Faculty Accomplishments
Associate Professor of Chemistry Greg Drozd will represent Colby on the U.S. Academic Alliance for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The USAA-IPCC is a newly established network of U.S. academic institutions, including Colby, registered as observers with the IPCC. Both observer organizations and governments may nominate experts for roles in IPCC reports. A central duty of the IPCC is to produce assessment reports on the status of the science of climate change to help guide government agencies in developing climate policy, IPCC reports are a major part of the information used for policy at COP meetings.
Debra Spark, the Zacamy Professor of English, appeared on the New Books Network podcast to discuss her writing and her novel Discipline (Four Way Books, 2024). "Discipline addresses teenagers whose lives are molded by thoughtless adults and women who struggle with loneliness or are taken advantage of by the unscrupulous. It’s a coming-of-age story, a mystery about an art theft, but this gorgeous novel is also about family, ambition, and suffering," according to New Books Network.
In March 2025, Assistant Professor of French Studies Flavien Falantin was awarded the prestigious Gold Medal of the Société d’Encouragement au Progrès (SEP) during a ceremony held in Paris. Founded in 1908 by the Lumière brothers, French President Albert Lebrun, and physicist Édouard Branly, the SEP serves as a uniquely French counterpart to the Nobel Prize. It is dedicated to supporting individuals who demonstrate significant potential and the drive to push boundaries even further. This honor was bestowed in recognition of Falantin’s outstanding contributions to French and Francophone studies. He received the medal alongside Claudie Haigneré, the first European woman in space and former French Minister for Research and Minister for European Affairs.
Routledge has featured the book Developing High-Impact Course Design Institutes as a “Bestselling Book of 2025.” Coauthored by Carol Hurney, associate provost for teaching and learning, and Jordan Troisi, director of the Center for Teaching and Learning, the book is a "critical resource [that] unpacks the inner workings of one of the most powerful mechanisms for improving teaching and learning in higher education: the course design institute," according to Routledge. This book, and others written by Hurney and Troisi, represent one of the ways the pair has been working to position Colby and the Center for Teaching and Learning at Colby in the global conversation about teaching and learning support.
For the spring issue of the Maine Arts Journal, Professor of Art Véronique Plesch wrote the introduction for the issue's theme, "In Times Like These." She also wrote an essay for her "Art Historical Musings" column titled "Bearing Witness," in which she explains that as she reflects on the issue's theme, "some of the works of art I regularly engage with in my classes take on heightened resonance." Because of her scholarship on graffiti, Plesch was commissioned to write a reflection on a body of activist street art. Her piece is titled "Activist Cuckoo Nests."
Professor of Art Véronique Plesch was invited to participate in the session "Bearing Witness: Scratching the Surface of Italian Art" sponsored by the Italian Art Society at the Renaissance Society of America conference that took place in Boston March 20-22 , 2025. Her paper was titled "Renaissance Graffiti on Renaissance Works of Art: An Art Historical Litmus Test."
Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies Alison Bates has coauthored a paper with former students Makaylah Cowan '22 (an environmental computation major) and Julia Cantor '23 (a biology major) that appeared in the journal Energy Research & Social Science. Based on a multi-year community-based participatory research project (CBPR) to examine energy injustices in a New England city led by Bates, the study, "Whose low-carbon future? Community perceptions and expectations on the renewable energy transition in a post-industrial city," explores the intersection of systemic marginalization of community members facing decarbonization policies. Building on community partnerships with NGOs, they worked closely with a previously defined “environmental justice” community to elicit the ways in which the energy transition is perceived to result in energy justice and injustice by energy system specialists and by community members. Findings suggest that community members in particular fear getting “priced out” of their community as energy system upgrades are implemented, and they also feel that systemic injustices such as racialized governance structures would be exacerbated. They also identify the ways that energy justice is conceptualized whereby community members identify co-benefits such as improved housing, lower pollution, and an opportunity for energy democracy as possible outcomes of the energy transition.
The poetry journal Diode published two poems by Adrian Blevins, professor of English and creative writing. The poems are "Cool for You1 Interrupted Cento" and "Poem Beginning with Two Lines Ending a Poem by Bob Hicok" appeared in the journal's volume 18 number 1 issue.
Upcoming festivals will be screening films by Assistant Professor of Art, Digital Media Taka Suzuki, including The Hungry Ghost & The Earthshaker, which features the voice of Gary Green, professor of art, and performances by AB Brown, assistant professor of performance, theater, and dance; Arisa White, associate professor of English, creative writing; and Audrey Shakespear, former visiting assistant professor of art. It will screen at the Big Muddy Film Festival in Carbondale, Ill., which runs March 27-29 and at the Athens International Film & Video Festival in Athens, Ohio, which runs April 7-13. Additionally, Suzuki's film the shape of an unlit horizon will screen at the Portland Panorama Film Festival in Portland, Ore., which runs April 10-20.
Associate Professor of English Megan Cook has won a New England Humanities Consortium Seed Grant for her project titled "A Mid-career Medievalist Working Group." This grant will support the creation of a biannual working group of mid-career medievalists at NEHC member institutions. Cook's plan is to provide an opportunity for mid-career literary scholars focusing on the Middle Ages to meet and share scholarly work in progress. The goal is to strengthen community and facilitate intellectual exchange and collaboration among medievalists in New England.