Rebecca Downing

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  • In an ecosystem of leadership, one seeks justice, mercy, dignity, empathy, and beauty. One listens and shares, partners and serves, and immerses oneself in the community. These were the themes — and the tangible advice — discussed by a slate of people who have dedicated their careers to doing good works at Cultivating Community Leaders: […]
    September 29, 2016
  • Steve Fabiani, associate chief information officer at Haverford College, will join the Colgate senior staff as vice president and chief information officer, effective August 15, 2016. Fabiani comes to Colgate with more than 16 years of experience in higher education technology leadership. At Haverford, he built partnerships with and among colleagues and senior leaders in […]
    May 31, 2016
  • On Saturday, April 2, members of the Colgate community officially celebrated the naming of the university’s first residential commons for Diane Ciccone ’74. Hailing from Skaneateles and Bridgewater, N.Y., Ciccone was one of 13 women of color to enter Colgate University in 1970 — the university’s first year of coeducation. She began her 40-year legal […]
    April 8, 2016
  • Aretha Franklin and her orchestra on the stage in Sanford Field House
    Under the glow of disco ball lights twinkling on the ceiling, many people didn’t stay in their seats when Aretha Franklin took to the stage in Sanford Field House on March 5. Franklin and her orchestra, part of the Kerschner Family Series Global Leaders at Colgate, pulled in a crowd of more than 4,100 for a […]
    March 17, 2016
  • Portrait of Dean of the College Suzy Nelson
    Suzy Nelson, Colgate’s vice president and dean of the college since June 2012, has been named vice president of student life at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass., effective July 1, 2016. “From the very first days after her arrival in 2012, Suzy has been an accessible, collaborative, and compassionate leader dedicated to […]
    February 24, 2016
  • Colgate Memorial Chapel
      The Colgate community is mourning tragic news that two students, Cathryn (Carey) Depuy ’19 and Ryan Adams ’19, both of Ridgefield, Conn., died Sunday afternoon in a plane crash in Morrisville, N.Y., after taking off from Hamilton Municipal Airport. No further details are available at this time. For Colgate students affected by this difficult news, […]
    September 20, 2015
  • Portrait of Brian W. Casey
    Colgate University’s Board of Trustees has named Brian W. Casey, the president of DePauw University, as Colgate’s 17th president. Casey, who has a distinguished history with America’s top academic institutions as both a student and an administrator, said: “I am truly excited to begin my service at Colgate. I have long admired the academic excellence, […]
    August 13, 2015
  • What do J.S. Bach’s Partitas and traditional Chinese erhu (violin) music have in common? For one thing, a new concerto, “The Infinite Dance,” called by one reviewer “quite original” with “soaring melodic loveliness” and “magical” effect — a “minor masterpiece.” But for Colgate music professor and composer Zhou Tian, a deeper commonality served as his […]
    June 24, 2015
  • When Rev. Gay Clark Jennings ’74 was a student in Colgate’s first graduating class of women, she was part of historic change. A varsity volleyball player, she pressed the university’s president for equal medical benefits for female athletes under Title IX; investigated grocery store price gouging in Madison County’s poorest areas; and marched against the […]
    May 18, 2015
  • Robert "RV" Smith
    Robert Virgil Smith, Harry Emerson Fosdick Professor of philosophy and religion, emeritus, and a United Methodist pastor for more than 45 years, died peacefully at home on February 12, 2015. He was 94 years old. Smith joined the Colgate faculty in 1952, serving as university chaplain and teaching in the areas of philosophy of religion, […]
    February 19, 2015