Media Coverage

One hundred twenty-four students from 10 colleges and universities gathered on Mayflower Hill Nov. 9 to examine how they might work together to mitigate the effects of climate change. The inaugural Maine College Climate Action Summit highlighted the power of youth and the need for collaboration to implement change, the Central Maine Morning Sentinel reported.

When Safiya Khalid, an immigrant from Somalia, was elected to the Lewiston, Maine, city council with 70 percent of the vote Nov. 5, the Lewiston Sun Journal interviewed Catherine Besteman, Colby's Bartlett Professor of Anthropology and author of a book about Somali Bantus who sought refuge and established a substantial community in Lewiston. Khalid, 23, drew national attention as a candidate in part because of uncivil online comments by Internet trolls during her campaign. Besteman told the newspaper that Khalid's victory, "happened for a political reason: She is the future of Lewiston and most people in Lewiston see that.” Somali refugees have stepped forward in the larger community, Besteman said, in part because Somali culture values participatory democracy.

When Today on NBC compiled its list "Five Things Introverts Can Teach People," the show quoted Associate Professor of Psychology Christopher Soto on knowing when to say "no" and on not oversharing. “Extroverts are more at risk of … just dumping things on people and disclosing too much information and not having a filter,” Soto said for the Nov. 7 online feature.

In its "Connections" feature, the Nov. 1 Boston Globe Magazine published an essay by Lloyd Benson '73 about a dozen friends who regularly get together now a half century since their arrival at Colby. "These men have beaten the odds to stay friends for 50 years," the headline announced. "The resulting friendships have seen them through life's ups and downs."

Central Maine’s economy is trending upwards, and Colby has a lot to do with it, the executive director of FirstPark writes in a Central Maine Newspapers oped. Colby is leading the way with $1.5 billion in statewide economic output linked to the College over the last five years, and "local businesses are following suit, developing new, cutting-edge ideas and seeing them through to produce real-world benefits," writes Jim Dinkle. The Community Compass column was published Nov. 4 in the Morning Sentinel and Kennebec Journal newpapers.

On the 50th anniversary of President Richard Nixon's "silent majority" speech, writer David Shribman draws a line to current politics and divisions and quotes Sandy Maisel, Colby's Goldfarb Family Distinguished Professor of American Government. In analysis published in the Boston Globe, Shribman writes that Nixon was convinced that "the leading news organizations and antiwar protesters did not represent mainstream American thinking" when he appealed to the "silent majority." Maisel told Shribman, “What was the silent majority has become very loud. ... The people who formed the silent majority in 1969 represented a majority in the Electoral College in 2016, and they defined their mission as making America great again.’’

Wadsworth Professor of Economics Michael Donihue ’79, who served at the president's Council of Economic Advisors in a prior administration, provided economic data about the scale of the lobster industry in Maine for a Nov. 1 Washington Post business article headlined "Lobster on the Line: China loves Maine lobster, but Trump’s trade war means Canada is filling the demand." The article reports that Donihue's data show that the "economic impact of just the lobster distribution supply chain exceeds $1 billion each year—or at least 1.6 percent of Maine’s GDP."

The Washington Times quoted Professor of Government Anthony Corrado on early fundraising for upcoming elections for U.S. Senate races. "Some of the Democratic challengers have been unusually successful for this point in the campaign and a number of the Republican incumbents are not showing much fundraising momentum," Corrado told the paper for an Oct. 28 story.

Wadsworth Professor of Economics Michael Donihue '79 is part of a multi-institution study to determine if Maine seaweed added to the diet of cows can curb bovine methane emissions, which contribute to climate change. Donihue, Assistant Professor of Economics Jennifer Meredith, and students in the Economics Department's laboratory for economic studies will see if a final product of the feed testing—research led by Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences and the University of Vermont—would be cost effective. The Bangor Daily News covered the story Oct. 30