working events? Actually, I always wear a uniform. There was a time when I didn’t, but I got back into it. I’m proud of where I work and of what I do.

How did you find your way into campus safety? I got interested in law enforcement because of my husband, Don. He retired out of the Chenango County’s Sheriff’s department after 29 years. My original thought was to go into the state police, but I got hired here in 1983 and really enjoyed it. This was a job that allowed me to combine law enforcement, security, community policing, and getting to know people. Besides, it’s close to home, and I’m a homebody.

What’s your work philosophy? Whatever the situation might be, it’s: be fair, be consistent, and treat people the way you want to be treated. With the students, I try to remember that we were all that age at one point, and recognize that everybody makes mistakes.

What has been your most memorable moment here? I’ll name a couple. In 1997, when I was promoted to assistant director, I was fairly young, so that was a morale booster. And in 2008, I was the first recipient of the Dean of the College Award for Student Services. That was quite a shocker. I never knew who nominated me.

What’s your favorite spot on campus? I would have to say between Lathrop and Lawrence, during the summer, at five in the morning when the sun’s coming up. I spent 9 or 10 years on the midnight shift, and I’d stop there on patrol. It’s just very soothing, calming, quiet.

What was the most bizarre circumstance you’ve responded to? In the late ’80s when I was still working midnights, we got a call from Stillman Hall that a student was stuck in handcuffs. After trying a couple keys, we had to call maintenance to come with bolt cutters.

We hear you’re from a family of nine. Where are you in the birth order? Dead last, including my twin brother. I like to say that I got tired of him [in the womb] and kicked him out.

What else do you do with your spare time? Walking our 17 acres (we live in Sherburne), maintaining our property, riding my ATV. The last four years, Don and I also maintained the lawn and cemetery at Church of Epiphany. To me, it was giving back to the church that my family’s been in for many years. And we hunt — I always take the first week of deer season off.

And rumor has it you’re a Harley enthusiast. Do you ride with your husband? I am not a rider — I’ve gotta be driving my own bike! I have a Harley Sportster 1200; it’s my therapy. In the summer, you can usually find us at Wednesday Bike Night at Gilligan’s Island [ice cream shop in Sherburne].

— Rebecca Costello

News and views for the Colgate community

11

“Nothing human is foreign to me”

By Jake Kleinman ’07 “I just can’t take it anymore.” Those words, from a 15-year-old Madison County–area high school student, made my heart pound through my chest, and my eyes start to water.

They made what I was doing finally feel real. I had just spent an hour sharing my own trials in coming out to my friends and family and my metamorphosis from a scared-straight college student to an out-and-proud medical student. That this well-spoken young man had opened up to me in front of a crowd in the Colgate Bookstore touched me deeply.

I had been invited back to talk about my chapter in Dan Savage and Terry Miller’s It Gets Better: Coming Out, Overcoming Bullying, and Creating a Life Worth Living. The book’s personal stories — from everyday people like me as well as President Obama, Ellen DeGeneres, and David Sedaris — were compiled from a viral video project launched in response to tragic suicides by lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) teens.

Andrew Daddio

work & play

Passion for the Climb

12

scene: Summer 2011

I’m often asked about my experience at Colgate. The truth is, I was horrified to divulge my sexuality when I discovered it before my junior year. I thought that those close to me would either be upset that I had been lying for so long or “unfriend” me because I was now “the gay kid.”

I remember driving to school to tell my roommates and best friends before I left for my semester abroad in Spain. While, previously, I had been deathly afraid of the speed traps on Route 17, this time I couldn’t make it fast enough. I had prepped my roommates for important “upsetting” news for weeks. When I finally reached the Parker Apartments and divulged my secret, I was shocked that they laughed. When I asked why they were laughing, they responded, “Jake, we thought you had cancer; you being gay is just funny compared to that.” Their reaction, and the acceptance I found in my final two years at Colgate, made me realize that, while I was afraid about others judging me, I was being ignorant about judging others.

Then came medical school. After being accepted to Tulane University School of Medicine, I had to face the fact that I was gay, Jewish, and from the north, attending a medical school in the Deep South. I thought I would be shoved back into the dark closet that I had come so far out of at Colgate.

That was until I met Father Don, Tulane’s medical school chaplain. When I first met him, I was scared away by his black shirt and white collar. Then I heard him speak in a medical ethics course, delivering one of the most important sentences in my life: “Nothing human is foreign to me.”

What does that mean? As humans, we have the ability to understand and respect decisions and actions of all others. We may not always agree, nor may we have done the same, but it is our duty — particularly those of us in professions like medicine, the priesthood, and education — to live a life free of judgment of others, a life of mutual respect and understanding. What I heard was the message that I can use my experiences as a gay person to educate and relate to my patients. Father Don continues to be a mentor for me as well as for my partner, Robert. For the last two years, he has asked me to speak to incoming medical students about the importance of respect and acceptance of diverse patients and peers.

During my talk at the Colgate Bookstore, someone asked me, “How does it feel to be an advocate and activist?” I looked around the room, thinking that question was meant for someone else. While I had been called an advocate before, mainly for my pediatric patients, the word “activist” gave me a visceral reaction. I’ve always thought of activists as people like Harvey Milk and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who gave their lives for their cause — a frightening thought. Once I took a moment to collect myself, I realized that, if helping others and ensuring fair treatment is a form of activism, I would wear that title proudly.

So, as this ninth-grader shared his traumatic story of being bullied after coming out at school, I saw my chance to tangibly help someone, as a tribute to the support that I received while I was at Colgate.

Right then, I made a promise to myself — and, more importantly, to him — that I would no longer stand on the sidelines waiting for times to change, for someone else to step up.

I vowed to work toward the goal that no student will ever feel that he or she is not welcome in school.

Now, I’m working with his school district, setting up diversity and acceptance training for students, faculty, and staff so that all students can feel welcome and accepted there.

They, too, realize we can no longer wait for more teenagers to take their own lives because of senseless bullying.

Had it not been for my family and friends who have given me the support that allowed me to be myself, and the invitation and sponsorship of the Colgate Bookstore and the Office of LGBTQ Initiatives, I would not have been able to tell that young man “it gets better!”

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

On your shelf Whether you’re enjoying family game night, having a midnight snack, or doing laundry, a product you use daily might have been created by a Colgate alumnus.

Chilly citrus John M. Fox ’34 (1912–2003)

Fox’s company, Florida Foods (later Minute Maid), made the first commercial batch of frozen orange juice concentrate in 1946. A branding maven, Fox later put the ubiquitous blue sticker on Chiquita bananas.

Wash & wear Harold Selmer Jensen ’34 (1912–2003)

A research chemist, Jensen held several patents for household products including Woolite, the go-to detergent for delicates, as well as Griffin shoe polish.

Creamy delights Bennett Cohen ’73

Cohen and his childhood friend co-founded Ben & Jerry’s in 1978 — they invested $12,000 to open a scoop shop in a renovated gas station in Burlington, Vt.

Genius edition Ed Werner ’71 and John Haney ’70

These friends were among the four creators of Trivial Pursuit, which Time magazine once deemed “the biggest phenomenon in game history.”

Healthy hydration Darius Bikoff ’83

After a New York City water scare in the early 1990s, Bikoff founded Energy Brands in 1996 to create the nutrient-enhanced beverages Vitaminwater and Smartwater as alternatives to tap and spring water.

13 Page 13 is the showplace

for Colgate tradition, history, and school spirit.

scene: Summer 2011

Dick Broussard

life of the mind 14

Documenting Colgate’s past

This spring, students in History 200 not only got a lesson on Colgate’s past, but they also learned how to use new media to portray the days of yore.

In parallel classes taught by professors Alan Cooper and Rob Nemes, the students made brief history documentaries on Colgate topics of choice. The videos explored such subjects as the university becoming coed, the evolution of the Konosioni honor society, and the 1970s student protests against bulldozing Hascall Hall (“Old Bio”).

The project started with conducting research in the archives, assisted by university archivist Sarah Keen, who laid out sample materials including photographs, yearbooks, and letters to give students an idea of what was available.

Carefully combing through the belly of the archives was a good exercise for potential history majors, Cooper explained. “It’s not a matter of getting on the Internet, cutting and pasting, and cobbling it together,” he said. “You really have to systematically work through a vast quantity of stuff, and it’s good to know how to do that.

It’s a different level of seriousness.”

Some students, like Travis Larrison ’13, also interviewed alumni for the project. For the video he produced with partner Alexander Hong ’13 about the student protests over the administration’s proposal to demolish Hascall Hall, Larrison spoke with Dean Wise ’76. “Dean was one of the leading student supporters of Hascall Hall, and he provided me with a bevy of information,” Larrison said.

For the backbone of each video, the students narrated scripts that they prepared. Once the narration was in place, they could focus on the visual and audio details needed to create a film. Sarah Kunze, instructional technology analyst, helped the students work with the editing software Final Cut Pro to compose their videos.

After creating their videos, students wrote a 10-page research paper — something that Cooper said was made easier because they had to identify the heart of their stories when writing succinct scripts. “They learned all the skills that we try to teach in an ordinary history class: have a hook, know your argument, and get right to the point,” he said.

“It’s one thing to learn about history through journal articles and books, but it is entirely different — and much more exciting — to learn about history by doing the investigating yourself,” said Larrison.

Watch the videos at http://www. youtube.com/user/cu13video

Researching NHL relocations

An independent study project that student-athlete Wade Poplawski ’11 worked on with economics professor Michael O’Hara has turned out to have timely implications. Poplawski, an economics major and a member of the university’s hockey team, had approached O’Hara — his adviser and a Raiders fan who attends every home hockey game — about his interest in examining the best prospective locations for teams in the National Hockey League (NHL). The research project led to a co-authored paper that is being finalized for submission but has already drawn interest from The Hockey News magazine, for which both Poplawski and O’Hara were interviewed.

“It was exciting that I was able to use some of the information and econometric techniques that I learned at Colgate and apply it to a real-world scenario, and to add to the existing literature in the field of sports economics,” Poplawski said.

The Colgate researchers examined the factors that make a location most fitting for an NHL team. At the time of their research, rumors were circulat-

ing of a possible relocation of either the Atlanta Thrashers or the Phoenix Coyotes to Winnipeg, Canada, because both teams at the time had the lowest potential to generate revenue. As a native of Winnipeg, Poplawski was curious to study the prospects of an NHL team moving to his hometown.

The research model that Poplawski and O’Hara employed showed that Winnipeg would be a good market for a team under the current NHL structure, and that, out of all the teams in the league, either a Thrashers or a Coyotes move to Winnipeg would make the most sense economically.

The Coyotes were considered the favorite to relocate, especially because the team had been a longstanding franchise in Winnipeg before moving to the Southwest in 1997. But after months of speculation, True North Sports and Entertainment formally announced at the end of May that it would purchase the Thrashers and move the team north.

O’Hara said he enjoyed studying the economics of professional sports, a field he had not previously explored.

He was quick to add that, despite both of their personal interests, they were careful to let the data stand on its own merits.

— Monica Dutia ’13

Faculty laurels

The following members of the faculty were recently recognized with new appointments.

Chemistry professor Ernest Nolen was named a Presidential Scholar for July 1, 2011, through June 30, 2014. One of the organic chemist’s numerous grants allowed Colgate to acquire a high field nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometer. Nolen teaches a range of courses including a First-Year Seminar called Juggling Science and Judeo-Christian Thought (he is an accomplished juggler).

Roger Rowlett, also in chemistry, has been named the Gordon and Dorothy Kline Professor of chemistry.

Rowlett focuses his research on enzymology (the isolation, purification, and characterization of enzymes, especially experimental kinetics) and protein engineering (the specific alteration of enzyme structure and function using recombinant DNA methods).

English professor Phillip Richards has been appointed to the Arnold A. Sio Chair in Diversity and Community in the Department of English for July 1,

Jennifer Cooney Vulpas

Arnold A. Sio Chair in Diversity and Community

2011, through June 30, 2013. Richards’s research interests include Puritan and evangelical traditions in American and African-American culture, and African-American literature and intellectual history.

Maura Tumulty, in the Department of Philosophy, received continuous tenure and promotion to associate professor. Her specialties include philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, and feminism in philosophy.

Those promoted to full professor include Maureen Hays-Mitchell, Department of Geography, as well as Anne Kebabian and Michael Poulin, in the University Libraries.

Hays-Mitchell’s scholarly interests lie “principally in the gendered dimensions of economic development in Latin America,” where she has conducted grassroots fieldwork for the past 20 years.

Kebabian’s work centers on providing the means to discover and use library resources of all types through the Colgate libraries’ online catalog.

As head of digital initiatives and resources, Poulin focuses on reorganizing the management of all library digital resources that support the curriculum as well as users both on and off campus.

Seniors’ sabermetrics savvy

An independent study project by two seniors that examined Major League Baseball’s collective bargaining agreement has helped fuel the debate over the labor pact and led to several requests for the student researchers to

make conference presentations.

Ethan Levitt ’11 and Harry Raymond ’11 teamed up to study two of the most controversial parts of the current agreement: the revenue-sharing program and the draft pick–free agent compensation system. Utilizing sabermetrics, a field of advanced statistical analysis of baseball, Levitt and Raymond worked with physics professor Ken Segall in compiling data, creating and testing various models, and ultimately writing papers analyzing their results.

Levitt, a mathematical economics major, found that the revenue-sharing program, which redistributes local revenue from the large-market teams to the smaller ones in order to theoretically create competitive balance, creates a disincentive for smallmarket teams to spend money on team payroll. Using a model based on three expectedly positive relationships (payroll spending and winning, winning and attendance, and attendance and team revenue), Levitt deduced that several underlying factors were damaging these positive relationships for the teams they were designed to benefit.

Raymond, a political science major, noticed that the correlation between payroll spending and winning has been decreasing steadily over the past decade. Because this is the relationship that the revenue-sharing program focuses on, he decided to explore why this was occurring. He found that the current system of rewarding teams that lose free agents with premium draft picks was outdated. Raymond used sabermetric statistics to quantify in a more definitive way the relationship between the value of free agents and corresponding draft picks in terms of wins. His findings suggested that the current system significantly overcompensates teams that lose a player to free agency, which encourages teams to spend less money on free agents and focus more on developing young players.

Both papers written by the seniors were featured in the conference proceedings of the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference sponsored by ESPN. The authors also presented at the National Undergraduate Research Conference in Ithaca, and they pre-

sented at the Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture at the National Baseball Hall of Fame in June. Front-office personnel from the Tampa Bay Rays have reached out to the students to discuss their findings, as have officials with the NBA’s Houston Rockets.

Both Levitt and Raymond hope that owners and players will avoid a player lockout, and reach a new agreement before the current pact expires in December.

Live and learn

Two retire from faculty

On April 29, I was one of the million people who filled the streets outside Westminster Abbey for the extravaganza that was Prince William and Kate Middleton’s royal wedding. But rather than just a fan, I was a working journalist, braving the hordes to seek quotes, colorful anecdotes, and factoids.

As part of the London Economics Study Group, I spent three weeks interning at the Associated Press with European news supervisor Sheila Norman-Culp ’80. I spent my first day on the job — the Tuesday before the wedding — outside Westminster Abbey, interviewing fans already camped out in the cold. I snagged the story of the morning when I got a few words with John Loughrey, a selfproclaimed royal “super-fan.” Loughrey was the first to stake out a front-row seat for the big occasion and told me the day would be “fantastic for everyone.”

On Friday, I reported the latest news to anxious editors: Was that a smile on Victoria Beckham’s face? What shade of yellow is the queen wearing? Can we get a hold of dress designer Sarah Burton?

These were buzzing questions that needed answers quickly. It was a busy start to the day, to say the least.

The story didn’t end when the newlyweds exited the abbey. At one of 800 street parties in London, I spoke with locals who believed the wedding was a great way for people of all nationalities to come together ... and have a few pints before noon.

The wedding was watched across the globe, so I had a feeling my hard work would be seen back home. The AP is the world’s oldest news agency, with a daily estimated audience of two billion people.

At the end of a long day, I was proud to see my name on a contributor’s byline.

Longtime professors Peter Sheridan and Marilyn Thie were both recognized at the awards convocation during commencement weekend for achieving emeritus status.

Sheridan joined the chemistry faculty in 1980. As his citation read, “He pursued research projects in the area of thermal and photoinduced reactions of coordination compounds; his teaching in the areas of inorganic chemistry, general chemistry, and energy issues was superb; and he led the inaugural study group to Cardiff, Wales.” Sheridan served his profession as chief faculty consultant to the Advanced Placement Chemistry Program and as a member of the Advanced Placement Test Development Committee.

Thie, who will officially retire on December 31, joined the Colgate faculty in 1974. In her scholarship and teaching, she integrated American philosophy and feminist philosophy of religion in path-breaking ways.

Winner of four teaching awards and holder of the Christian A. Johnson Chair in Liberal Arts Studies, she combined learning with service.

Thie introduced Colgate’s first Latin American study abroad program, co-founded and directed the Women’s Studies Program, led efforts to launch the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Studies minor, and oversaw the revision of the core curriculum. Her citation noted that “her commitment to social, economic, and gender justice, and her willingness to speak truth to power, have continuously renewed her own pedagogy and shaped Colgate itself.” As she leaves Colgate, Thie assumes elected office in the Sisters of Charity of Saint Elizabeth.

—Caroline Morrow ’12 (above, right, with Sheila Norman-Culp ’80)

News and views for the Colgate community

15

Students performed They Say Her Name is Alice in Brehmer Theater before taking the show on the road.

Like Alice in Wonderland, seven theater students went down the rabbit hole and came through with a different perspective after participating in the spring Children’s Theater Workshop. Directed by April Sweeney, assistant professor of English in the University Theater, the class presented They Say Her Name is Alice, inspired

by Lewis Carroll’s beloved novel.

After two shows at Colgate’s Brehmer Theater, the troupe took to the road and delivered four performances for children in upstate New York. From writing the script to acting to unloading the bus and setting up the stage, the students collaborated on every aspect of the play. On top of their theatrical duties, the group cooked and cleaned for each other in the cabin where they stayed.

Sweeney started fostering a close group dynamic from the beginning with one of the first assignments: to come in with two special talents. “The class sees the person in front of them as vulnerable and doing something that they most likely did as a child,” she said. “It’s an entryway into the soul of that person.” Like all of the class assignments, those special talents were woven into the production.

For example, Alex Heller ’13, a native of Toronto, speaks Quebecois French, so in one of his roles as the White Rabbit, he translated for the French king.

and listened and communicated. It was the last time they were ever going to do the play, so they took a lot of risks.”

Uhlig agreed: “We learned a lot about our characters through the trip, and that was a great culmination.”

Two alumnae also worked on the production: Kat Yen ’09 was stage manager, and Rachel Vining ’07 made all of the masks and objects.

Making a cameo for the Hamilton shows was 11-year-old Georgina Godfrey, daughter of art professor Dewitt Godfrey. Dressed like a mirror image of Laura Uhlig ’14, who played Alice, Georgina faked out the audience as a young Alice in the opening and closing scenes. She also gave students their first taste of what’s it’s like to perform for children, who can be both the toughest and easiest audience at the same time, Sweeney explained.

“Children don’t lie,” she said. In rehearsal, Georgina “would tell us that a part was boring or ask us why we were doing something, so she put the students on guard,” Sweeney added.

With the children in the audience seated on the croquet grass of the set, the actors interacted with them during the play: when the Mad Hatter first came out, he put hats on all of them, and there was a scene in which one was “kidnapped.”

The performance venues were as varied as the Mad Hatter’s moods — including a two-room schoolhouse in the woods, a community center, a large gym for a K-12 school, and a theater in the Adirondacks. The last, at the Pendragon Theatre in Saranac Lake, was the best, said Sweeney. “The troupe really played with each other

Protecting cultural property

Ashlee Eve ’14

arts & culture

Down the rabbit hole

16

scene: Summer 2011

The damage inflicted on Egypt’s museums and monuments during the recent chaos in Cairo, the destruction of Afghanistan’s heritage sites in the Afghan war, and the selling of Nazi plunder — issues of cultural property in times of conflict are ever present.

Carolyn Guile, assistant professor of art and art history, has been researching the destruction and protection of cultural property during times of armed conflict, specifically in Poland, since her time as a graduate student at Princeton University. At the end of March, she brought together other Colgate professors and scholars from U.S. universities for an interdisciplinary look at cultural property worldwide. Derek Gillman, director of the Barnes Foundation and president of the International Cultural Property Society, was the keynote speaker.

The two-day forum, Form and Content: A Symposium on Cultural Property, kicked off with a screening of The Rape of Europa, a film about the deliberate destruction and looting of Europe’s art during World War II. The symposium continued the following day with paper sessions and discussions in Little Hall’s Golden Auditorium.

“Cultural property is an extension of ourselves,” Guile said. “I want to understand that relationship between who we are as societies and individuals as expressed through cultural property, by which I mean the built environment, the arts, and intangible property; and what happens when cultural property is altered and reinterpreted according to historical and political circumstances.”

Participants explored the link between cultural property and human rights, in addition to the efficacy of the legislation addressing these issues — specifically the 1954 Hague Convention. “In World War II, the Bosnian War, and the Armenian Genocide, for example, we saw the deliberate destruction of cultural property as an extension of the targeted eradication of human beings. Buildings and monuments embody and represent

culture. One way to degrade a culture is to dismantle its cultural property,” Guile explained.

The forum was an extension of Guile’s Borderlands course, an upperlevel seminar that studies early modern art and architecture in Europe’s eastern-most frontier. After attending forum sessions, her students participated in rigorous discussion and wrote papers based on what they found most compelling.

Student involvement also included co-sponsorship by STAND, Colgate’s chapter of a nationwide student genocide prevention organization.

“It is rare that we, as students, are active participants in a discussion at such a high, professional level,” said Courtney Diamond ’12, who assisted Guile with the planning and organizing. “The issues and opinions posited during the forum allowed us to gain a deeper level of understanding about the issue of cultural property.”

Seniors’ swan song

This year’s senior art projects explored concepts of dreams, societal constructions, human excess, capitalism, and just plain having fun. From recycled material to video, students used a range of media to express themselves in their final works at Colgate.

Lamont Sonds asks “Where U Goin’?” in the title of his sculpture that represents struggle and a desire to escape. “The figure is trying to get away from the wall, constrained by metal plates,” Sonds explained. “The internal struggle is evidenced by the cracks, abrasions, breaks, and crevices of wood and metal. I want the viewer to feel what the figure feels — that struggle is associated with strenuous activity, that struggle comes at the expense of some type of energy.”

Julie Caroline Barraza’s interest in the portrayal of the female body in contemporary popular culture fueled her to focus on the visual power of a woman’s silhouette in Digital Vitality and Megapixel Persuasion: Digital Heroines. “The digital nature of these images achieves a delicately balanced visual complexity that exudes energy and confidence but also maintains an air of mystery,” Barraza explained.

Amandine Kaya explained her piece (On Endless Discourse. On Progress.) with a poem: Staircases. / Step by step / they take us. / Where are we going / as we move through time / a change of elevation / from stage to

2011 Senior art projects Top Where U Goin’? (wood, metal, screws; 63"x 32")

by Lamont Sonds ’11 Above Digital Vitality and Megapixel Persuasion: Digital Heroines (1 of 4 digital multimedia prints; 16" x 20")

by Julie Caroline Barraza ’11 Right On Endless Discourse. On Progress. (tissue paper, metal, crochet thread, linen thread, plywood, mirrors, screws, paint; 11'7" x 20")

by Amandine Kaya ’11 Photos by Mark Williams

News and views for the Colgate community

17

arts & culture

stage? / Step by step / are we climbing / or are we descending?

Find a slideshow of all the senior art projects at http://merz.colgate.edu/.

No loss in translation

Seated in the one-room set of Waiting for Godot, audience members were treated to an intimate theater experience in Starr Rink.

Performing a play in a hockey rink might seem absurd, but it actually dovetailed perfectly with the spring production of Waiting for Godot.

Adding another layer of complexity, Samuel Beckett’s absurdist play — originally written in French and translated into English — was performed by famous Russian actors while English supertitles were projected onto a screen above.

University Theater director Adrian Giurgea had directed Waiting for Godot in St. Petersburg, Russia, in January before recreating the professional production in Colgate’s Starr Rink this past April. Calling Godot “the most representative play of the 20th century,” he explained that it takes place in the aftermath of World War II, when “things really didn’t make any sense. The play came out of the sensibility of the postwar human experience — it was not Russian in any way, but we made it Russian,” said Giurgea, who has done most of his professional work in Russia over the last 10 years.

Because no theater on campus could accommodate the 70-foot set, Giurgea and his students “did heroic

work to mount the Russian set in the rink in record time [a little more than a week],” he said. The set was one large, rectangular, wallpapered room with 13 doors and a little stove in the center. The audience was seated in the room with the actors, creating an intimate experience.

“The placing of chairs, being in a closed space with an intriguing décor: all this created a great deal of interest and suspense in what was going to happen,” said audience member John Gullucci, associate professor of romance languages and literatures.

Because many of the well-known actors from the Takoy Theatre Company are professors at theater academies in St. Petersburg, they also led workshops with Colgate theater majors during their stay.

Ming Peiffer ’11, who worked backstage as a crew member, said she thought it was an amazing opportunity to observe the professional actors.

“I don’t speak Russian; however, the actors were so clear and focused in their performances that you were able to understand the action of the scene despite the language barrier.”

An unexpected hiccup provided an additional learning experience: when some of the Russian stage hands were not granted visas at the last minute, students had to fill those roles. Even former theater major Kat Yen ’09 was

Preview

An Architect’s Vision Picker Art Gallery August 30–October 7 When Colgate’s Creative Arts Center was designed by preeminent architect Paul Rudolph in the mid-1960s, it was conceived as a two-phase project.

Dana, as we know the building today, represents only Phase I; Phase II was never executed. As a result, our campus is home to an extraordinary — if controversial — building, many of whose peculiarities may be best appreciated when we understand the full original concept.

This exhibition of drawings, prints, and models will illuminate a fascinating moment in the history of Colgate’s campus and offer a glimpse into the mind of one of the great architectural visionaries of postwar America.

A second, concurrent exhibition will feature 24 images by Brooklynbased photographer Chris Mottalini, who documented three Rudolphdesigned homes just prior to their demolition.

Heather Ainsworth

8

18

scene: Summer 2011

For information on other arts events, visit www.colgate.edu/arts

hired as the stage manager.

“All the challenges only reminded me of the remarkable spirit of theater,” said Yen.

Finding beauty in decay

Trickling streams, jutting mountains, and coastline scenes appear in watercolor paintings by Robin Jaycox ’53, MA’57. But it’s decadent barns — specifically those on Route 20 — that have become the longtime Hamilton resident’s trademark work.

As Colgate’s director of student aid for 35 years, Jaycox often traveled that route back and forth between Hamilton and Albany. “One day, I counted forty barns that were no longer there or were in such a state of disrepair that they could no longer be used anymore,” he said. Jaycox is able to show the beauty in these crumbling structures as well as make a statement.

Although he’s been an artist for “as long as I can remember,” it wasn’t until he retired from the university in 1993 that he was able to fully devote himself to his art.

Jaycox’s palette isn’t as muted as that of his inspiration, Andrew Wyeth, but he does tend to prefer earth tones.

As a member of six local art associations, Jaycox shows his paintings at area galleries like the Arts Center of Old Forge, where he exhibited some of his work in July. Also, look for his paintings next time you’re in one of Hamilton’s downtown galleries.

A window into African homes

Ornate doors from Nigeria, serving utensils from Côte d’Ivoire, and

800-year-old wood-carved headrests from Mali are just a few examples of the pieces that were on view in the spring exhibition African House and Home. Drawing from its own extensive collection of African art, the Longyear Museum of Anthropology displayed the array of architectural sculptures

Warren Wheeler

Andrew Daddio

Hamilton artist Robin Jaycox ’53, MA’57, with his painting Route 20 Decadence

and home furnishings from February until June.

“The focus of this exhibition is permanent African architecture in which the owner has invested time, labor, and expense in order to create a home that will testify to his wealth, good taste, and standing in his community,” explained senior curator Carol Ann Lorenz. “To beautify one’s home is a gift to the community, because to make a beautiful façade increases the stature of the entire community as well as the homeowner.”

There were some exceptions to the theme of permanent architecture: African House and Home also included items from Saharan semi-nomadic herders, like leatherwork and decorative tent posts from the Saharan Tuareg.

In addition, not all of the pieces came from elite homes. Representing a male initiation system shared among many central African groups was a polychrome panel that is believed to be an element of the richly colorful initiation house, kikaku, of the Congolese Nkanu people.

Although the architectural objects were from different eras and various parts of Africa, common images emerged: the human body, deities, and symbolic animals.

In Lorenz’s African Art course this past semester, students created a companion exhibition, featuring images showing the architectural pieces in context.

Case Library staff members helped by reserving a study room with African architecture books in which students could pick out the images. Launching at the same time as African House and Home, the students’ own exhibition gave them the opportunity to speak about their findings at an opening reception.

Colgate’s collection of African art is also used in educational programs for local school children and loaned out to central New York museums. “We are so lucky to have that here at Colgate,” Lorenz said. “We are a resource for the whole area — including the MunsonWilliams-Proctor [Utica], the Everson [Syracuse], and the Fenimore [Cooperstown] museums.”

Open mic The Rumor That The Girls At 124 Brunnerdale Go Skinny Dipping The girls go swimming in bathing suits the color of skin.

The boys jump after them, splashing at these supposed angels, making water droplet designs on their shiny, polyester bikinis.

The mothers do not care their daughters look naked.

They are busy watching the bobbing of the boys and smoking, returning to when they were those girls, sharing cigarettes behind the shed near the pool.

They cry into the lapels of their husbands tonight and go to bed with mascara circles.

Watch the yellowing and curling of the wallpaper, feel the weight of the smoking habit their husbands do not suspect until the smell works into their leather briefcases.

There are parties where the shrieking of the children and the firecrackers do not drown out rustling in unfamiliar beds, heavy anxious breathing and the incessant smoothing of skirts.

By Katherine Rice ’13, first published in The Colgate Portfolio XXIII literary/art magazine

A door from the Senufo tribe in Côte d’Ivoire

News and views for the Colgate community

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go ’gate

Langel new leader of men’s basketball

In April, the men’s basketball program welcomed Matt Langel as head coach.

Langel comes to Hamilton after serving as an assistant coach at Temple University under the tutelage of Fran Dunphy, who was recently named the Eastern College Coach of the Year after guiding the Owls to their fourthstraight NCAA Tournament.

Langel was also a two-year member of Dunphy’s University of Pennsylvania staff. There, Langel helped guide his alma mater to two consecutive Ivy League Championships. A 2000 graduate of Penn’s Wharton School of Business, Langel helped lead the Quakers to two Ivy League titles and NCAA Tournament appearances during his four-year playing career (1996–2000).

The Quakers went 27-1 in Ivy League action during his junior and senior campaigns and sported a 42-14 overall record. Langel was named Ivy League and Big Five Player of the Week numerous times and received the Big Five’s Most Improved Player Award.

He was also named to the Holiday Festival All-Tournament team (1998) and the University of California Golden Bear Holiday Classic All-Tournament Team (1999).

Langel etched his name in the Penn record books in several differ-

ent categories. He is a member of the 1,000-point club with 1,191 points. In all-time Penn basketball history, he stands second in three-pointers made in a game with eight; is eighth in three-pointers made in a season with 70; and fourth in career three-pointers made with 201.

After taking over that NCAA Division II program in 2002, she coached seven All-Sunshine State Conference selections, the 2004 SSC Freshman of the Year, and three other all-freshman picks.

The Monroe City, Mo., native served as an assistant coach at Nicholls State University from 2000 to 2002 and was the first head coach at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy during the 1999–2000 season.

As a student-athlete, Hays Fort was a two-sport letter winner in basketball and softball at Truman State University (Mo.) before finishing her education at Culver-Stockton College (Mo.).

Hays Fort named women’s basketball coach

The women’s basketball team brought on Nicci Hays Fort as the new head coach. She comes to campus after five years at DePaul University as an assistant coach and associate head coach, helping the Blue Demons to a No. 9 national ranking in the final polls of the 2010–2011 season.

Hays Fort honed her skills working with legendary coach Doug Bruno, who was recently selected to assist the 2011 USA Basketball Women’s National Team. She helped guide the Blue Demons to five NCAA Tournaments and a combined 112-54 record.

Last season, DePaul advanced to the Sweet 16 for the second time in program history. The team finished 29-7 overall (the most wins by any team in DePaul’s history) and ranked in the top 10 of the national polls.

Before joining the staff at DePaul, Hays Fort served as the head coach at Barry University in Miami Shores, Fla.

Larkin gains gold at IIHF World Championships

As the youngest player on Team Italy, Thomas Larkin ’13 helped score the gold medal at the 2011 International Ice Hockey Federation Division IA World Championships in overtime with a 4-3 win over Hungary on April 23.

Italy held on for the win in overtime after giving up a 3-1 lead. Larkin had one shot and a minus-1 rating in the win.

One of two ECAC and U.S. hockey players in the tournament, Larkin is the first Italian-trained NHL draft pick.

He finished the tournament (his firstever international event) with a goal on five shots and a plus-1 rating. He netted his first international goal in a 6-0 win over South Korea during pool play, which came as a shorthanded goal.

With this win, Team Italy will jump up to the top division of the next tournament and will compete against the likes of the United States, Canada, and Russia in the summer of 2012.

In the April 23 game against Bucknell, Colgate’s seniors scored five of the lacrosse team’s seven goals — including a goal and two assists by Andrew Mould ’11 (#16) — in their final home game. Unfortunately, a second-half setback gave way to a loss to the Bison 12-7. The team ended its season on a high note, beating the University of Maryland for the first time in the program’s history, on the Terps’ turf in May, and closing with an 11-5 overall record.

Bob Cornell

Swimming Coaches Association honors Roach

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Director of Athletics David Roach is the 2011 recipient of the Daktronics’ Ben Franklin Award, given by the College Swimming Coaches Association of America. The award is presented to the individual or organization whose efforts best promote the integrity and enhancement of the student-athlete ideal.

“The sport of swimming has always been near and dear to my heart,” said Roach. “It’s something that shaped my career. To be remembered by my peers and fellow swim coaches is an honor.”

Day and Brisebois make AHL debuts

Two graduating hockey players made their professional debuts once Colgate’s season ended.

Brian Day ’11, a draft pick of the New York Islanders, played 10 games with the Bridgeport Sound Tigers (the Islanders’ AHL affiliate) after signing an amateur tryout contract.

Day had a successful tryout with two goals and three assists for five points in the 10 games. He scored one of his two goals in his first professional game in a 5-1 win over the Portland Pirates. In his next game, he recorded a Gordie Howe Hat Trick, which includes a goal, an assist, and engaging in a fight, when they played against the Connecticut Whales.

The Sound Tigers didn’t make the playoffs, so Day’s season came to an end prior to Colgate’s graduation, but the senior has a good chance at signing a contract after his performance in those 10 games.

Francois Brisebois ’11 also signed an amateur contract, with the Binghamton Senators. He played three games for the Ottawa Senators’ affiliate.

Get to know: Kathy Brawn

13 teams honored by NCAA

Thirteen Colgate athletics teams were honored by the NCAA with a Public Recognition Award for their latest Academic Progress Rate (APR) scores.

These awards are part of a broad effort by the Division I to enact academic reform. Among the Colgate men’s teams recognized were basketball, ice hockey, golf, lacrosse, soccer, indoor track, and outdoor track; the women’s teams included cross country, rowing, swimming and diving, indoor track, outdoor track, and volleyball.

These teams posted multi-year APR scores in the top 10 percent of all squads in their respective sports.

High-performing teams receiving awards posted APR scores ranging from 978 to a perfect 1,000.

The APR provides a current look at a team’s academic success each semester by tracking the academic progress of each student-athlete on scholarship. The APR accounts for eligibility, retention, and graduation and provides a measure of each team’s academic performance.

Andrew Daddio

Roach spent eight years (1978– 1986) at Brown University as the women’s swimming coach, taking the Bears into the national spotlight through conference championships in 1983, 1984, and 1985. As head coach at the University of Tennessee, his women’s swimming teams won 85 percent of their meets and improved from 39th to 4th at the NCAA Division I Championship. Roach was twice named SEC Coach of the Year.

— Head Coach of Women’s Soccer since 1991 — Hometown: Franklin Lakes, N.J. — Among the winningest coaches in NCAA Division I women’s soccer history; 11 Patriot League Championships, 3 ECAC Championships, 5 NCAA Tournament appearances

What was your first job? When I was only 15 years old, I worked as a photographer for the local newspaper. In college, I was a photographer for Hubert Birkenmeier, goalkeeper for the New York Cosmos, when they were playing at the Meadowlands and drawing 60,000 people to a game. That gave me amazing access to the soccer world, which was relatively new back then.

What was your first soccer-playing experience? I didn’t start until I was about 13. I think the statute of limitations is up on this… My younger sister’s team didn’t have enough players for a game. They asked me if I would play, but I needed a player pass. The girl I looked the most like on her pass photo was Peggy Connelly, so I was Peggy Connelly for the game.

For all the news of the spring sports season, visit gocolgateraiders.com

How did you get into coaching? When I was 15, a woman in town asked me to help coach her daughters’ team. I enjoyed it, and started coaching my own teams. When I was 18, I started my own camp, and it just took off from there. In college, I coached high school teams, club teams, and in the Olympic development program. My first foray into coaching at the college level was when I got a phone call from the Yale coach, who was looking for an assistant.

In a twin bill against the University at Albany in early April, Colgate took game one 7-1, but the Raiders lost the nightcap to the Great Danes 8-0. The women’s softball team finished its season as the 2011 Patriot League regular-season champion and reached the championship game of the tournament — hosted by Colgate for the first time in school history — for the second-straight season.

Is there a certain drill you love to work your players through? I like drills that revolve around goal scoring and goal tending. I think you get people’s rawest emotions at either end of the field. When you focus on attacking or defending and bring them together, you can see that coming out in a game. Even when I go to watch games, a lot of people like to be right up at midfield, because you can see everything, but I tend to gravitate to one end of the field or another, just off center. I’m a little off-center anyway, so that’s probably very fitting!

Do you have any rituals or superstitions? I have a couple from when I played. My shoelaces are never twisted. To this day, I never step on the lines on the field. And when the national anthem is playing, I always dedicate the game to somebody important to me.

What’s the most treasured thing in your office? All these photographs elicit memories.

See this black-and-white picture of my first recruiting class? One of the players, Susan Meyercord [’96], actually called me recently. We got to catch up about almost everybody in her class; they’re all in touch with one another. Trophies are great, but it’s about the people.

Bob Cornell

Your gumball machine’s a curiosity. I go to antique auctions — I collect things that draw my eye or have a sense of whimsy. They were auctioning off two machines, neither one of which was in great shape, but I morphed them into one decent one.

Do you have any hidden talents? I don’t know if it’s a talent, but I can write backward in script. When I go into Maxwell’s downtown, I’ll write stuff in the guest book backward like, “Have a wonderful time today!”

—Rebecca Costello

News and views for the Colgate community

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new, noted , & quoted

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

Eat Your Breakfast or Else!

Jackie Jafarian Broad ’90 (with recipes

by Lauren Braun Costello ’98) (Three Puppies Press) In Jackie Jafarian Broad’s second children’s book, Jared is a little boy who would rather play with his rockets than eat his breakfast.

His grandma warns him that it is important to refuel every morning or he could lose power, but it isn’t until a harrowing journey to Mars that Jared finally understands. Included are chef Lauren Braun Costello’s fun and healthy pancake recipes. Eat Your Breakfast or Else! is a recipient of the Mom’s Choice Award.

Things Are Getting Better

Luther Hughes & the CannonballColtrane Project (Primrose Lane Music) Colgate’s music department chair, Glenn Cashman, completes the five-piece ensemble of the LA group Luther Hughes & the Cannonball-Coltrane Project, who recently released their fourth album, Things Are Getting Better. Cashman played tenor saxophone and composed four selections for the group’s latest CD. Bassist Luther Hughes initially formed the group as an homage to revered jazz saxophonists Julian “Cannonball” Adderley and John Coltrane. With 12 songs and more than 70 minutes of music, Things Are Getting Better peaked at #2 on the Jazz Week national radio airplay charts.

The Philosophy of the Western Edited by B. Steve Csaki ’89 and Jennifer L. McMahon (The University Press of Kentucky)

The Philosophy of the Western examines philosophical themes in the western film genre, revealing the influence

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of the western on the American psyche. Investigating subjects tHe pHilosopHy of nature, ethics, oF tHe identity, gender, environmentalism, and animal JenniFer l. McMaHon and b. steve Csaki rights, the essays draw from a wide range of westerns including the recent popular and critical successes Unforgiven, 3:10 to Yuma, and No Country for Old Men, as well as literature and television series such as Deadwood.

WESTERN edited by

Domestic Broils: Shakers, Antebellum Marriage, and the Narratives of Mary and Joseph Dyer

Edited with an introduction by Elizabeth A. De Wolfe ’83 (University of Massachusetts Press) In 1813, Joseph Dyer, his wife, Mary, and their five children joined the Shaker community in Enfield, N.H. Joseph quickly adapted to the Shaker way of life, but Mary chafed under its strictures and eventually left the community two years later. When the local elders and her husband refused to release the couple’s children to Mary, she embarked on what would become a 50-year campaign against the Shakers, beginning with an 1818 publication. The following year, the Shakers countered by publishing a scathing attack on Mary’s character.

Domestic Broils reproduces the dueling accounts of the Dyers for the first time since their original publication.

Elizabeth De Wolfe, a history professor at the University of New England, introduces the book by placing this marital dispute in a broader historical context.

8 Ways to Great: Peak Performance on the Job and in Your Life Doug Hirschhorn ’94 (Putnam)

In 8 Ways to Great, performance coach and executive trainer Doug Hirschhorn offers practical tools that anyone can use — regardless of profession or personal goals — to

break through self-defeating behaviors and excel.

These are tools that “Dr. Doug” has provided to thousands in his lectures, one-onone coaching, and media appearances including the Today show.

Your Daughter’s Bedroom: Insights for Raising Confident Women Joyce Turcotte McFadden ’84 (Palgrave Macmillan)

Psychoanalyst and mother Joyce Turcotte McFadden is on a mission to help mothers raise their daughters to have healthy views about sexuality. In her new book, McFadden explains how a mother’s insecurities about her own sexual identity can be a detriment to her daughter’s sense of self and how open communication about sexuality is crucial to the development of secure, self-aware women.

Peppered throughout are testimonies from hundreds of women, including Colgate alumnae, who participated in McFadden’s Women’s Realities Study (see p. 52 for more).

The Eternal Sea of Creativity Arthur Rashap ’58 (CreateSpace)

Arthur Rashap’s The Eternal Sea of Creativity includes poems and thoughts about life and love. These views and insights, written over a span of 40 years, reflect a continuing fascination with the question “Why are we here?” The emerging answer relates to a synthesis of religion, quantum physics, experiences with past lives, out-of-body experiences, and dreams. A “renaissance man,” Rashap has had approximately 45 different career experiences.

In the media Take It Like a Mom

Following 9/11: Religion Coverage in the New York Times

Stephanie Johnson Stiles ’89 (NAL Trade)

Christopher Vecsey (Syracuse University Press)

In Stephanie Johnson Stiles’s new novel, Take It Like a Mom, Annie used to be a lawyer who wore dry-clean only and shaved both legs. But things have changed.

Now a stay-at-home mom, she wears cargo pants and ponytails and harbors a nearly pathological hatred toward hipster parents. With a 3-year-old and a baby on the way, Annie knows what to expect … at least, she thought she did. Faced with her husband’s job loss, pre-school politics, and a playground throwdown with her arch nemesis, Annie realizes that even with her husband and friends by her side, what she really needs is to learn to suck it up — and take it like a mom.

BookCase

A selection from the new titles shelf at Case Library • Proxy Warriors: The Rise and Fall of State-Sponsored Militias Ariel Ahram

• Mattaponi Queen: Stories Belle Boggs • Heat Wave: The Life and Career of Ethel Waters Donald Bogle • Haiti Noir Edwidge Danticat (editor) • Why Marx Was Right Terry Eagleton • The Asylum: The Renegades Who Hijacked the World’s Oil Market Leah McGrath Goodman • The Life of an Unknown Man Andreï Makine •

Smoking Typewriters: The Sixties Underground Press and the Rise of Alternative Media in America John McMillian

• The Devil As Muse: Blake, Byron, and the Adversary Fred Parker • Andy Warhol: Behind the Camera Stephen Petersen

In Following 9/11, Christopher Vecsey, Harry Emerson Fosdick Professor of the humanities and Native American studies and religion, examines the religious ramifications of 9/11 through the lens of one of the world’s primary news sources.

Vecsey shows not only how the Times reported on the 9/11 tragedy and its consequences, but also how the paper presented conventional religious themes such as traditions, diversity, tolerance, institutional organization, interfaith cooperation, and ethical judgment. Vecsey seeks to perceive the ways in which 9/11 crystallized and recast concepts important to understanding the political dimensions of religion over the past decade.

He also explores how the paper went beyond political coverage to the social, the cultural, the artistic, the intellectual, and the religious and, above all, showed how religion, politics, and journalism define each other in these times following 9/11.

The Politics of Necessity

Elke Zuern ’90 (University of Wisconsin Press) The end of apartheid in South Africa broke down political barriers, extending the formal rights of citizenship to all races, but the country remains one of the most economically polarized nations in the world. In The Politics of Necessity, Elke Zuern argues that working toward greater socioeconomic equality — access to food, housing, land, and jobs — is crucial to achieving a successful and sustainable democracy. Zuern is an associate professor of politics at Sarah Lawrence College.

Drawing on interviews with local residents and activists in South Africa’s impoverished townships during more than a decade of dramatic

“The emotions were so strong, I think, because the event was compacted: Bin Laden was found and killed, and it was done — done and over, just like that.”

— Professor Kevin Carlsmith, an expert in the psychology of retribution, in a New York Times article about the killing of Osama Bin Laden

“… As Malcolm [X] lived on through his best-selling autobiography, so will Marable, through his unmatched body of writing, his educational contributions, his illuminations on Malcolm X’s legacy and his devoted students.”

— A CNN.com commentary by Maytha Alhassen, who was a research assistant for Manning Marable, former sociology professor and founding director of the Africana and Latin American Studies Program at Colgate.

Marable died April 1, 2011, shortly before the publication of his book Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention (see In Memoriam, p.75).

“There are charlatans everywhere, and it is not easy even to give money away effectively. But it is vital to remember that there are many good people doing good work for the oppressed, the poor and the uneducated, and they need your help. It’s up to you to ask the questions before you make your choice.”

— Thomas Brackett, professor of computer science emeritus and president of the Brackett Refugee Education Fund, in a Post-Standard (Syracuse) op-ed about the dilemma for charities revealed by the Three Cups of Tea controversy

political change, Zuern tracks the development of community organizing and reveals the shifting challenges faced by poor citizens. By comparing movements in South Africa to those in other African and Latin American states, this book identifies profound challenges to democratization. Zuern asserts the fundamental indivisibility of all human rights, showing how protest movements offer opportunities for modern democracies to evolve into systems of rule that empower all citizens.

Also of note:

A public defender in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, David A. Brooks ’81 reveals the characters who live there, and uncloaks some hidden truths about our justice system, in his new book Foresthill: A Public Defender’s Bedtime Reader (YourBookPlace.com). Although the characters have been fictionalized, the stories are based on actual cases and events.

The Happiness of Pursuit: A Father’s Courage, a Son’s Love and Life’s Steepest Climb (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) by Davis Phinney, with Austin Murphy ’83, is a story of overcoming adversity.

Phinney, one of America’s most successful cyclists, won two stages at the Tour de France and an Olympic medal, but then was diagnosed with early onset Parkinson’s. This is the story of how he fought to overcome the disease by reaching back to what had made him so successful on the bike.

In Deane Beman: Golf’s Driving Force (East Cottage Press), Adam Schupak ’96 writes about the former PGA Tour commissioner who was once called the most powerful person in golf.

Using never-before-seen documents and candid interviews with players, associates, and corporate chieftains, the book offers an intimate portrait of Beman’s shift from hardened competitor to an executive of change.

News and views for the Colgate community

23

Central New Y Visits to five regional alumni-owned businesses sketch a picture of imagination, optimism, perseverance, and enterprise

By James Leach

Johanna Ames Coats ’98

A fourth generation for Ames Linen Her faculty mentor in geography was such an inspiration that when Johanna Ames Coats ’98 graduated from Colgate, she “wanted to be the next Ellen Kraly.” Thirteen years later, after Ames Coats cut short her plan to earn a PhD at the University of North Carolina, she has instead become the next Bud Ames, succeeding her dad as head of a central New York family business that goes back four generations and more than 90 years.

By the time Ames Coats had finished her master’s at UNC, she was “a little disenchanted” with an academic life that wasn’t all she’d imagined. So, on a visit home to Cortland in 2000, when her father said the time could be right to see what she thought of working in the family’s commercial laundry business, she agreed to a one-year trial.

“My first day on the job, I was here at 5 a.m., sorting soiled linens, which was a little tough to swallow,” she said. Six months later, after she had worked every job from the production floor to delivery routes, Bud gave his daughter an office and made her his customer service manager.

As she took on more responsibilities, she said, her father asked, “Are you sure you want to work this hard?” When it became clear to them both that the answer was “yes,” the transition continued.

Together, they bought and refitted a plant that more than tripled their space, modernizing Ames Linen Service and ensuring the business would stay in Cortland. And in 2007, father and daughter agreed

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to a sale that would keep Ames Linen in the family for at least another generation.

A lot has changed since great-grandfather Harry Ames started his laundry business in Ithaca, making deliveries by horse and buggy. He later purchased Cortland Steam Laundry and the downtown plant that was the company’s base for 75 years. While the business has evolved from doing local families’ wash to a full-service linen rental supplier for more than 500 health care and hospitality providers within a 75-mile radius, Ames Coats will tell you that the emphasis is still on service.

“When an event starts in an hour and a restaurant discovers it under-ordered 200 napkins, or the bride changes her mind at the last minute on what color linens she wants, our customers need a partner that they can count on,” she said.

With that in mind, when Ames Coats and her father designed their new $2.5 million plant, they not only outfitted it with the most modern equipment, they also provided backup at important stations — insurance against the unexpected. Converting to new equipment allowed for efficiencies that improve both energy conservation and the plant’s capacity. In what serves essentially as the engine room of the operation, water is softened, heated to 160 degrees, and recycled, and a maze of tubing delivers chemicals to the washing machines in carefully measured, computer-controlled amounts.

In the adjacent production space, an operator feeds sorted linens onto a conveyor to begin a fully automated washing and drying operation, not to be touched by human hands again until they come out the far end, clean, dry, and ready to be sorted, pressed, folded, packaged, and prepared for shipping. The plant can process more than a ton of laundry per hour.

Ames Coats is especially proud of her family’s record of employee relations. In a business where she says annual turnover rates of 300 to 400 percent are common, most of her staff have been on the payroll for years. “We’re like a family,” she said. The new plant allowed room for a bright and well-equipped

area for employees to take a break. Recognition posters paper the bulletin boards. Incentive pay rewards special effort. The management treats to the occasional lunch or donut. And when your kids need linens for their weddings, it’s on the house.

In an upstate community the size of Cortland (roughly 18,000, including SUNY-Cortland’s 6,500 students), Ames Linen Service, with its 50-plus employees and $1.1-million payroll, is an important part of the economy.

Businesses in central New York don’t experience the soaring economic highs that affect other parts of the country, said Ames Coats. At the same time, that provides some insulation from big swings in the market. “We have been extremely fortunate because about half of our business is health care, an industry that tends to remain more stable,” she said.

“We’ve been able to hold our own and actually see some growth.”

Her biggest economic challenges at the moment are the shortage and record-high price of cotton for the linens, which, after payroll, are her greatest expense.

The Ames family has a long record of service to the Cortland community. “My grandfather and my dad taught me that was an important role to play as a business owner,” said Ames Coats. “As someone who’s living here, I’m invested.”

In addition to her volunteer work for the Cortland Regional Medical Center and the Cortland County Business Development Corp., she also serves on the board of the Family Health Network.

“We run a series of federally funded health clinics for the underserved populations and some of our rural communities.”

ork Road Trip C.V. “Major” Bowes ’41

Adirondack host and advocate From the window of his winter home at Covewood Lodge on Big Moose Lake, C.V. “Major” Bowes ’41 watched eagles feeding on deer carrion in the yard. “I’m glad I’m here. I’d like to do it all over again,” he said of his nearly 60 years (and counting) as proprietor of the historic Adirondack camp.

Andrew Daddio

In recognition, the Cortland County Chamber of Commerce named Ames Linen Service its Business of the Year in 2009.

Central New York has always been home for Ames Coats. “I like being in a small town, that sense of community. You make those connections. I’ve had a lot of opportunities that I don’t think would have come my way if I hadn’t had grown up here.”

Ames Coats and her husband, Matt (an assistant athletic director at Cornell), have a 2-year-old son, Mason. When asked if Mason might some day become the fifth-generation owner, Ames Coats didn’t make any assumptions — but she did say that the company’s service manager of 14 years gave his 25-year notice when he met Mason for the first time.

Ames Linen Service, Johanna Ames Coats ’98, president, was Cortland County Chamber of Commerce’s 2009 Business of the Year.

Built in the 1920s by legendary Adirondack architect/builder Earl Covey, Covewood was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2004. As other resorts in the south central Adirondacks have come and gone, Covewood has operated continuously, with only three owners over its history.

The hospitality business has changed during those years, and Bowes and his wife, Diane, have adapted to keep pace. The American plan with its three meals a day in the dining room has given way to housekeeping cottages where guests have more control of their schedules. The hotel no longer does its own laundry. Summer crews once staffed by U.S. college students now draw largely from countries such as New Zealand, Scotland, Lithuania, and Colombia.

“I’m from the pipe wrench generation,” said Bowes, “and I still know where all the plumbing is — more than a mile of it. But Covewood now is run by buttons — the website, online reservations, and the like — and Diane takes care of that. I couldn’t run it without her.”

Still, the central character of Covewood, with its one-of-a-kind structures, game-preserve setting, and family appeal, has not wavered, as the families who have returned for three and four generations attest in stories and photos on the pages of the lodge website.

A third-generation Mohawk Valley native, Bowes was introduced to the Adirondacks at the family camp on Seventh Lake, not far from Big Moose.

During his undergraduate days, Colgate professors sometimes joined him there on hunting trips. He fell in love with the mountains.

After graduating, Bowes joined his father’s insurance business, which served clients in New York and New Jersey. “I hated it,” said Bowes. He enlisted in the Navy at the height of World War II. “It’s ironic to say this, but the war saved my life,” he said. “I dreamed about this place every day I was away.”

The options were limited, as he saw it: logging, or the resort business, “and I needed something to justify my education.” He enrolled in cooking school at Cornell, and when he graduated, his father helped him establish a business. Following a short stint operating a camp at Darts Lake, just down the road from Covewood, Bowes purchased the hotel that became his life’s work.

A fellow Colgate alumnus, the late Allen Wilcox ’29, who ran the Mohawk Hotel on Fourth Lake, helped Bowes get established, even assisting with his first buffet.

Earl Covey and his wife had run a spartan operation at Covewood, and the hotel’s second owner had

News and views for the Colgate community

25

Ellen Griffin ’83

Andrew Daddio

A running living

C.V. “Major” Bowes ’41 has been operating the historic Adirondack resort Covewood Lodge in Big Moose just shy of 60 years.

followed suit. When Bowes took over, he recalled, “We were offering good meals and good lodging for eight bucks a day. When I raised the rate to nine, the fellow next door asked, ‘What are you trying to do, pay for this all in one year?’”

Still, the guests kept coming. Many of the names in Covewood’s 2010 guest register are of third- and fourth-generation descendants of families who visited in the 1950s. Ninety percent of his guests are repeat visitors. The late Dick Meltzer ’42 and his wife, Amy, became so attached to Covewood that they left instructions for their ashes to be buried there. And they were not alone.

During the winter off-season in those early years, Bowes ran natural history tours in Cuba, the Caribbean, and Central and South America. He and Diane stopped giving tours in the 1970s when the first of their two daughters was born.

That was when Covewood started its winter business, beginning by renting a couple of cottages to snowmobilers. That evolved to serving snowshoers and cross country skiers, some 50 to 60 of whom would gather at the hotel most winter weekends. As the winters have become milder (“We used to have snow until mid-April”), Covewood shut down its winter operation about five years ago.

Now the season runs from May through October, with peak business in June through September. The nation’s poor economy had an effect on the resort business the past couple of seasons, although Covewood’s repeat clientele helped the hotel weather the downturn.

Bowes is an advocate and proactive defender of the Adirondacks. He marshaled other landowners on Big Moose to post their property from the road

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scene: Summer 2011

to the lake’s edge, creating a de facto game preserve that is now written into the state syllabus.

When airborne industrial wastes from Midwest manufacturing operations rained down on the Adirondacks, turning some lakes (including Big Moose) acidic, he experimented by first adding limestone to his springs, and later by blasting tons of limestone into one of the lake’s bays. Major television networks, as well as Sports Illustrated, reported on the project.

It worked, but was such a massive undertaking that the project was abandoned. Today, largely the result of clean-air regulations and shifting weather patterns, the lakes are coming back (“They called them ‘dead,’ but of course they weren’t”), and Covewood’s guests are once again catching largemouth bass and brightly colored native trout. Colgate geology professor Rich April and his former student Michele Hluchy ’81, now a professor at Alfred University, continue to monitor the acidity of Covewood property as part of a study funded by the National Science Foundation.

And Bowes has paid careful attention to preserving the architecture of Covewood, in particular the main building, which he describes as “a collector’s item.” It is said that Covey had thought about the building for so long that when he finally started construction, he needed no formal plans, referring only occasionally to details sketched out on paper sacks.

Given the economic and regulatory challenges today, Bowes said, “If you wanted to go into business for yourself, you’d probably pick a business other than this one — it would be more profitable. Yet it’s such a beautiful place to live. I can’t think of any place I’d rather be, or anything else I’d rather do. But if it were real enticing, there might be a few more of us left.”

Hard as it may be to imagine that one of the country’s best running shoe stores could be found in a city that’s snow covered half the year, that is exactly what Ellen (Strohm) Griffin ’83 and her husband, Ed, have achieved with Fleet Feet Sports in Syracuse.

At last November’s annual conference of running store retailers nationwide, the print and Internet publisher Competitor Group named the Griffins’ store one of the top four, and the best in the east.

Stores are ranked on 20 criteria that range from community service and vendor evaluations to the in-store experiences of a team of “secret shoppers” dispatched by the judges.

While the Griffins’ store is part of a national franchise, the corporation’s commitment to on-site owner-operators fosters the idea that individual stores will take on the character of their owners.

The Syracuse store is one of the most successful — enough so that last year, while the U.S. economy was floundering, the Griffins moved out of the location they had leased for 10 years and into their own facility with more than three times the floor space. With 30 employees — half of them salaried, full time — and an annual payroll exceeding $500,000, the store is, as Ellen put it, “a real business.”

A national wave of interest in running to stay fit has expanded the marketplace, she said, adding, “The challenge from a business standpoint has been how to reach out to people who don’t regularly run races.

They’re a whole separate market from the traditional running community.”

And the Griffins also serve customers beyond those with an interest in running to compete or stay fit. “We don’t even call ourselves a running store anymore,” said Ellen. “We’re a footwear fit store. We are fitting people who are doing everything from going to the gym to walking to, frankly, just needing a comfortable pair of shoes.” Area orthopedists and podiatrists refer their patients daily. “We’ll have people in their eighties in here who’ve got bunions or hammer toes or plantar fasciitis — not that footwear is always the cure, but it can relieve a lot of their symptoms.” Thus, the Griffins’ emphasis on getting their customers into the right shoes, starting with fit.

There’s nothing hurried about the process. Off come a customer’s shoes and socks as the interview begins. “Any particular problems? How will you use your shoes?” For runners: “How many miles are you doing? Any events coming up? What kind of times are you running?” And, as the customer is answering, the salesperson is evaluating not only the customer’s

answers, but also the condition and shape of both feet, including length, width, and arch while seated and standing. After factoring in the customer’s gait, the salesperson might recommend an insert to correct a condition such as flat feet or placing too much weight on the inside or outside of the foot.

With all those variables taken into account, the salesperson heads off to the stockroom to select from the more than 6,000 pairs on hand and returns with a variety for the customer to try. The trial includes running or walking on the store’s section of indoor track, always under the salesperson’s watchful eye.

At checkout, the customer is offered the opportunity to join the Griffins’ e-mail list and register for discounts on future purchases. A handshake closes the deal. And that’s what Ellen means by “full service.”

The competition, which comes from big-box stores and Internet sales, “almost hasn’t been a factor,” said Ellen. While chains and online merchants may price their shoes a few dollars less, they can’t match the Griffins’ level of product knowledge and personal attention.

Recognizing that service is what sets their store apart, the Griffins spend upward of two months training each new employee before turning that person loose to work the floor alone. A big investment of time, Ellen acknowledges, “but we don’t have people work for us for a month and then leave.

We try to make it a place where people want to come to work every day.” As employees gain experience, they take on additional roles, in the personnel department, or marketing, or purchasing. Hours can be made flexible to accommodate the schedules of competitive runners on staff, like Fred Joslyn who qualified in February for the 2012 Olympic marathon trials. But everyone — Ellen and Ed included — continues to work on the floor, staying in touch with customers.

Communication with the running and fitness crowd doesn’t stop at the point of sale. In the community room attached to their store, the Griffins are hosts to regular events such as organizing sessions for local benefit runs and training sessions for athletes, from first-time 5K runners to elite triathletes.

The store’s website is a clearinghouse for information on the local running and fitness scene, and the newsletter shows up each Monday morning in the 16,000 e-mail inboxes in the database.

Ellen took up running at Colgate “to lose the freshman fifteen.” She met Ed when he was broadcasting Colgate hockey for a Norwich radio station, and one of their first dates was lining up for the old Lake Moraine Run, a 5-miler.

“I’m not a competitive athlete,” she said. But she, like Ed, has the trim build of a runner, sustained personally and professionally by regular outings on those central New York roads and trails that are covered in snow from November until April.

Dick Najarian ’63

Made in Greene, U.S.A.

Andrew Daddio

Above the clatter, Dick Najarian ’63 tells a story for every pattern being woven on the 40 jacquard looms at the heart of his mill in Greene, N.Y. There’s the elegant Godiva logo woven into ribbon that will adorn boxes of the chocolatier’s finest assortments.

Black ribbon with orange script and ghostly images spins out of an adjacent loom, destined for one of Godiva’s seasonal offerings.

A rich gold braid developed on spec for the Navy could be a reliable long-term product if it wins approval for the trim on dress blues.

Patterns that seem strangely familiar become instantly recognizable when identified as the bands for venetian blinds.

Reflective tape will be applied to the woven flame-resistant day-glo lime and orange bands that will make roadside workers highly visible; the U.S. Postal Service has a fancier, personalized version of its own.

And a well-known philanthropist will distribute as bookmarks the inspirational messages woven into ribbon on two of the looms.

Alongside the looms, cones of colorful yarn are stacked high, waiting to be wound onto spools to form the warp and weft of the next intricate pattern. Cardboard boxes of samples arranged on metal shelves nearby make up the library of Najarian designs across the years.

The ancient hardwood floor and massive wooden pillars hint at the building’s early life as a silk mill and then a warehouse.

In 1937, Najarian’s father — Leon Aram (L.A.), a 30-year-old Armenian émigré from Egypt — adapted it to its current purpose.

As a teenager, L.A. had learned weaving and ribbon making at the Chenango Ribbon Mill. By 1932, he had begun manufacturing his own ribbons on two looms in a rented barn.

L.A. passed the skill of ribbon making along to his sons Jack and Dick. There were no spring college breaks to warm climes Despite the sour economy, Fleet Feet Sports in Syracuse, co-owned by Ellen Griffin ’83 and her husband, Ed, tripled its space last year. for the Najarian boys: “We went

News and views for the Colgate community

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“You have to adapt,” he said. “It’s always been one much the last mill in the States operating warp home to work in the mill,” Dick said. “Dad put us thing or another. In this day and age, we won’t see jacquard looms,” he said. with the employees, and we did what they told us.” a new massive user. The domestic manufacturers Fate intervened in 2000 when Najarian’s wife, When L.A. grew ill in the 1960s, recent college who’ve decided to stay here will continue — now Pat, his partner in business and in life, died after graduates Jack and Dick moved back to Greene to our thrust is to find them and determine what size a brief illness. He took time away to regroup, and help in the family business. Jack oversaw the weavthe business has to be. when he remarried in 2003, he left the day-to-day ing in those days, and Dick managed the business “What an odyssey,” said Dick Najarian, whose hismanagement of the business and moved to Hilton affairs. tory is the history of his company.

Head, S.C. After their father sold the business in 1970, Dick But the market continued to decline, bottoming stayed on to help the new owners fine-tune their out a year ago, Najarian said. Last fall, it became looms and relocate their operation to Pennsylvania.

Kingsley Wratten ’64 clear that the only way to save the business was to A career move to Montreal followed, to manage a downsize. And the only solution he saw that would mill for the largest ribbon maker in Canada. and Harold Davies MA’65 allow a reduction in staff and still keep the skills nec “I learned a lot in Canada,” he said, “but we still essary to operate was for him to return to what he wanted to do something else.” So in 1978, financed had been doing at the mill 15 years earlier. “I had the by a loan from the Small Business Administraskills to do any of the jobs, and I was willing to work tion, he bought a dozen looms from England and Painter Kingsley Wratten ’64 tells the for nothing,” he said. So he committed to return to reopened the family mill in Greene. He, his wife, and story of how a course at Colgate led to Greene for three weeks each month through the end his nephew were the original workforce, but the the creation of a fine French restaurant, of 2011 to redirect and reenergize the company. business grew steadily and he was soon up to a staff and how now — 35 years later — that The same optimism that motivated Najarian of 10, working two shifts. restaurant will nourish the arts. the first two times around is evident again today.

He bought more looms and in 1979 began making Wratten’s sophomore core class “There’s a return to high-end manufacturing of some hatbands for a mill in Alabama. With three people brought together music, visual arts, and apparel in this country,” he said. “Being the only working one shift, Najarian said he was out-producarchitecture. All were subjects that had interested producers in this specialty, we should see an uptick. ing 28 people working two shifts at the Alabama him since high school, but he had never before And we don’t need a lot of extra business to make it plant. The Alabama mill bought Najarian out in a clearly seen the connection between them. worth doing.” profitable arrangement that assumed his loan and To make his business more visible in the 21st A year later, studio professor Arnold Herstand recallowed him to continue managing the operation. century market, Najarian is turning to a 21st-century ommended Wratten to a Yale summer program for The Alabama mill was, in turn, bought out by solution and reengineering his website. the nation’s largest ribbon manufacturer, Berwick painters and musicians that fostered his emerging Offray, with Najarian and his group’s focus on fine ribbons included as part of the deal. “It soon became obvious it wasn’t a fit,” said Najarian. “A big company automatically figures if a small guy were smart, he’d be big. I told them we stay small because we cater to small markets.” He had all the business there was to be had for his specialty.

So in 1984, for the second time, he bought back the family business and started L.A. Najarian, Inc., over yet again.

This time, he was literally starting from scratch.

“The landscape had changed,” he said. “Our traditional customers — apparel manufacturers — had moved to other countries.” At first the competition came from the Japanese in the ’60s and ’70s.

Then ribbon manufacturers followed the apparel mills to Taiwan, Korea, China, and eventually into Thailand and Vietnam.

As his traditional markets moved offshore, he adapted by selling specialized ribbons and labels such as those on his looms today. “We are pretty While his competition has moved to Asia, Dick Najarian ’63 still operates high-end ribbon manufacturer L.A. Najarian, Inc., in Greene.

Andrew Daddio

Appetite for the arts

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scene: Summer 2011

News and views for the Colgate community

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Andrew Daddio

being directed to creating a self-sustaining place Bankers, doctors, and lawyers travel from Utica and awareness of how the disciplines relate, but left where writers, musicians, and visual artists can from Syracuse.” Add gourmets from Cooperstown, the artist longing for more interaction with the come together to learn from one another as they Albany, Ithaca, Binghamton, Hamilton, New York musicians. practice their art. They will live and have studio City, and points in between.

Back at Colgate for his senior year, Wratten found space in a collection of restored homes within walk As their restaurant prospered, they restored a a kindred spirit in writer Harold Davies MA’65, a ing distance of the restaurant. In the evenings, they nearby Italianate mansion to add four elegant guest graduate student who had spent a year studying bawill gather at the restaurant, along with the Horned rooms. The buildings are listed together as The roque art and architecture in Madrid. “We began to Dorset’s other guests, to discuss their work. Artists Wheeler House Complex in the National Register of dream about a utopia where a painter like myself, a in other disciplines may be added to the mix as the Historic Places. Years later, they established Utopia, writer like Harold, and a musician like my girlfriend colony matures. an adjacent bookstore that became both a commerand wife-to-be, Roberta, would sit down for dinner Students will be chosen based on exceptional cial enterprise and a venue to foster conversation and discuss the ideas and feelings and experiences aptitude. Scholarships will assist those who cannot about the arts. that went into their art,” said Wratten.

Through graduate school and their early careers as teachers, the three remained close and kept their dream alive. At the same time, “We got tired of working for someone else,” said Wratten. A restaurant, they decided, might help to bring their ideas together.

With little to invest, their options were limited, but they saw possibilities in a century-old, abandoned building across the highway from the auto repair shop in Leonardsville, a village of 150 souls about 20 minutes from Colgate.

“The building didn’t even have a roof,” Wratten said.

“We bought it for an offer on the overdue taxes.”

Roberta continued teaching to help meet living expenses while Davies, Wratten, his brother, and two friends, funded by a loan from the Small Business Administration, began a two-year project restoring the building.

“The commitment was all Kingsley Wratten ’64 and Harold Davies MA’65 are layering an art colony onto their Leonardsville restaurant, The Horned Dorset. and labor was zero,” said Wratten. “We were pretty afford the cost of a four-week residency. Professional Even as they developed their properties in Leongutsy.” They fashioned a bar and public and private artists will be chosen on the strength of their work ardsville, the partners had begun exploring sites dining rooms, a music room, and a library, accenting and their willingness to exchange ideas and experiin the Caribbean where they might build a luxury the spaces with architectural details reclaimed from ences with students in a working environment. resort. In Rincón, on the western shore of Puerto Rico, urban renewal.

The Leonardsville Horned Dorset will be closed they found their setting and began construction The Horned Dorset, named for the sheep they this year as the partners visit other arts initiatives, of The Horned Dorset Primavera, which opened in raised that became one of the house specialties, explore funding possibilities including the creation 1987 with guest rooms and suites featuring private opened in 1977. Davies, who had some cooking of their own foundation, and work on the property pools and balconies on the waterfront. Condé Nast experience, was chef. Wratten was maître d’ and that will become their campus. They are determined Traveler’s Gold List describes the hotel as, “intimate, bartender. Roberta played the harpsichord on Thursto create a program that can have a lasting impact like a friend’s elegant oceanside estate, with service day and Sunday evenings. Their former students on the area and survive beyond their day-to-day that really takes care of you.” and a few Colgate undergraduates waited tables and involvement. “But it’s not like we’re retiring,” Wrat In 2011, their story is coming full circle with the staffed the kitchen. ten said, reflecting the vitality of three partners who founding of the Horned Dorset Art Colony, centered Word of mouth and the reviews were all the continue living their lifelong dream. around the properties in Leonardsville. advertising they ever needed. “Who comes to eat?”

The energy and enthusiasm that has resulted in asked New York Times critic Jane Perlez in a 1985 rave: two hugely successful commercial ventures is now “A white stretch limousine idled outside one night.

American Religion in These Times

You can learn much more than the news by reading the newspaper

By Christopher Vecsey n September 12, 2001, only two weeks into the fall semester, my colleague Tim Byrnes and I found ourselves in a classroom with our 19 students, all of us stunned by the devastation of the day before. We gathered around our seminar table, poring over coverage of the catastrophic events of September 11 in the New York Times. In our case, reading the paper wasn’t a diversion from the syllabus; indeed, this was a first-year seminar called American Religion in These Times.

I had designed the course to assess the depth, scope, and slant of religion coverage in the New York Times. The students were to investigate religious developments in contemporary America in a global context by reading the paper every day, in addition to books about American religion and journalism. I wanted them to learn what was new and newsworthy in Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and the many other religious traditions that coexist in the United States; in the interplay between church and state; in emerging forms of spirituality, community, and ethical discourse; and in the relationships between religiousness, on the one hand, and the arts, sports, ethnicity, politics, sexuality, and secularism, on the other.

In order to enhance their understanding of contemporary religious developments, the students were simultaneously examining the political dimensions of human life in another course, America as a Democracy, taught by Byrnes, a scholar with expertise in politics and religion. Little did he and I know when we devised these linked courses that an unprecedented world event would bring our investigations into such sharp focus.

But there we were that morning, around a seminar table in Lawrence Hall, absorbing the grim words and images depicting the attacks. There was no lecture that day, hardly any discussion among us. I said some words 30

scene: Summer Summer 2011

Photo by John D. Hubbard

On September 12, 2001, the author (center) found that his first-year seminar American Religion in These Times suddenly had taken on tremendous new dimensions.

of assurance to the students, about carrying on — in their college studies, and with their lives into the decades to come. (A student in that class, who lived in the neighborhood of the World Trade Center, wrote to me recently of the catharsis she experienced that day, and that semester, as we pondered the ramifications of September 11 in our seminar learning community.)

From that juncture, through the end of the semester, we studied how the Times shed light upon the complex set of phenomena that we all soon came to call “9/11.” Rarely did a day pass in which the paper neglected to run an article about the varieties of religious causes of and responses to 9/11 in the United States (particularly in New York City) and in the world among the adherents to all the major (and many of the more local) religions.

A vast collection of clippings Why, you might ask, would I devote a religion course to reading the newspaper? And why the New York Times?

Here is my claim: you can get an education in religious studies by reading the Times. This notion was inspired by my own personal roots and academic interests, and eventually led to a book that, to a great extent, was influenced and underscored by that very class in 2001.

Both of my parents were journalists. George S. Vecsey spent almost his entire adult working life in news media, especially sports, at the Long Island Press, the Associated Press, and the New York Daily News. May Spencer Vecsey was society writer and editor at the Press until she began her career in maternity. In our New York City home,

we got more than a half-dozen papers every day, and we read them; our fingers were often black from handling the newsprint.

I now have in my office almost 12 file drawers — three complete file cabinets — filled with Times clippings about religion and related matters, dating to the early 1970s.

My father died shortly after his 75th birthday in 1984, having just perused several newspapers before falling to sleep. My mother, whose funeral fell on my birthday in 2002, used to stuff

American Religion in These Times the books in our house with newspaper articles. She clipped pieces she thought relevant — to something or other — and inserted them into what she considered the appropriate books.

Today, I have most of these volumes in my office, and I am edified regularly by what I can find between the pages about Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Vladimir Nabokov, Chaim Potok, P.G. Wodehouse, and many others.

I professionalized my mother’s obsession — but as an academic rather than a journalist. While earning a PhD in the history and literature of religion, and then going on to teach history and religion, my daily routine has always included more than just casual reading of the New York Times for all manner of religion coverage. I call it research, because although my scholarly focus has been on Native American Studies in general, and American Indian religions in particular, I have never lost sight of contemporary religious developments worldwide. (The fact that my oldest brother, George — now a longtime Times sports columnist — held a several-year assignment covering religion for the Times only intensified my interest in religion journalism.)

Over the past four decades, I have collected, examined, and catalogued Times coverage of religion, occasionally sharing my clippings with my classes, and waiting for the appropriate moment to analyze them in full. I now have in my office almost 12 file drawers — three complete file cabinets — filled with Times clippings about religion and related matters, dating to the early 1970s. That doesn’t count the other several cabinets filled with American Indian materials. (Yes, I know: it’s all on the web now.)

Having perused almost every Times article about religion from 1970 to the

present — about 15,000 of them from 1970 to 2001 (available to readers on my Colgate website at www.colgate. edu/vecsey911clips) and at least as

reading the Times in an encyclopedic manner, over time, with all the complexity included. Of course, 9/11 makes good copy, but what I found was that it also unveiled persistent themes in the Times’s treatment of religion. It has taken almost a full decade for that work to see print: my recently published book, Following 9/11: Religion Coverage in the New York Times.

actually increased in the Times. I can offer a few explanations for this phenomenon.

First, there is a sizable audience for religion news, and it is prudent to give readers what they want. A paper such as the Times has come to recognize the importance of religion and its role as a motivating factor for good and ill in contemporary society worldwide.

Looking back through the latter part

In the post-9/11 world, religion is constantly in the news, and the volume of religion reportage in the Times has become overwhelming. I used to clip perhaps one article each day. Now it’s religion all the time, in almost every section. On some days, several frontpage articles are focused on religion, and several full pages inside are replete with religion articles.

In writing my book, my aim, much like a reporter’s, was to examine — copiously citing the paper itself with a minimum of theoretical interpretations on my part — how the Times has covered religion and its many dimensions in contemporary life in the aftershocks of 9/11. There is no question about it: 9/11 was a religion story, an event that revealed just how important a force religion could be in modern times.

Contrary to the widely held notion that our nation and the world used to be more religious, and that both citizens and the media pay less attention to religion than they used to, my examination of Times coverage revealed just the opposite: from the 1970s to the early 21st century, religion coverage

The Times has documented the revival of public religiousness as it has swept across the globe.

The moment of the 9/11 crisis ... became a timely lens through which to investigate and analyze “religion” A 9/11 curriculum reported in the Times. many since 2001 — I have come to judgments about the paper’s definitions of religion’s dimensions over that period of time and what we can learn from its coverage of religion.

The moment of the 9/11 crisis — perhaps the most galvanizing event concerning religion in our lifetime — became a timely lens through which to investigate and analyze “religion” reported in the Times. I determined to wait five years before organizing this study, in order to see how the stories played out. I set about conducting an exhaustive examination of Times religion coverage, rather than picking out a few articles on a common theme or with a common viewpoint. I was interested in what we would learn about religion, politics, and journalism by

of the 20th century, we see that religion has become a powerful force in public political life in the United States and abroad, and both consumers and producers of the news are now cognizant of this fact. Whether one points to Jimmy Carter’s successful presidential campaign in 1976, the ascension of Pope John Paul II in 1978, the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979, or the creation of the Moral Majority in that same year, it is clear that, since the late 1970s, religion has become de-privatized.

Secularization — an earlier trend perceived as inevitable — has been overturned over the past several decades,

News and views for the Colgate community

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American Religion in These Times and the Times has documented the revival of public religiousness as it has swept across the globe.

Then came 9/11. As my brother George said to me, “My frequent role while covering religion was to assure editors: no, seriously, some people actually believe this stuff — and act on it, Jonestown just being one example [referring to the 1978 cult mass suicide there]. Then Jonestown arrived downtown.”

For several years after 9/11, it seems as if most Times articles about religion — whether as tradition, institution, belief, supernaturalism, faith, ethics, ritual, or unifying or factionalizing force in communities — possessed a 9/11 subtext. For the first five years, the events made religion front-page news almost on a daily basis. Even 10 years later, the mass of religion reportage and commentary in the Times looms large.

On April 12, 2011, the day I read the publisher’s proofs for the epilogue to my book, nine substantial religion articles covered perspectives on Christi-

Above all, the paper showed how politics and religion can be mutuallydefiningdimensionsof human life. anity, Judaism, Hinduism, Islam; civil religion in the United States, Europe, and Africa; theology, gender, meditation, ethics, ritual, personal life, politics, and the law. These articles appeared not only on the front page and the editorial page, but also in the foreign, national, and metropolitan sections and the “Science Times.”

In short, the Times demonstrates a thoroughgoing journalistic discipline akin to an academic course of study. It created an extensive 9/11 curriculum right from the start, through news coverage; through features, which pro-

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vide a sense of what is happening on a personal level in the culture; in the “Week in Review” summaries, which put things into context; in the “essays beyond the news” — the op-eds and magazine articles that allowed for expression of opinion; and, of course, in the book reviews, which provided the accumulating 9/11 bibliography. The Times moved beyond political coverage to the social, the cultural, the artistic, the intellectual, and the religious.

Above all, however, the paper showed how politics and religion can be mutually defining dimensions of human life.

Through this curriculum, the Times has provided insight into post-9/11 religious phenomena. “Religion” was now largely politicized, and the politics were those of the “culture wars” in the United States and beyond. The religion angles were interpretations of causation: What motivations brought about 9/11, and how did people respond to it?

What meanings did people construct about 9/11, and how did they behave as a result? The religious foci were religion in America, Islam at home and abroad, and the wars kindled around the world by the 9/11 attacks. In addressing these topics on the pages of the paper and beyond, Times personnel pondered the significance of these galvanizing events and their portentous unveiling of a supposed “clash of civilizations” between Islam and the West.

And in asking probing questions about religion news, the Times was able to inform its readers about a monumental, breaking story of religious import.

Understanding religion in contemporary life That coverage serves as rich source material — tangible, relevant examples that illustrate the themes and concepts I teach in my classroom.

In the Times’s view, religions are salient when their representatives attempt to define or reassess their teachings about the transcendent, spiritual world and its relationship to the material universe and people’s lives within it. People behave religiously when

faced with life crises (disease, death, disillusion, scandal, catastrophe) or at times of great joy (birth, rebuilding, the seasonal celebrations of renewal and forgiveness) — in short, when facing critical, imminent concerns. In ad-

Its editors and writers and photographers’ concern is to understandcontemporarylife.

dition, people behave religiously when they take defined moral positions, espousing principles that entail doing good and avoiding evil, grounded in

their community (conceived locally, nationally, internationally, and even cosmically). Religion is a code of ethics, a set of values, with concrete ramifications in daily life and in public policies.

Times articles reveal that certain people behave religiously when they celebrate their ethnic identity as something greater than their individual selves and when they set themselves off against other peoples, absorbing themselves in their community and setting themselves against those outside it, whom they may sometimes come to perceive as enemies. Religion has the function of fostering community consciousness, providing principles of organization, and informing legal and political structures. A shared way of life, a shared set of ultimate

Photo by John D. Hubbard

Transfixed Kevin Meehan ’03, a student in Vecsey’s course American Religion in These Times, pores over the paper’s first coverage of the 9/11 attacks on September 12, 2001.

their religious traditions of piety and reverence or in individually conceived, spiritual philosophies of life, and when, molded by ethics and in light of ultimate concerns, they act upon their moral convictions for the good or ill of

concerns, shared ethics, a shared belief in God, and shared ritual activities — over time and space — are the real stuff of religion because they are shared.

Religions are thus foundational in the creation of culture: the shared

American Religion in These Times way of life with its common symbols and meanings. Religion is a means of forming social solidarity. Indeed, it might be argued that whatever serves to bind humans together is religious, including social and political systems.

The Times is especially interested in religion’s place in these systems, both at home and abroad. Its editors and writers and photographers’ concern is to understand contemporary life.

Beyond a “first draft of history” Although we speak of “the Times” as an institution or an individual, a collective examination of its coverage shows that the paper does not have a single viewpoint. In addition to several staff religion writers with a variety of backgrounds, many other reporters cover religion stories on other beats: from metropolitan, regional, national, and international to politics, science, food, and family, to arts and sports.

The writers without religious studies on their résumés inform themselves and their audience by turning to academics, firsthand players in religious developments, and denominational officials for comments and angles. Experts and interested parties themselves are also called upon or volunteer to write op-ed pieces and features of all sorts. In addition, the paper commissions scholars with professional training in analyzing religious phenomena.

Op-eds, obituaries, and book reviews are written by theologians, historians, sociologists, anthropologists, and other observers of religion skilled in characterizing religion, its pluralism, its vocabulary, its symbols, its mystery, its faith, its wisdom, its spirituality, its quest for meaning, its connection to human needs and divine calling, its temptations, and its transcendence.

Collectively, the Times brings as much expertise to its pages as most academic authors do in writing a book.

Perhaps, then, Times reportage and commentary constitutes not only a

“first draft of history,” but also a more accurate version of history than a subsequent, single-authored work on the same period could accomplish — because it includes these many perspectives under the same canopy. In the totality of reportage in its post-9/11 religion coverage, the Times allows multiple visions, knowledges, disciplines, ideologies, and conventions to find expression on its pages. There is a constant reaching toward other perspectives. One op-ed contradicts another; one report adds a dimension that a previous report left out. Balance comes from this range of views; however, it is balance built on its own and its readership’s conventional worldview as locally, regionally, and nationally defined.

The Times is not published in Kabul or

There might be no better place to learn about religion, politics, and journalism reported in these times.

Baghdad. If it were, its center of gravity would be significantly different.

Good journalism, former Times religion reporter Ari L. Goldman (now professor and dean of students at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism) writes, is like good Talmud.

Each issue begins with a summary statement, fair and inclusive, followed by argument — one voice, another voice, expressing valid opinions, each “worth listening to and recording.”

Each may be right, even though they diverge and disagree. Neither Talmud nor good journalism is willing to “set-

tle for only one opinion.” For Goldman, Talmud “is the ultimate newspaper of Judaism,” striving toward “equality and justice” with “logic and perseverance.” The Times seems committed to the same goals.

Not coincidentally, these are also the aims and practices of religious studies in the context of liberal arts higher education. Consequently, there might be no better place to learn about religion, politics, and journalism reported in these times, in this epoch of ours following 9/11.

Teaching with the Times Through this process, we get a textured picture of our age in its contradictory details. For that reason, I have continued to use the Times in several courses over the past decade: Religion and the Quest for Meaning (a firstyear seminar in fall 2003), Religion in Contemporary America (fall 2009), and three iterations of the Core Distinction seminar, Religion and Politics in These Times (fall 2005, spring 2008, and spring 2010). In spring 2012, I shall offer the Religion and Politics class as the last Core Distinction seminar at Colgate. I think that there is much to learn in the myriad journalistic details regarding history, culture, society, and human religiousness.

In recent weeks, I have heard from two Colgate alumnae who earned Core Distinction Honors in my courses.

They are both developing high school curricula focused upon 9/11, employing Times coverage as source material.

An alumnus who took my first-year seminar in 2003 and is now a Marine Corps captain stationed in Afghani-

stan credits our course with preparing him for his present assignment: working with local Afghan communities. To understand the religious expressions of diverse peoples is crucial to effecting humane communication with populations from afar.

Journalism helps us understand both our neighbors and ourselves. In recognition of the 10th anniversary of 9/11, I am planning to mentor members of the Colgate Maroon-News staff in local religion reporting. In fall 2011, with guidance from Times reporters and editors, past and present, we hope to produce a series, “Portraits of Belief,” about religious life at Colgate and its environs, in the light and the long shadow of 9/11.

Being a professor of the humanities, I celebrate journalism’s complexity, as well as its diversity of viewpoints and their expressiveness. There is richness in the coverage. It can educate you. You won’t learn everything you need to know about religion in these times by reading the newspaper — even if that paper is the Times. But it is an edifying place to start.

— Christopher Vecsey is the Harry Emerson Fosdick Professor of the humanities and Native American studies and religion. This essay is adapted from his book Following 9/11: Religion Coverage in the New York Times (Syracuse University Press).

News and views for the Colgate community

33 33

Faces of

Fitness

BY ALETA MAYNE

Building more than muscle at the new Trudy Fitness Center There’s no other spot on campus where, on a given day, you’ll find an alumnus from the Class of ’41, the president of the rugby club, a staff member from the accounting department, and a geography professor. Not only can they be found in the same building, but they’re also all sweating it out in tandem. The campus’s focus on fitness has no boundaries, and since the opening of the new Trudy Fitness Center in January, Colgate’s collective physique has been pumped up even more.

These vignettes — featuring some of Trudy’s newbies,

regulars, and lifelong exercise devotees — depict the newest driving force behind Colgate’s reputation as one of the fittest college campuses in America.

The wellness champion As co-chair of the university’s Wellness Initiative, Mark Thompson — who is also director of counseling and psychological services — knows the strong correlation between physical and emotional health. He notes that the popularity of the Trudy Fitness Center has already begun to benefit the Wellness Initiative, which encourages balanced lifestyles within the Colgate community. Physical fitness is just one spoke in the wellness wheel, but Thompson hopes that the new fitness center will serve as an entryway into a comprehensively healthy lifestyle for campus and community members.

Thompson doesn’t just preach the power of physical health — at least four days a week, he can be found on an elliptical machine or doing calisthenics, either at 6:30 a.m. or at the noontime hour reserved for faculty and staff. “When I work out, I feel more mentally focused because I’ve had the chance to discharge stress,” he said. “We know from research that when people are exercising regularly, that has a positive effect on stress, anxiety, and mood.”

The coach With space-age–looking machines and a regular crowd of musclemen deadlifting hundreds of pounds, it’s easy to understand why there can be an intimidation factor on Trudy’s firstfloor weight room. But Ryan Baker, head volleyball coach, is helping people shed that notion.

Baker is one of two varsity coaches who have been leading orientation classes to get people accustomed to using the new machines. The sessions have been so well received that many more had to be scheduled, and Baker has seen a boost in attendance and selfassurance in those whom he’s instructed. “It was really great to see their confidence go up — especially females, who often shy away from the weights,” he said. “I’ve gotten a lot of pleasure out of watching their facial expressions change because they could do it.” It’s also been gratifying to see those who participated in his orientation sessions working out on the weight floor on their own afterward, Baker said.

All photography by Andrew Daddio 34

scene: Summer 2011

A strong proponent of pumping iron, Baker said the new Hoist machines are designed to glide with the body’s natural movements. “They take a lot of pressure off your back because your feet move with you; biomechanically, it’s much better for you,” he explained. “Strength is important, especially as you get older and need to maintain your bone density.”

His efforts and the orientation sessions have clearly paid off: now, there are days when more women can be seen weightlifting at Trudy than men.

The motivator

Suzie Meres can attest to the empowerment of knowledge when it comes to getting familiar with the fitness center. Meres is business manager for Greek Letter Operations in the accounting office. “As soon as I walked in, I felt overwhelmed,” she said of her first time visiting the new facility. “There were a lot of monster machines, and I thought, ‘Ugh, this isn’t for me.’”

But, she signed up for an orientation session with Baker, and she encouraged her co-workers to do the same. With Baker’s guidance, Meres learned how to use the machines and realized that they were something she could incorporate into her exercise regimen. “It was like a whole new thing,” she said. “I felt like I was “I used to hate working out,” said Rui Nakata ’14. Having been to in a playground.” Now, the former fitness center only once, Nakata begrudgingly went to Meres and a few of the the new facility on the second day of its opening — she and her women with whom she friends wanted to get in shape for their spring break trip to Miami. took the orientation Once Nakata saw the open space, with its shiny floors and class go through the state-of-the-art equipment, her appetite for athleticism went entire row of machines beyond getting bikini-ready. And, although spring break is together twice a week as long over, fitness is still part of her lifestyle. “My friends and I part of their workout. motivated each other to go for a week, and then it just became a A deep-water fitness routine,” she said. “Now I’m more comfortable going alone, so I instructor for faculty and go whenever I feel like it.” staff for 15 years, Meres Nakata admitted that this lifestyle change has even given has always been one to her studies a boost. “It helps me get my homework done faster foster physical activity — I plan out my days better now instead of wasting my time on in others. “I really enjoy inspiring people and motivating them to make themselves feel Facebook.” She added, “It makes me feel more accomplished better,” she said. “If someone’s feeling down, I’ll say, ‘Let’s go to the fitness center and work because I’m more productive.” out. I’ll show you how to use the weights now that I know how.’”

The spring breaker– turned-perennial

News and views for the Colgate community

35

A fit footprint

The new Trudy Fitness Center is the most energy- and resource-efficient building on campus.

The project managers and architects are striving to get the building LEED certified (an internationally recognized green building designation). To earn that certification, the building must earn points in five categories: sustainable sites, water efficiency, energy and atmosphere, materials and resources, and indoor environmental quality. Here are some areas where Trudy is racking up points:

- 2 0 percent greater energy efficiency than a typical building of its size

- T he reflective white roof reduces the “heat island” effect (the rise in a setting’s temperature when dark surfaces absorb the sun’s heat)

- A ir handling system (HVAC) constantly recycles fresh air

ESS CENTER T R U DY F I T N

- A t least 25 percent of the building’s footprint is tree/ shrub plantings to minimize ecological impact

36

scene: Summer 2011

- 3 1,595 plastic water bottles saved from 2 water fountains as of press time

- 3 0 percent greater water efficiency than a typical building of its size - N ew bike racks and preferred parking for fuel-efficient vehicles

The professor With this year’s seemingly endless winter, Peter Klepeis ’94 was grateful for the Trudy Fitness Center. During the academic year, the geography professor and his wife had a routine of dropping their kids off at Hamilton Central School and then going to the gym to work out together. “It helps to have a partner in crime,” he said.

Klepeis particularly enjoys the new facility because it allows users to control their own experience, with individual TVs and iPod docks on the cardio machines. The allocated mat space on both floors for stretching out and doing calisthenics is another advantage, Klepeis said.

On the weekends, his family also participates in Colgate’s fitness offerings (family members and local residents can join for a fee); his three children swim in the pool, or Klepeis plays racquetball with his 7-year-old son.

“Having access to this is a big perk from a faculty point of view,” he explained.

“It’s a top-notch facility … big, high ceilings, natural light, wood beams, and a diverse mix of machines.”

- 114 windows that assist daylight harvesting (light sensors in the building read the outdoor conditions, and the fluorescent lights adjust accordingly)

- Low–VOC paints

- X eriscaping: use of native vegetation that does not need watering

- 4 32 tons, or 89%, of the construction debris was diverted from a landfill

Illustration by Katherine Mutz

- Retention pond that can store and treat storm water runoff at rates of up to 800 gallons per minute

The circuit trainer A father of five, Aurelius Henderson is used to running around. So, the assistant dean and adviser to the opportunity programs isn’t daunted by the stairs separating the weight room from the cardio floor. He’ll warm up on the elliptical machine for five minutes, run downstairs to lift, go back upstairs to bike, hit the weights again, and then finish his workout on a third cardio machine. “I come up with this crazy stuff,” said Henderson, who, three times a week, also organizes a group workout in Huntington Gym to the Insanity workout DVDs, a high-intensity conditioning program.

Henderson is a fan of the new facility because it has helped him be able to do what he really loves: shoot hoops. His doctor told him that basketball could aggravate his old injuries, but that if Henderson strengthened his knees, he could play. “With the old machines, I couldn’t strengthen my legs the way I wanted to because of the swelling in my knees,” he explained. “But now there are the machines that move with your body, and you get strength without straining and pulling,” he added, citing the merits of the squat machine especially.

Henderson’s other favorite part of the new fitness center is unexpected, but something that many report: the social scene (another dimension of the campus Wellness Initiative).

He’s part of a group of people who arrive many mornings before the doors open at 6 a.m., waiting to get a jump start. “People from all areas of the community come — including teachers from Sherburne and Hamilton — so it’s a whole mixture, and we have wonderful conversations,” Henderson said.

News and views for the Colgate community

37

The career exerciser Varsity basketball player Evan Librizzi ’11 is another Colgater who prefers to get to the fitness center first thing in the morning to beat the crowds — although waiting in line for a machine is no longer an issue with all the new equipment. But, morning workouts have become part of her routine and are how Librizzi likes to start her day. In fact, fitness is such an integral part of the senior’s life that she plans to attend graduate school for exercise science. “From a young age, my parents instilled in me the importance of exercise for a healthier life, both mentally and physically,” she said. “I would love to one day coach and train all types of athletes from a strength and conditioning standpoint.”

The iron girl It was the university’s fitness opportunities that first attracted Vicky Stone to start working at Colgate 18 years ago. Stone is senior administrative assistant for alumni affairs. Her friend, Grace Huff (another longtime employee, who today is associate director of planned giving), had been telling Stone about taking aerobics classes during her lunch break. “She made it sound so nice,” Stone recalled. “So, my first day here, I went to aerobics and just got right into it.” She even ended up teaching the class to faculty and staff members for a number of years.

Now, Stone uses the fitness center as part of her robust workout — which, in a typical week, includes power yoga at home or spinning class in Huntington Gym in the mornings, running on the treadmill or swimming laps at the noontime faculty and staff hour, and later joining the evening Insanity group.

Stone has always been fit, but this year, she has kicked it up a level because she’s been preparing for Syracuse’s Iron Girl triathlon in August. The new Precor treadmills have helped Stone train for the footrace portion. “You can do so many programs, and they’re very customizable,” she explained of the options that offer changing inclines and varying speeds throughout the workout. “You can even go downhill!”

Colgate people have helped her prepare, too. Bob Benson, the former swim coach (who is also Stone’s neighbor), and the current assistant diving coach, Shannon Cutting (who also leads orientation sessions at Trudy), have both offered Stone tips. “There are some great people who reach out and help you, if you just tell them what you want to do,” Stone said. “It’s nice that you can meet like-minded people with the same values, and you can strengthen friendships.”

The rugger Julian Michaels ’11 had to take a couple of weeks off from lifting weights when his hand got stomped on by a cleat during the spring rugby game between alumni and students.

Having just finished the season, the Rugby Club president shifted his focus from energizing his teammates to helping his girlfriend, Jackie Wakeen ’11, and classmate Maddi Love ’11, get conditioned for their summer bike trip down the Pacific Coast from Canada to Mexico. “I push them to go harder and faster,” explained Michaels, who got into the gym culture through working as a front desk monitor for two years.

Michaels won’t be going on the bike trip because he’s conducting geology research with Professor Bruce Selleck on campus this summer. But, he has planned a long-term fitness adventure for himself: seeing the highest peaks in all 50 states. Saying he’s a firm believer in the power of physical strength and wellness, Michaels hopes this bucket list will be a way to keep him fit for life. Because of the costliness of traveling to the more distant states, Michaels said, there are some peaks, like Alaska’s Mt. McKinley, that he probably won’t ascend while he’s young. “I might not see that 50th peak until I’m 70, so I’ve got to keep working out.”

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scene: Summer 2011

The young at heart When John LeFevre ’41 feels the impulse to miss his workout, he thinks about a quote he read: “Once you skip a day of exercise, it’s the same as telling your body that it’s OK to rot.” At 92 years young, the alumnus and Hamilton resident can be seen working out at the Trudy Fitness Center three to five days a week.

On his way from the stationary bike — where he usually begins his workout — to the weight room, LeFevre says hello or stops to chat with the many people he knows. The IBM retiree worked in the Office of Admission for 13 years, but he’s gotten to know even more Colgate folks from going to the fitness center. “I have a good time when I go there, and I feel very much at home,” he said.

The former hockey player recalled the evolution of fitness in his time at Colgate, starting with team dry-land practices using tennis balls on the third floor of Huntington Gym. After a hiatus from Hamilton, when LeFevre returned in the 1980s and began working for admission, student Sue Dolly Lathrop ’88 (today a senior associate dean for admission) introduced him to the small gym that had been assembled on the third floor of Huntington. The next version of Colgate’s gym, the Wm. Brian Little Fitness Center, was built in 1994 on the first floor of Huntington, atop the old pool where LeFevre had passed his mandatory swimming test as a freshman.

With the Trudy Fitness Center, Colgate’s workout space has come a long way since the days when the hockey team raced back and forth on Huntington’s third floor or the football team ran up the old ski hill to get in shape. “We have to be proud of this facility because it is a first-class show,” LeFevre said. “I’m always impressed that students are taking advantage of it. That’s today’s world, and it’s a great world.”

See wellness champion Mark Thompson and others, including President Jeffrey Herbst (pictured right) and the Colgate Thirteen, in the mockumentary “At the Trudy Fitness Center” at youtube.com/cuatchannel13.

8

At least four days a week, several members of Brothers — a multicultural student organization — work out together in the evenings to spot and encourage each other. They say they dig the new fitness digs for many reasons — including more space, added weightlifting options, and the new machines that are easier on the body. Pictured above (L to R): Chris Dell’Amore ’11, Javier Magana ’14, and Dave Fuentes ’11.

Right: Medvis Jackson '11 spots Dell'Amore.

The figures supporting Colgate’s figure

1/31/11 opening day of the Trudy Fitness Center 153 people filed in at 6 a.m. when the

doors opened for the first time

50 Raider bobbleheads given to

those first in line opening morning

14,825 square feet 71 Precor cardio machines 183% increase in student attendance

at 6 a.m. on weekdays (comparing February 2011 to February 2010)

10 lbs this reporter lost while doing hands-on research for this article

20 orientation sessions offered to faculty and staff

Bodybuilding Brothers: News and views for the Colgate community

39

40

scene: Summer 2011

Andrew Daddio

News and views for the Colgate community

41

Alumni bulletin board Andrew Daddio

stay connected

to know: Know:Karl Name Here ’91 Get to Stewart

– Alumni Council 2005–2011; career services, awards, and district clubs committees – Maroon Citation, 2011; class gift committee; member, LGBTQ Alumni Association – MFA, acting, Brooklyn College; MA, social organizational psychology, Columbia University – Human Resources Coordinator, CNN – Founder, WorkWellGroups.com The actor in HR: People respond to somebody on stage that they relate to, so I bring that to bear in orientations, training programs, and one-on-one career conversations. In improv, you’re taught to respond to your partner, so I watch people’s body language to see what they really need. Sometimes someone comes with what seems to be a basic question, but they’re asking for something different.

About Work Well: I counsel young professionals, helping them diagnose what pains them in their job or job hunt.

Career counselor’s insight: The people who love what they do seem to be the most successful. It’s the natural extension of who they are, so it’s very little like work.

What it takes to love his own work: It has to be helping people.

There are “people” people and there are “things” people. I have a split brain — I was a math major and a theater minor.

Alumni Council Notes

New to the council I am pleased to announce the successful candidates of the 2011 Alumni Council election: Era I: H. Gerald Nordberg Jr. ’57 Era IV: Mark R. DiMaria ’84 Era V: Thomas J. Murphy ’90 Era VII: Katie R. Finnegan ’05 These alumni join five other uncontested candidates unanimously elected on June 4, 2011: Era II: Bob Seaberg ’69 Era III: Bruce Crowley ’79 Era VI: Sara Golding Mullen ’99 At Large: Lisa Oppenheim-Shultz ’85 At Large: Joy Buchanan ’99 The following new regional vice presidents were appointed by the Alumni Council: Metro I: Joanna Allegretti ’05 Metro II: Melissa Coley ’79 New England: Travis Leach ’94

Career mistakes to avoid: Instead of fire, ready, aim, always practice ready, aim, fire. For example, you may have a brilliant idea, but the way that it’s presented can get it shot down in five seconds. Sometimes it’s more successful to check in with other people before making a proposal in a meeting. Talk not just to a key advocate, but also get feedback from a person you think is going to say, “That’s not going to work.”

Congratulations to all our new Alumni Council members!

Favorite Alumni Council role: Real World in January, when we talk with students about our careers. I emphasize that there are no mistakes with the first job. Whatever you end up trying, you learn something. For me, I was an actuary. I learned that I never again want to figure out whether red or blue cars get into more accidents — it requires too much separation from human beings.

The nominations committee of the Alumni Council seeks recommendations for candidates for this 55-member volunteer board. From unique perspectives and diverse backgrounds, the council advises the university; opens lines of communication between Colgate and its alumni; mentors the next generation of graduates; and proudly tells Colgate’s story to the world.

Each year, 11 to 13 new members are selected to represent specific eras and geographic areas as well as at-large positions. Candidates, initially identified through the nominations committee, are ultimately ratified by

Pastimes: I love Scrabble. The beach — I just lie there like a shell.

And my 8-year-old godson, Judah, who’s adorable — and reminds me of myself.

Favorite cause: I volunteer for two places. God’s Love We Deliver brings food to people who are homebound from HIV/AIDS and other debilitating diseases. And I am usually a key player on the AIDS Walk team at the company where I work.

Guilty pleasure: 75 percent dark chocolate. I have to be specific; I was a math major, after all.

— Rebecca Costello 42

Questions? Contact the alumni office at 315-228-7433 or alumni@colgate. edu

scene: Summer 2011

Christine Cronin Gallagher ’83 President, Alumni Corporation

Call for nominations

the full council. Ideal candidates exhibit several of the following qualities: • Varied Colgate volunteer service • A demonstrated commitment to Colgate over time • Meaningful personal or profes- sional accomplishments or

contributions to the greater community • Readiness and willingness to become more involved on behalf of the university • A consistent history of giving financial support to Colgate The awards committee of the Alumni Council seeks nominations from the classes ending in 2 and 7 for awards to be presented at Reunion 2012.

Categories include: • Ann Yao Young Alumni Award (Class of 2007) • Maroon Citations • Humanitarian Award • Wm. Brian Little ’64 Alumni

Award for Distinguished Service* *All candidates having previously received the Maroon Citation will be considered.

Send nominations for alumni awards and Alumni Council candidates by Sept. 1, 2011, to: Tim Mansfield, Executive Secretary, Colgate University, 13 Oak Dr., Hamilton, NY 13346.

Please include a supporting statement for each person you nominate. For more information, visit www.colgate connect.org.

Travel opportunity: Colgate in East Africa May 17–May 30, 2012 President Jeffrey Herbst, four Colgate professors, and the Benton Scholars invite 13 alumni or parents for a oncein-a-lifetime experience. See www. colgateconnect.org/africa for details.

Ten familiar local street names on the Hamilton map detail below have been replaced by numbers. We’ve taken those 10 names (without their St., Ave., or Rd. indicators) and paired them, then scrambled together all the letters in each pair, resulting in the five signs shown. Can you unscramble the two street names that make up each sign? For example, OAK and MONTGOMERY might be scrambled to spell TOOK ANGRY MEMO. The letters of each street name on a sign appear in a consistent color. See page 69 for the answers.

Eat on St.

2

1 s St. Charle

Montgomery St.

salmagundi

You Were Here

St. John

5

6 3

St. Pine

Ave. Maple

4

7 Oak D r.

8

Newell Dr.

9

10

When I cracked the spine of my new Colgate Datebook, volume XII, this year, I reminisced how these little calendars have helped me organize my life. Each year since 1999, I’ve ordered a new one from the university bookstore.

The daily glimpse of the Colgate seal reminds me of those fond years, and a quick glance reveals what’s on tap for my day, the following week, or the next month. As a visual thinker, the ability to see Sunday–Saturday on the page offers me clarity.

I occasionally glance back at 10 years of my life: first dates, wedding planning, birthday gatherings, client meetings, tae kwon do tournaments, family vacations … all documented in these little books. Each winter, I count the number of ski/telemark/ snowboarding days I enjoyed (record: 32 in 2001–2003). Come tax season, when I’m calculating my travel mileage, the process takes less than 30 minutes as I flip through my datebook, reminded about fun engagement sessions and compelling conferences. Tax stress melts away. Take that, Microsoft Outlook!

I’ve considered digital calendars; however, the process of writing it down forces me to remember it. Batteries don’t die, operating systems don’t crash, and I can still read and plan my time after the flight attendant says, “Please turn off all portable electronic devices.”

Thank you, Colgate Datebook, for making my life easier!

Do you have a reminiscence for Rewind?

Send your submission of short prose, poetry, or a photograph with a description to scene@colgate.edu.

Puzzle by Puzzability

scene: Summer 2011

My Colgate Datebooks

— R.J. Kern ’00, a wedding photographer, dedicated a longer version of this post on his blog, kern-photo.com, to his grandfather Jim Quigley ’48, who he said “continues to inspire my entrepreneurial spirit.”

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Ln lly a L

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Rewind

Above: Homework, en plein air. A perfect spring day to bring the laptop out on the Quad. Back cover: An unusual profusion of yellow irises sprung up around Taylor Lake this year. Both photos by Andrew Daddio

News and views for the Colgate community

scene: News and views for the Colgate community Colgate University 13 Oak Drive Hamilton, NY 13346-1398

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