Media Coverage

Rabbi Rachel Isaacs was a guest on Maine Public's April 7 call-in show "Maine Calling." Isaacs joined five other faith leaders from around the state for the episode, titled "Faith Communities Adapt to COVID-19: How Different Religious Groups Are Reacting To the Crisis."

Professor of History Paul Josephson was a guest on the podcast The Red Line in an April 5 episode titled "War in the Arctic," which focused on Russia's hypersonic missile program. "Russia is rolling out Arctic divisions, new bases and groundbreaking new missiles, which threaten the US naval dominance across the world's oceans," the podcast's intro states. "Are these new missiles going to make carriers obsolete or are they just the next step in the rapidly changing landscape?"

In the weeks after leaving campus due to the coronavirus, Meghan Hurley '20 wrote an essay titled "Physical, social or emotional distancing?" for the Concord Monitor. "In our small Colby community, we had our own shared experiences. Physical closeness was such a habitual part of that. While we don’t need to be together to know what each other is experiencing, it does help," Hurley wrote from her home in New Hampshire. "The transfer of that relationship to the virtual world changes it, but doesn’t necessarily weaken it. I’ve been lucky enough to have rich virtual conversations, where the mutual fear of drifting apart has pulled me closer to people." 

Joseph Reisert, Colby's Harriet S. Wiswell and George C. Wiswell Jr. Associate Professor of American Constitutional Law, was quoted in a Bangor Daily News article titled "Janet Mills says she will order out-of-staters to quarantine for 2 weeks while visiting Maine." Reisert was tapped to comment on the legality of closing the Maine-New Hampshire border, something that "could be challenged under the 14th Amendment, which says states cannot 'abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States,'” Reisert said.  

Writer and outdoor adventurer Blair Braverman '11 was a contestant on the reality show "Naked and Afraid," and she wrote about her experience for Outdoor magazine. Titled "Everything on 'Naked and Afraid' Is Real—and I Lived It," the piece is rich with Braverman's descriptions about her experience in South Africa. "When the Discovery Channel invited me to audition for its popular survival-challenge reality show, I knew it was going to be rough," she wrote. "What followed was one of the most intense experiences of my life."

Associate Professor of Government Walter Hatch wrote an op-ed titled "With the coronavirus surging, compassion is more important than ever" that appeared in the Seattle Times March 20. The piece recounts the moment when students in Hatch's class learned the College would be moving to remote learning and sending students home three days hence. In the midst of the emotions in the classroom, a student inquired about Hatch's plans, knowing Hatch splits his time between Seattle and Maine. Hatch was deeply touched by the student's concern. "It was an emotional reminder that, especially in this moment of 'social distancing,' we cannot live without compassion," Hatch wrote. "Sure, we can stock up on food, toilet paper, hand sanitizer, and face masks. But what we really need is community, a thick web of connections to one another across the social distance." 

Professor of Economics Michael Donihue was tapped to comment on a March 20 Bangor Daily News article titled "Restaurant staff divvy up food, help each other file for unemployment, as they enter ‘panic mode’" that reported on the importance of seasonal business to Maine's economy. “We have a really vulnerable population, not just because we’re the oldest state but because we don’t have that much disposable income and people depend a lot on seasonal work,” Donihue told the BDN. “If we don’t have the season, it’s hard for them to make it.”

The Boston Globe ran a Q&A with senior basketball guard Sam Jefferson '20 in their "College Angle" series. Jefferson, who averaged 18.7 points per game this year and earned first-team all-NESCAC honors, talks about his academics at Colby, scoring 1,000 college points, and the possibility of going pro. "Right now I expect it to be just a couple years," Jefferson said about going pro, "and hopefully come back and maybe go to grad school, find out what I really want to do for a long-term career."

Dominick Leskiw '21, an English and environmental studies double major, wrote and illustrated an article titled "Holding Fast, or Failing?" that was printed in Earth Island Journal about his experiences on a "600-mile road trip up the California coast from La Jolla to just north of Bolinas, tracking down abalone devotees from all walks of life." Leskiw took the trip with Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies Ben Neal to trace the history of the marine snail and to chart recovery efforts. "Every long-vacant, ear-shaped abalone shell rings with an opalescent plea, begging us to listen to, and learn from, the plight of these shellfish," Leskiw writes at the end of his article. "Abalone will almost certainly fail to see any significant recovery without human intervention. What ends up happening to these sea snails will reveal our capacity to reinstate and nurture the ecological and cultural complexity of our world that we continue to destroy."  

In 2012 Herb Wilson, the Leslie Brainerd Arey Professor of Biosciences, Emeritus, wrote a blog post explaining how loons propel themselves, and that blog post, still relevant, was cited in a recent Carnegie Museum of Natural History Tumblr page. "When a loon is first diving from the surface, it breaks the surface by alternating strokes with the left and right leg," Wilson's post includes. "Once underwater, the legs beat synchronously."