External Posts

Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies Stacy-ann Robinson and Conall Butchart '22 have coauthored a paper titled "Planning for Climate Change in Small Island Developing States: Can Dominica’s Climate Resilience and Recovery Plan Be a Model for Transformation in the Caribbean?" Published in the journal Sustainability, the paper explores the quality of the plan and finds that, in order for it to be used as a model, other Caribbean jurisdictions would need to extend it by developing mechanisms for equitably sharing any benefits derived from the blue economy, centering Indigenous perspectives in environmental policy- and decision-making, and adequately accounting for exogenous, unexpected risks such as the Covid-19 pandemic.

Paleobotanist Ian Glasspool, a research scientist in the Geology Department, was interviewed for an article titled "Cretaceous Charcoal Gives a Glimpse of Plant Evolution." Glasspool, an authority on fires during the Cretaceous Period, said ancient wildfires “aren’t just localized, destructive, natural events but are also an integral part of the broader Earth system.” Wildfire has a “feedback role in stabilizing the Earth’s atmospheric oxygen concentration” and acts “as a ‘global herbivore’ through its impacts on vegetation," he went on to say.

Assistant Professor of Classics Kassandra Miller has won a fellowship with the Einstein Center Chronoi, an interdisciplinary research cluster in Berlin focused on time-reckoning and temporality. The fellowship will allow Miller to develop her second book project, provisionally titled Untimely Women: Synchronizing Female Bodies in the Ancient Mediterranean. Miller's research focuses on ancient medicine, science, technology, and magic. She will take up residence in Berlin during the summer of 2023 and remain there for the 2023-24 academic year.

Colby’s economic analysis of Maine’s new recreational marijuana industry continued to draw attention, including generating coverage by MarketWatch as well as in Politico’s Morning Cannabis Newsletter. One of the stories quoted Colby’s Herbert E. Wadsworth Professor in Economics Michael Donihue, who noted that because small businesses are “an important part” of the industry’s growth, the economic effects are “more widely distributed.”

Local media wrote about how Waterville’s revitalization was the reason a new café and market is opening in the city. The story reported that new businesses are coming “during what many are calling Waterville’s renaissance” and referenced how “millions of dollars are being invested downtown by Colby” and others. “I can feel the energy downtown,” commented the café owner, and “it’s wonderful.”

The Halloran Lab for Entrepreneurship was highlighted in a story by Impact Entrepreneur about social entrepreneurship programs. In the article, Trustee Emeritus Todd Halloran ’84 and Assistant Professor of Economics Yang Fan discussed how the “benefits of entrepreneurship training go beyond the ability to launch a venture,” and that the lab will “give students the chance to apply what they discuss theoretically in class.”

The Morning Sentinel announced that the George J. Mitchell International Lecture series returned to Colby with an in-person event featuring Gayle E. Smith, an expert on global development and global health security. The lecture series is hosted by Colby’s Goldfarb Center for Public Affairs and has been in existence for nearly 15 years.

The Morning Sentinel reported that Colby’s softball team is “heating up at the right time.” After sweeping UMaine-Farmington, the team has won five of its last six games. “Right now they’re seeming to find a better lineup and a better rhythm and flow throughout the game. I’m excited about that,” Head Coach Terren Allen said.

The Morning Sentinel spoke with Nick Jacobs, assistant professor of government, about recent efforts made by the state of Maine to issue environmental amendments. Of the three amendments that are still moving forward, Jacobs said that “constitutional amendments have the advantage of carrying more symbolic weight than a law and can be a way of overcoming gridlock. But there is a downside to that as well.”