Media Coverage

The Guardian ran a story about the new book by Associate Professor of Art Gary Green, When Midnight Comes Around. The article, "Trash, leather, sleaze: how Gary Green shot New York's punk scene," recounts how Green was able to capture the punk and post-punk scene in the late 1970s and early '80s. "What sets it apart is the sense that Green was both an insider – for a time, he shared an apartment with Sylvain Sylvain of the New York Dolls – and an acute social observer who understood that he was witnessing an important pop-cultural moment driven by outsiders and misfits," wrote the article's author, Sean O'Hagan. On May 15, O'Hagan interviewed Green on Instagram at #stanleybarkerbooks. 

The Morning Sentinel article "Fifty years later, Colby College’s Class of 1970 recounts disruption to semester’s end" tells the story of the class that knows disappointment all too well. "During the 1969-70 academic year at Colby, tension reached an apex, culminating with a student strike in May that led to the cancellation of classes over the final weeks of the semester, and a subdued graduation ceremony that evokes strong reactions 50 years later," the Sentinel reports. Now, the class's 50th Reunion has been postponed due to the coronavirus. Alumni leaders "spent a lot of time planning the reunion with Colby’s alumni office, but know it cannot go on this summer. Understanding why it cannot go on does not lessen disappointment," the story said. However, one alumni sees it differently. "Given the circumstances, I think it’s a minor inconvenience," Ben Kravitz '70 said. "Whether we do it at 50 or 51 years is not a big deal to me.”

The Portland Press Herald tapped Professor of Economics Michael Donihue for a story titled "Maine’s biggest unemployment jump ever put jobless rate at nearly 11% in April." Even if the coronavirus doesn't come back this summer and fall, Donihue fears that Maine's economic recovery will be slow to come. “We haven’t had a recession that started in the consumer sector before,” Donihue told the Press Herald. “I am fearful that a lot of these jobs are gone long-term.”  "If that is the case," he continued, "and recovery takes much longer than originally expected, there may be a role for a federal program to provide basic income in exchange for public service."

President Greene talked with Fox News' Arthel Neville May 24 about the College's Pay it Northward Initiative. "We've tapped 30,000 of our alums and friends and parents to say, 'open up your networks, open up experiences. Do everything you can to help these incredibly deserving students," President Greene said.

Conor Larkin '20, an environmental policy major, wrote an opinion piece for the Morning Sentinel titled "We’re all in this attic together." In it, he reflects on meeting Barb Bailey, a member of the Victor Grange and lead volunteer for WindowDressers in central Maine, who helps Mainers increase energy efficiency with low-cost weatherized windows. "I’ve been thinking a lot about that experience and wondering how I can reflect Barb’s empathy, kindness, and action in the wider community," Larkin wrote. "With COVID-19, for the first time in my young life our neighbors, communities, and nation are truly all in this together."

Colby's plans to celebrate the Class of 2020 were the focus of a May 22 Morning Sentinel article. "Colby College will not hold the in-person commencement ceremony scheduled for Memorial Day weekend, but is planning a virtual celebration of the Class of 2020 on Sunday that is to include speakers, music and, likely, many memorable images and moments," the Sentinel reported.  

Colby's Pay it Northward initiative continues to draw national attention, this time in the Wall Street Journal. "It’s really reassuring to know that they’re making sure we’re not being thrown into the wind,” graduating senior Matthew Garza told the WSJ in a story highlighting Colby's leadership in generating postgraduate opportunities for every member of the Class of 2020. 

CNN Business spoke with President David A. Greene about Colby's Pay it Northward initiative for the article titled "Class of 2020 entering worst job market since Great Depression." President Greene urged other institutions to follow suit. "I think we can all do our very best to help these students, they just need a little bit of a leg up right now," he said. "If we can give them a little bit of a boost right now to get them to jobs that they could really do the best in, they'll be fine."  

The Washington Post ran a story titled "With dorms shut and classes online, college students DIY campus life" that includes a section on "the Boothbay Commune," a group of 16 Colby students who chose to live in a summer cottage rental property when Colby moved to remote learning in mid-March. The students held study sessions and pulled all-nighters, and they engaged in non-academic learning. "The group organized food purchases, cooking and cleaning. They did yard work and brought kayaks, rowboats, paddleboards, a sailboat and a motorboat out of storage. To keep some feel of their old social life, they replicated trivia nights and, with several members of the ultimate Frisbee team present, played a four-day Frisbee golf tournament," the story reports. This story also ran in the San Francisco Chronicle and on the Hechinger Report website.

Hannah Dineen of NewsCenter Maine produced a story about Colby's Pay it Northward, talking with a Colby senior, Patrick Sopko '20, as well as Sandy Maisel, the Goldfarb Family Distinguished Professor of American Government. "If somebody is in a position to help somebody not create that deficit," Maisel said regarding the lack of jobs in the current recession, "it seems to me it's almost a moral obligation to do so."