Media Coverage

An ABC News story on Maine's ranked-choice voting included quotes from Professor of Government Dan Shea. "We're starting to get comfortable with it," he told ABC News. "There are still some who are confused, but they have seen it in action and are getting comfortable." Still, there are political issues surrounding the issue. "Not unlike a lot of issues in the world, the partisan divisions have been strong with this," he said.

Professor of Government Dan Shea was tapped to comment on the Portland Press Herald article "Can Susan Collins survive Trump’s takeover of the Republican Party?" Among the questions the article asks is if Senator Collins has changed or if politics have changed. “I think she has been caught up in what scholars are calling affect partisanship or negative partisanship,” explained Shea. “That’s when we don’t simply disagree with the other side, but see the other side as a threat to the nation. That’s happening on both sides. There is less tolerance for those who shift between parties. Less room for the moderates.”

The painting Étude, by Elizabeth Nourse, is the subject of a Washington Post story titled "Side by side yet worlds apart" as part of the paper's "Great Works, In Focus" series. The painting "hangs in the wonderful Colby College Museum of Art in Waterville, Maine," the author writes in his introductory paragraph. 

Colby and its testing program are included in an Oct. 2 New York Times story titled "Colleges Learn How to Suppress Coronavirus: Extensive Testing" about colleges that are "beating the pandemic." President Greene told the reporter how frequent testing allowed a positive case to be caught early, and that contract tracing limited the spread. “It could have been 150 people, and we kept it to one person,” President Greene told the Times. 

An extensive story by USA TODAY details Colby's successful COVID-19 testing program and in-person education approach in its article "Colleges are exploding with COVID and have lax testing. One school is keeping cases down." Reporter Chris Quintana spent a day on Mayflower Hill talking with students and faculty about their experiences with testing and life on campus during the pandemic. "Its leaders bet the institution's testing, preparation, and location in a relative haven from the coronavirus would keep students safe, perhaps even safer than they would be at home. So far, they have been right," Quintana writes.

The headline says it all: "Colby College testing ‘going well,’ official overseeing health and safety plans says." The Morning Sentinel talked to Doug Terp, vice president of administration, who said of the low rate of COVID-19 infections that "overall, these results are well below what we were assuming we’d have,” he said. “From the 10,000-foot level, our goal was to get people here and try to get the campus stable, so we were able to do that.”

Blair Braverman '11 has an essay in the New York Times as part of their series on resilience. In her essay "What My Sled Dogs Taught Me About Planning for the Unknown," Braverman links the unknown distances her dogs must run each time they go out with the uncertainties of the length of the pandemic. "That’s how I feel now, midpandemic: that we humans are falling into uncertainty, stretching ourselves thin, and we have no idea how far it is to the finish line. The difference, of course, is that sled dogs want to run, and people do not want to live through a public health crisis. But there’s a parallel in the unknown distance, the unseen ending. And oddly enough, mushing has prepared me for this."

Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies Gail Carlson was interviewed on the radio program This Green Earth on Sept. 22. In the 30-minute conversation, they talked about Carlson's new research on PFAS in ski wax, "it's surprising findings, and why changes in the use of this type of ski wax are being pursued. These 'forever' chemicals can get into the snow, soil, and surface water, causing biological harm to the local ecology," the program's teaser states. This Green Earth focuses on the environment and environmentalism and broadcasts on KPCW out of Park City, Utah. 

Colby's reopening success and testing program was the subject of a feature story on the PBS Newshour. "As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, many academic institutions across the country are dealing with outbreaks—or offering only virtual learning in an attempt to prevent them. But one liberal arts school in Maine is seeking to avoid either fate," the story opens. The Newshour's Jeffrey Brown was on campus and spoke with students, a faculty member, and President David Greene, who believes testing should be available everywhere across the country.  "Places like Colby and others are picking it up and saying, 'we are going to figure it out ourselves. We will get this done.' And that's really important to show that there is a way forward on this, when, as a country, we haven't been able to do that thus far."

Professor of Government Dan Shea was a guest on the Sept. 22 NPR show On Point titled "How RBG's Death Could Impact Key Senate Races." Boston's NPR station WBUR aired the show, but it's also aired on stations across the country. NECN—New England Cable News—also tapped Shea for their story "Susan Collins Faces Pressure From Right, Left Over Supreme Court Vote." Even though Collins has said she does “not believe that the Senate should vote on the nominee prior to the election,” Shea believes her decision is complicated based on various election scenarios. “We’re in uncharted territory,” Shea fold NECN. “This may well be part of her legacy. I think she’s worried about the legitimacy of the Senate, Congress and the Court.” In a Sept. 20 Wall Street Journal article, Shea said of Collins: “It’s an impossible position that does thrust her into the most important moves that she’ll make in her career. It is about her legacy, a grand statement, a grand move, maybe even her last grand move in a very long public life. And it is an opportunity, it seems to me, for her to calm things down. If she can rally that sense of what’s best for America instead of what’s best for the Republican party, it could be her last grand gesture.”