Faculty Accomplishments
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Professor of Art Véronique Plesch wrote the introduction to the summer issue of the Maine Arts Journal as well as her "Art Historical Musings" column with an essay titled "A Balancing Art." For this issue, the MAJ joined forces with the L.C. Bates Museum and their summer show, which was curated by Anna Jaubert '25 and Zehra Gundogdu '26 and supervised by Plesch (the virtual show can be seen here). The L.C. Bates summer show, the MAJ, and a forthcoming show at the Portland Gallery of the Union of Maine Visual Artists are all on the same topic of In Balance/Imbalance. Assistant Professor of Printmaking Amanda Lilleston is featured both in the L.C. Bates show and the summer issue of the MAJ.
Associate Professor of Environmental Studies Stacy-ann Robinson has coauthored an article titled "Locally led adaptation: Promise, pitfalls, and possibilities." Appearing in the journal Ambio, the article offers a nuanced understanding of the power and justice considerations required to make climate change adaptation useful for local communities and institutions, and to resolve the tensions between locally led adaptation and other development priorities. It also contributes to a further refinement of locally led adaptation methodologies and practices to better realize its promises.
On June 15, 2023, Professor of Art Véronique Plesch delivered a lecture (via Zoom) titled “Iconographie de la haine: Défense et illustration du corpus iconographique” at the conference Expressions Artistique et Diversité Religieuse: Déconstruire les Figures de la Haine, organized by the Faculté des Sciences Juridiques, Économiques et Sociales Agda (Université Mohammed V, Rabat) and the International Association Overcoming Hate/Vaincre la haine, along with Essaouira Mogador, Bayt Dakira, Agence Marocaine d’Évaluation des Politiques Publiques, Centre d’Études et de Recherche sur le Droit Hébraïque, Chaire de Droit Hébraïque, and the Fondation Konrad-Adenauer Maroc, in Rabat, Morocco. Plesch is member of the scientific council of Vaincre la Haine, a French association (Law 1901) whose aim is "to fight racism, anti-Semitism, and anti-Muslim hatred; defend their victims and publicly plead for understanding of the problem and its consequences."
Professor of Art Véronique Plesch supervised two student curators—Zehra Gundogdu '25 and Anna Jaubert '25—in the creation of an exhibition at the L.C. Bates Museum, marking the 14th time students have curated an exhibition at the museum. This year’s theme, In Balance/Imbalance, is the occasion for collaboration between the L.C. Bates Museum with the Maine Arts Journal and the Union of Maine Visual Artists. After a three-year hiatus due to Covid-19, there was an in-person show (as well as a virtual component) featuring the works of 23 artists who are either from Maine or have close ties to the state. On May 6, an opening reception was held, with support from the Center for the Arts and Humanities. WFVX-TV in Bangor covered the opening and the exhibition.
Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies Stacy-ann Robinson has coauthored an article titled "Understanding 'Islandness.'” Appearing in the journal Annals of the American Association of Geographers, it explores the different meanings of "islandness"—as smallness, culture, identity, and the "other." It concludes that, although there is much to be gained from appreciating differing understandings of islandness, these different meanings make it critical to reflect on context wherever the term is used and to exercise care in assigning attributes and outcomes to the phenomenon.
Neil Gross, the Charles A. Dana Professor of Sociology, presented a talk at the annual Public Safety Summit, held April 21-23 at Harvard University. Gross talked about his new book, Walk the Walk: How Three Police Chiefs Defied the Odds and Changed Cop Culture, to a group of 75 police chiefs and other officials from big and medium-sized cities. The book's premise, as he writes in the introduction, is that policy and culture changes are vital to reforming police departments. Each attendee was given a copy of Gross's book to take with them.
Colby researchers are coauthors of the recent article "Land-use change is associated with multi-century loss of elephant ecosystems in Asia" published in the journal Scientific Reports. More than three million square kilometers of the Asian elephant’s historic habitat range has been lost in just three centuries, the report from an international scientific team led by a University of California San Diego researcher reveals. This dramatic decline may underlie present-day conflicts between elephants and people, the authors argue. “This study has important implications for our understanding of the history of elephant landscapes in Asia and it lays the groundwork for better understanding and modeling the potential future of elephant landscapes as well,” said Philip Nyhus, professor of environmental studies at Colby and one of the study coauthors. In addition to Nyhus, three Colby undergraduate students contributed to the study, Josiah Johnson '19, Ashley Weaver '22, and Tiffany Wu '19. Wu's honors thesis provided an important foundation for this study. “This was a collaborative and multi-institutional effort,” added Nyhus, “and I was proud that Colby students contributed significantly to the models and analyses used in the study.”
Professor of Art Véronique Plesch delivered a paper titled “Who’s On First? When Illustrations Are Not Text-Bound” at the international conference "Illustration Studies: New Approaches, New Directions" held in Birkbeck, University of London, April 19–21, 2023.
Evgeniy Maloletka, a freelance photojournalist working for the Associated Press, has won first place in the renowned international "World Press Photo" competition for an image he took while embedded in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol in March 2022, a few weeks after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The image of an injured, heavily pregnant woman from a bombed maternity hospital in Mariupol "shocked people around the world" and "captures the human suffering caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine," said jury chairman Brent Lewis. Maloletka and Mstyslav Chernov were co-recipients of Colby's 2023 Lovejoy Award for Courage in Journalism.
Elizabeth Leonard, the John J. and Cornelia V. Gibson Professor of History, Emerita, has been awarded the 2023 John Nau Book Prize in American Civil War Era History for her book Benjamin Franklin Butler: A Noisy, Fearless Life (University of North Carolina Press in Chapel Hill). Butler is Colby’s most significant Civil War-era alumnus, graduating from Waterville College—later Colby—in 1838 and becoming among the most significant civilian Union generals in the Civil War. Leonard is an award-winning biographer with specialties in the Civil War, and Benjamin Franklin Butler: A Noisy, Fearless Life is her seventh book. It was also a finalist for the Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize.