Faculty Accomplishments

An article by Associate Professor of Art Marta Ameri was published as a chapter in the book the Routledge Companion to Seals and Seal Studies in Antiquity (2026). Titled "Women's Seals in Iran and Central Asia: Prestige Items or Administrative Tools (or Both)?" the article is included in the book's "Gender" section. Ameri was also the content expert for a children's book Life in the Indus Civilization: An Interactive Ancient History Adventure" (Capstone Publishing, 2025) as part of the publisher's "You Choose" series.

A study led by Amanda Gallinat, an ecologist and a lecturer of environmental studies, investigating how spring bird arrival times are shifting with climate change was the subject of an article by WBUR. Titled "Spring bird migration in Concord now a week earlier than in Thoreau's time, study finds," the article highlighted Gallinat's research conducted by combining volunteer observations with observations made by Henry David Thoreau. While birds migrating a relatively short distance, such as from the southeastern U.S., are "better at gauging cues about changing temperatures" and thus adjusting arrival time to coincide with the bloom of spring food, "birds wintering in Central and South America 'are really at a loss' when it comes to predicting temperatures in far-away Concord," the article noted.

Michael Burke, professor of English and creative writing, emeritus, contributed a chapter titled "Deepening and Complicating: The Creative Nonfiction Workshop" to the recently released Evolving Strategies for Writing Feedback on Creative Manuscripts: A Multi-Genre Pedagogy Guide (Routledge, 2026). In his chapter, Burke used a student's essay from his last class before retiring to demonstrate what he was writing about, "with the student's enthusiastic permission, of course," he said. The student, who asked for anonymity because of the essay's content, was thrilled to be included, as Burke selected hers from several other student submissions. The chapter is an example of faculty-student collaboration that extends beyond the classroom.

James M. Gillespie Professor of Art Véronique Plesch edited the winter issue of Maine Arts Journal and wrote the introduction, in which she discusses the theme of "Words and Images" and the contributions to the issue. In her "Art Historical Musings" column on "Images and Words," she discusses her long involvement with the scholarly field of word and image studies and sketches the history of the exploration of the relationships between the two modes of expression. As she considers word/image interactions, she discusses what is at stake in practices such as describing works of art, using titles, inserting words in artworks, and turning words (and letters) into art. She also tackles the question of legibility (and of illegibility), of the often conflictual relationship between the visual and the verbal, and also of how the word/image dichotomy can be transcended. In "Moving Paint, Writing Memories: A Conversation with Stephen Hannock," Plesch shares excerpts from conversations with Hannock in which they discuss his use of words in his Panoramic Vistas series. Finally, she also contributed "Words in Graffiti: A (Mostly) Visual Essay." in which she shares a collection of photographs taken over the past forty years throughout the world along with some considerations on graffiti’s distinctive features.

Amanda Gallinat, lecturer of environmental studies, recently had an article published in the Wilson Journal of Ornithology discussing her work that paired historical observations of bird arrivals initiated by Henry David Thoreau in the 1850s with modern eBird observations. The article, "Integrating historical records and citizen science data to understand bird responses to climate change in Concord, Massachusetts: Thoreau to eBird," shows that birds are shifting their arrival times earlier with warming temperatures, but that these shifts do not keep pace with local plants and insects.

Amanda Gallinat, lecturer of environmental studies, had an article published in the British Ecological Society's Journal of Ecology titled "Combined volunteer and ecological network observations show broad-scale temperature-sensitivity patterns for deciduous plant flowering and leaf-out times across the eastern USA." Gallinat and her colleagues also wrote a blog post for the journal explaining their major findings. The post explains how they tackled the challenge of "understanding how changes in the timing of seasonality is affecting the hundreds of thousands of plant and animal species across large regions" by turning to the Nature’s Notebook platform for help.

A paper by Abbie Cohen, visiting assistant professor of education, was recently published in the open-access journal of the American Educational Research Association. Her paper, "A Spectacle by Design: A Racialized Performance for Donor Dollars," explores how "racialized power dynamics impact the relationship between a youth-serving, community-based education nonprofit and its donors," according to the paper's abstract.

A course taught by Lecturer in Environmental Studies Amanda Gallinat has provided new information for an exhibition at the Fairbanks Museum in St. Johnsbury, Vt. Last year in her course Seasonal Ecology, Gallinat and her students analyzed 120 years of flowering and bird arrival records from the Fairbanks Museum. Their analysis was included into the museum's newly expanded Wildflower Table exhibition, a century-old living display. Gallinat and two students gave a scientific talk to the community at the exhibition opening, and her class’ analysis was the basis for several new wall panels highlighting warming in the region, species-level shifts in flowering times in response to warming, and the potential for mismatch with migratory birds that have not shifted their migration as much.

Associate Professor of Music Natalie Zelensky published an article in the Musical Quarterly titled "Peaceful Coexistence: Nicolas Slonimsky’s 1962 USSR Tour and 'Outside Insider' Cold War Music Diplomacy." The article looks at why Slonimsky (1894–1995), a Russian-born American lexicographer, musicologist, and composer, traveled to the USSR "mere days after President John F. Kennedy’s announcement of the presence of Soviet missiles in Cuba," Zelensky says in the article's opening. Among the most compelling reasons, Zelensky argues, was Slonimsky's participation in a "cultural exchange tour, organized and implemented by the U.S. Department of State." To understand the "complex picture" of his trip, Zelensky "examines the intersection of three distinct spheres: U.S. Cold War diplomacy, music’s role in this diplomacy, and the involvement of political exiles from the former Russian Empire in these efforts."

Associate Professor of English, Creative Writing Arisa White has won the Airlie Press Prize from Airlie Press, an Oregon-based nonprofit dedicated to "cultivating and sustaining fine contemporary poetry and to promoting poets from the Pacific Northwest—and beyond." White won the prize for her forthcoming manuscript A Trusted Spectacle in a World of Incomplete Sunshine. The manuscript, which received a book workshop grant from Colby's Humanities Division, will be published in 2027.