Media Coverage

As November 3 draws closer, Professor of Government Dan Shea was tapped to comment on the Maine U.S. Senate Race as well as results from a recent poll he conducted. Shea was quoted in this New York Times story, the Wall Street Journal, Politico, Fox News, the Boston Globe, and the Portland Press Herald here and here.

An article by the Portland Press Herald arts writer Bob Keyes highlights the Colby Museum of Art's recent acquisition of Jacob Lawrence prints. Lawrence "makes the original series when barely 20 years old and then decides it’s a subject important enough to revisit later in life,” said Colby's new Carolyn Muzzy Director Jacqueline Terrassa. “Given our times and the questions about racial justice and understanding around those issues, this acquisition is particularly timely.”

A Politico Nightly story discussing the three state races that will decide the Senate included thoughts from Professor of Government Dan Shea. "The state uses ranked-choice voting if no one gets to 50 percent — and that looks like a real possibility. That’s likely to benefit [Sara] Gideon," Politico reported.

Colby's Lutie Brown '22 is included in an article in Vogue magazine titled "How These First-Time Poll Workers Are Fighting for Democracy." Lutie, a Colby Votes Fellow who has been involved with Maine politics since her first year at Colby, has worked "with candidates on local issues in a nonpartisan fashion," she told Vogue. "I’m excited about turnout this fall, and ... I think young people are the ones who are really going to carry this election."

An op-ed by Forbes' Paul Hsieh titled "Three Covid-19 Success Stories" includes Colby as a New England school that has kept its infection rates down. Hsieh highlights Colby and a case where aggressive testing protocols and contract tracing stopped a potential spread from 150 to one person, according to President David Greene.

Loren McClenachan, the Elizabeth and Lee Ainslie Associate Professor of Environmental Studies, commented on an article about curbing the shark fin trade that appeared on the news platform Mongabay. Since tracing dried products like shark fin is nearly impossible, “high-tech approaches like genetic barcoding and niche modeling are key to solving this conservation problem," McClenachan said. "If we can correctly identify the locations of sharks supplying global markets, conservation efforts can protect vulnerable species in the water, where they’re at risk."

Professor of Creative Writing Debra Spark and her new book, And Then Something Happened: Essays on Fiction Writing, were the subject of an interview on the podcast First Draft: A Dialogue of Writing. In the interview, Spark talks about how much she enjoys interviewing people. "It’s fun for me, meeting people and talking to them. I feel like for anyone who writes, whether you publish or not, it’s a chance to make your world a little bigger and go places you couldn’t otherwise go." The website Literary Hub picked up the interview and reposted it on their site.

Various media outlets, including the Portland Press Herald and Maine Public, covered Colby's news announcing the most recent results from a Maine Senate race poll conducted by faculty in Colby's Department of Government.

USA TODAY and the Wall Street Journal ran stories covering the most recent poll conducted by Colby Department of Government faculty members.  The poll shows a statistical dead heat between Democrat Sara Gideon and Republican U.S. Senator Susan Collins. Professor of Government Dan Shea noted there hasn't been much change in poll numbers over recent months. "For all that money, and all this attention, and all those efforts, the electorate seems pretty well stuck where they started several months ago," he told USA TODAY.

News of a recent gift to Colby honoring Joan Dignam Schmaltz ’63 and Richard “Dick” Schmaltz ’62 was covered by the Morning Sentinel. “Where we are in our stage with our relationship with Waterville is that this should be positive, mutually beneficial and eternal,” Colby College President David A. Greene said in a phone interview Tuesday. “This should not be something that ends in the next couple years or has a timeline on it. It should be an ongoing commitment for Colby to have a partnership with Waterville.”