Faculty News

In another move designed to broaden Colgate’s international reach and recognition, President Jeffrey Herbst has signed a memorandum of understanding with Xiamen University in China (XMU). On behalf of their respective institutions, Herbst and XMU President Zhu Chongshi enthusiastically agreed to “promote cooperation and the advancement of academic and educational exchanges.”

Psychology professor Carrie Keating studies charisma, physical leadership qualities, and the facial features that suggest power as well as compassion. Last night, she watched the first of four presidential campaign debates for clues to how the candidates are being perceived by voters in the home stretch.

Associate professor Amy Leventer has received another prestigious grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF). This time, she will travel to a relatively unexplored and inaccessible region of East Antarctica — the Totten Glacier and Moscow University Ice Shelf — to investigate the reasons for accelerated ice loss there.

At Colgate there’s no “ivory tower,” but political science professor Tim Byrnes is one of the popular panelists on a local television show by that name. The Ivory Tower Half Hour, one of Central New York’s longest-running local shows, is celebrating a decade on the air.

Jacob Mundy, assistant professor of peace and conflict studies at Colgate, called the Sept. 11 attack on the American Consulate in Benghazi and the resulting death of Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens a “rude wake-up call to the coalition of states that was too-quick to say ‘mission accomplished’ following their humanitarian intervention last year.”

At the first faculty meeting of the academic year, Douglas Hicks, provost and dean of the faculty, introduced what he called a “dynamic group of new colleagues that will contribute to the intellectual depth and breadth of the faculty and enhance the curriculum and the community as a whole.”

If you want to know how a best-selling author finds inspiration, hones technique, or orchestrates a breakout opportunity, it’s best to go to the source. That’s why legendary professor Frederick Busch designed Living Writers as a way to bring Colgate’s writers-in-training together with famous writers-in-practice. The class quickly became a campus favorite.

First-year students spend their first days at Colgate navigating new terrain, organizing their living spaces, meeting classmates, and otherwise adjusting to life in their new milieu. What they are doing intrigues professors of psychology, anthropology, physics, sociology, and many other disciplines.

When Douglas Hicks delivered the convocation address to the Class of 2016, his theme was tradition — an interesting choice, one might say, for a provost and dean of the faculty who is almost as new to Colgate as the first-year students. But Hicks, who arrived in July from the University of Richmond, took a […]

(Note: These are prepared remarks by Douglas A. Hicks, provost and dean of the faculty at Colgate University, given at Colgate’s 192st convocation.) President Herbst, distinguished faculty and staff colleagues, members of Konosioni, members of Link staff, and especially transfer students and the Class of 2016: We stand in a great and grand tradition that […]