Media Coverage

The Portland Press Herald featured two startups founded by Colby students in its June 28 article "Waterville-based tech startups mark milestones in their development:" Easy Eats, founded by Christian Krohg '22 and Katharine Dougherty '22, and Sklaza, founded by Josh Kim '22.   Both tech-based businesses competed in the Greenlight Maine Collegiate Challenge pitch competition, "a statewide collaboration of entrepreneurial catalysts and corporate leaders that promotes and mentors the development and growth of business in the state," the Press Herald reported. Easy Eats, an app-based food-delivery service platform that delivers to college dormitory doors, is a finalist in the competition, while Sklaza, an online marketplace devoted to college students that "tackles overconsumption, encourages recycling, and environmental sustainability," was a semi-finalist. “Technology and innovation is a key area of growth for downtown Waterville, and the mid-Maine region, and the success of Easy Eats and Sklaza is both a testament to their founders’ hard work and to the support of incredibly dynamic partners including MTI, Bricks Coworking & Innovation Space, and Colby College,” said Garvan Donegan, director of planning and economic development at Central Maine Growth Council.  

For the most recent installation in its series "Ask Me," the Portland Press Herald reached out to Cheryl Townsend Gilkes, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Professor of Sociology and African-American Studies, for her thoughts on the question: When will life get back to normal? Gilkes believes that "Normal, as we once knew it, will never be the same." Because of the coronavirus pandemic and the racial unrest spurred from the George Floyd murder, there's a new level of consciousness. "The new normal, I think, will be a higher level of self-education, and a higher level of consciousness about race and racism, especially among white people in America."

A commentary in Fortune titled "Universities should support their most vulnerable students to champion education equity" mentioned Colby's new initiative, Pay it Northward, as an example of colleges taking care of their students during the COVID-19 pandemic. 'Smaller institutions, too, illustrate how it is possible to make transformative commitments to equity, even with finite resources," the authors wrote. "Colby College, with its Pay It Northward initiative, has deployed its full alumni and professional network to connect each and every graduating senior with a postgraduate opportunity."

Assistant Professor of Biology Chris Moore was tapped to comment on a Portland Press Herald article titled "Widely cited health institute keeps missing the mark on Maine death projections." Models often get a bad rap, Moore said, because they're not perfect and numerically imprecise. "That is just the nature of dealing with complex systems," he told the Press Herald.  "Moore liked one of his student’s comparisons of infectious disease modeling to using a smartphone for driving directions. Your phone’s GPS should be able to predict with some precision when you will arrive in, say, nearby Fairfield from Waterville. But your ETA in Boston from Waterville depends on traffic, accidents and other factors," the article said. “When you are watching your phone and traveling, it is dynamically updating and taking into account all of these variables,” Moore said.

Maine colleges, including Colby, are releasing details for reopening their campuses, recounted in this June 15 Portland Press Herald article. "Colby College in Waterville will likely start in-person classes earlier than normal and look to complete the semester by Thanksgiving, though the planning process is ongoing and more detailed plans are expected next month, the college said in a statement," the article reports.

Research on the end-Permian extinction by Robert Gastaldo, the Whipple-Coddington Professor of Geology, was the subject of a Daily Californian article on June 11. The article highlighted Gastaldo's recently published work that identifies a new timeline for the end-Permian extinction. “We now know after 18 years of research … that whatever happened to the plants, and maybe to the animals, … did not happen at the same time of the greatest mass extinction in Earth’s history that occurred in the oceans,” Gastaldo said. “Whatever happened on land happened 300,000 years, or maybe a little more, before the catastrophe in the ocean,” Gastaldo to the paper. 

Cacophonic Choir, a work co-created by Hannen (Hannah) Wolfe, assistant professor of computer science, was featured in an ACM SIGGRAPH blog post. The project "amplifies the voices of sexual survivors' stories ... and uses machine learning through carefully spaced agents to demonstrate the effect of the mass media on survivors’ stories," the blog reports. Click here to read the Q&A with the creators and learn about their "inspiration, algorithms, and audio."

An op-ed in the June 13 Portland Press Herald co-written by Catherine Besteman, the Francis F. Bartlett and Ruth K. Bartlett Professor of Anthropology, points out concrete steps Maine can take to correct inequalities for people of color living in the state. Places to start, suggested by the authors, include:

• • Maine should take more steps to protect the sovereignty of tribes in the state.
  • Maine should not incarcerate children.
  • Budgets for police departments should fall and funds should be redirected to support the construction of affordable housing, free health clinics, addiction recovery support, substantive job skills training and adult education.
  • Because the CARES Act discriminates against many categories of legal immigrants, Maine should step up to ensure immigrant Mainers receive equal supports and protections.

Professor of Government Dan Shea was tapped to comment on the Maine Public piece titled "Political Scientists Say Maine Candidates Could Face Consequences For Skipping Debates." As the debate season heats up, candidates need to carefully weigh their options when deciding whether or not to participate. “Generally speaking, political scientists will tell you, especially at this point, no one is really paying attention, but this year and in most other things it is different. They are paying attention to what candidates are doing and they have some big expectations,” Shea told Maine Public. 

“Understanding the landscape that our students are going to be moving into, we knew that we needed to turbo-charge our efforts to ensure post-graduate success and really launch this initiative to make that happen,” Andy McGadney, vice president and dean of student advancement, said of Colby's Pay it Northward initiative to the Concord Monitor for their story "In uncertain economy, colleges help students find jobs."  The article also asked if New Hampshire schools should initiate a similar program. “Every institution has a powerful network within their own right. They have alumni that have graduated and gone on and done great things. How can they create a real meaningful call to action to support their graduating seniors right now?” McGadney said.