Dear Members of the Colgate Community,
We have reached the end of another academic year. It is a time of reflection, as we take stock of the year behind us all, and a time of reorientation, as students leave campus (some for the last time), faculty (in many cases, with their students) turn to research, and staff to assessing the past year and gearing up for the one that lies ahead.
We recently celebrated the achievements of our students at Awards Convocation. It seems appropriate as we enter the summer to recognize some faculty milestones. I write to share with the Colgate community the names of those faculty who are retiring at the end of this year.
Faculty Retirements
Carrie Keating, Professor of Psychology, joined the Colgate faculty in 1981. Since that time, she has taught courses across the psychology curriculum including Introduction to Psychological Science, Research Methods in Psychological Science, Social Bonds, Cross-Cultural Human Development, Psychology of Leadership, and Senior Research. She has contributed multiple courses to Core Scientific Perspectives and the First-Year Seminar Program.
She is well-known for her inspirational teaching for which she was recognized with the Alumni Corporation Distinguished Teaching Award in 2008 and the Jerome Balmuth Award for Teaching in 2024. Professor Keating is a cross-cultural social psychologist with specialties in nonverbal and physiognomic elements of social dominance, influence, power, status, leadership and charisma; initiation and hazing; social-emotional development and social bonds from infancy to adulthood; and cross-cultural human development. Her research has spanned from how different cultural groups got along following the Vietnam war, to understanding how young people get along with each other in college, to how young people become charismatic leaders. She has published widely on these topics, and many of her publications include Colgate student coauthors. Some of her studies have been featured in the print media, on radio talk shows, and on television.
Professor Keating’s service to the University and broader community has been impactful. She has been a big-picture thinker in departmental curriculum revision and in leading the charge towards broadening the department’s name to the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences. She provided leadership toward establishing the Mind, Brain, and Behavior Initiative and the Olin Hall addition and renovation. She has been a strong advocate for women, and many women students, staff, and faculty have looked to her for her friendly and wise support and mentorship. She has engaged the broader community with social psychological science through her appearances on the popular television show What Would You Do.
Steven Kepnes, Professor of the Study of World Religions and Professor of Religion and Jewish Studies joined the faculty of Colgate University in 1988, initially as a member of the department of Religion and Philosophy — then, with his Religion colleagues, establishing the department of Religion, where he held the Murray and Mildred Finard Professor of Jewish Studies for many years before becoming Professor of the Study of World Religions and Professor of Religion and Jewish Studies.
Steven’s teaching areas include: Modern Jewish Thought and Theology, Hermeneutic Theory, Philosophy of Religion, and Jewish, Christian, and Islamic Dialogue — all are reflected in the courses he teaches: Jewish Philosophy and Theology, World Religions, Religion, Reason and God, Comparative Scriptures: Jewish, Christian, Muslim and Kabbalah: Jewish Mysticism.
Students in his courses remark: “Professor Kepnes is one of those special people that I will never forget. He always provides the pathway to answers, without suggesting that one is more truthful than the other. He "brings you to the doorway" of religion, but the choice of whether or not you want to step through it is up to the student.” They also note his abilities to facilitate discussion, “he makes his entire class feel comfortable asking questions and making honest comments. I think that his greatest strength is his ability to meet his students at a place that they are comfortable — making material accessible to the whole class and relating it to a group of young minds.” His teaching opens new ways of understanding — “I was able to understand why religion has so much power in other people's lives. I was also able to come to terms with my own type of higher power because I was able to see that there are different types of God-like figures that people believe in.” As well as the value of inquiry — “this course pushed me to look beyond what is seen or known into a realm of the intrinsically unknown. By learning about concepts with no defined truth, I have learned to seek knowledge that sees the value of things as they are, without promises of any clear answer.
Steven’s scholarly depth and dedication led to several special appointments: Inaugural Hassett Kehoe Visiting Professor in Jewish Studies, Cardinal Bea Center, Gregorian University, Rome; Visiting Professor, Jewish Theological Seminary in Israel, Schocken Center; and in the fall of 2024, he held a visiting position at Bar Ilan University, Israel.
A prolific scholar, his recent publications include: A Handbook of Scriptural Reasoning; The Revival of Jewish Theology: Metaphysics, Hermeneutics, Ethics; The Cambridge Companion to Jewish Theology; and The Future of Jewish Theology.
Steven has provided important leadership during his time at Colgate. He chaired the Department of Religion twice, served as Program Director for Jewish Studies, Core UP for Western Traditions, and was a stalwart contributor to Core 151, Legacies of the Ancient World — presenting a memorable Arts and Humanities Colloquium highlighting the texts and contexts that had made the course so special for him as that chapter of the Core came to a close.
In 2013, he became the Director of Chapel House and Director of the Fund for the Study of World Religions. In that capacity, he worked to foster a space for personal contemplation as well as celebrating the importance of community. Recently, his efforts went beyond programming and the building proper to include the grounds. His love of gardening, and nurturing nature led to the establishment of an extraordinary Japanese garden that enriches the opportunities for reflection that Chapel House provides.
Bob McVaugh, Professor of Art, joined the Department of Fine Arts, now the Department of Art in 1980. Throughout that time he has provided leadership to the department (which he chaired multiple times) and the institution — serving as University Studies Division Director and UP for Core 152 — his connection to Challenges of Modernity ran deep, both because he taught the course almost every year and for years at at time, every semester — and because he was a valued resource when it came to strategies for teaching Picasso, Monet, and Gauguin.
The wide range of courses he taught evolved along with his scholarly interests — from 19th Century European Art to Art and Politics in the 19th Century to a seminar in Modern Art, to numerous courses in architecture — Introduction to Architecture, Modern Architecture, American Campus Architecture, and finally American Campus Architecture: Colgate. He taught at all levels, regularly offering First Year Seminars to incoming students and advising dozens of senior thesis projects at the other end of the spectrum.
Bob’s students note his passion for the subject matter, which one describes as “passion in the room.” He helped students grapple with difficult material in an environment where discussions are open to all, and students appreciated his various strategies for ensuring that happens. They were introduced to new concepts and ideas, and learned to think “independently, adventurously and creatively,“ Professor McVaugh “shows us there isn’t always a clear cut answer, pushing us to learn more, and helping us deepen our thoughts about a question.” Bob helps his students see things afresh — works of art made all the more complex when contextualized and analyzed — buildings in a landscape become architectural works of art, and students see details they never noticed or conceptualize space in an entirely new way. Bob helped students gain confidence — many note getting outside of their comfort zone, becoming individual thinkers, learning to trust themselves, and push themselves. They comment that expectations were always high, and there was always support for meeting that goal.
That there is a semester-long course devoted to studying the evolution of Colgate’s grounds and architecture is due to Bob’s 15 year effort to locate (in campus facility offices and facilities storage spaces and garages) the many proposals generated by the roughly 50 architects and engineering firms that Colgate has engaged. This trove consists of materials related to 400 construction projects (including 900 drawings) and extensive correspondence related to Colgate’s campus planning and architectural history. He has scrutinized and organized it all, and has created a catalog to support the Colgate Architectural Drawing Archive, which will be housed in University Archives and Special Collections. This archive dramatically enhances our documentation of Colgate's architectural history and will serve future students and scholars of campus architecture well.
Bob’s focus on architecture has borne fruit in many ways. He was instrumental to envisioning an architecture minor at Colgate, which has grown into a full fledged Architectural Studies Major within the Department of Art. He curated exhibitions for the Clifford and Picker Galleries including The Hill Envisioned. What Might have Been — What May Yet Be and An Architect’s Vision: Paul Rudolph and Colgate’s Creative Arts Center. His recent article, "Olmsted’s 1883 Plan for Colgate University and its Impacts on the Campus," is included in the Olmsted’s: Landscape and Legacies Series, an online resource hosted by the Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site.
Alice Nakhimovsky, Distinguished Chair in Jewish Studies, Professor of Jewish Studies and Russian and Eurasian Studies. Alice joined the Colgate faculty in 1975, with a PhD in Russian Literature from Cornell University. The author or co-author of 10 books and many articles on a wide range of topics related to Jewish and Russian literature, letters, identity, and culture, Alice has also brought her scholarship into dialogue with her teaching, guiding students in two Benton Scholars seminars to publish essay collections. Alice's 2014 book, Dear Mendl, Dear Reyzl: Yiddish letter manuals in Russia and America was celebrated in both scholarly and popular reviews and won 2015's National Jewish Book Award. Alice's teaching at Colgate has included the topics of Jewish literature, Russian language, and twentieth-century Russian literature, and she taught in both the Core 151 and 152 Core components. Along with her late partner and Associate Professor of Linguistics, Emeritus, Sasha Nakhimovsky, Alice facilitated the exhibition of work of Russian photographer Evgeny Khaldei in Colgate's Picker Art Gallery, which now holds a collection of Kaldei's photography.
Chris Nevison, Professor of Computer Science, joined the Colgate faculty in 1974, initially to teach mathematics. He went on to join the fledgling computer science department in 1983. Since that time, he has developed and taught courses across the computer science curriculum including Introduction to Computer Graphics and Animation, Computer Organization, Discrete Structures, Principles of Design for Large Systems, Design and analysis of Algorithms, Computer Simulation, and Parallel Computing. He was the principal investigator of several National Science Foundation grants aimed at the development of parallel computing facilities and curriculum. For nearly two decades, he ran summer workshops on computing for elementary teachers and on AP computer science for high school teachers. He has contributed to Core Scientific Perspectives/Core Sciences and the First-Year Seminar Program. He directed a Great Britain study group, and twice directed the study group in Wales. Professor Nevison’s specialties and publications span the areas of parallel computing, simulation, computer science education, probability and statistics, mathematical economics, game theory, discrete mathematics, and analysis of algorithms. Professor Nevison served as chair of the computer sciences department for ten years over two different terms, and he served as Professor of University Studies.
Dan Schult, Charles G. Hetherington Professor of Mathematics, joined the Colgate faculty in 1996. Since that time, he has taught courses across the math curriculum including Dive into Data, Linear Algebra, Computational Mathematics, Differential Equations, Math Modeling: Social Sciences, Numerical Analysis, Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos, and Applied Mathematics Seminar. He has contributed to Core Scientific Perspectives and the First-Year Seminar Program. He directed an off-campus study group in Australia. Professor Schult is an applied mathematician with interests in spreading, synchronizing and coupled dynamics; network analysis, especially coupled dynamic systems; nonlinear partial differential equations and ordinary differential equations; numerical simulation; modeling and dynamical systems; and applications to combustion, epidemics, and neuroscience. He has published widely on these topics. He also helped organize a multi-year "neurosync" reading group from four departments with participants presenting literature to each other at the intersection of neuroscience, math, physics and biology. Recent work includes a collaborative project modeling neurons, and projects on NetworkX and sparse arrays for scientific python funded by the Chan-Zuckerberg Institute. Professor Schult has twice chaired the math department, directed the Picker Interdisciplinary Science Institute, chaired the Faculty Development Council, was a co-PI on an institutional HHMI Undergraduate Science Education Program grant, and has served the math department and institution in a myriad other ways.
Please join me in congratulating our retirees for all that they have given to Colgate.
Sincerely,
Lesleigh Cushing
Provost and Dean of the Faculty
Mark S. Siegel University Professor in Religion and Jewish Studies