Latest Stories
Dynamic Duo
Trustee and Student Level Up in the Workplace
Last February, Kevin Richardson ’18 presented to the Board of Trustees as president of the Student Government Association (SGA). The student report is a standard feature of the trustees’ meetings, but what happened next was anything but ordinary. Trustee Tony Librot ’94, CFO of the real estate investment and management company AAM 15 Management in Burlington, Mass., had just accepted an analyst’s resignation. Librot, with his business acumen, sensed an opportunity and asked Richardson to send him a resume. Richardson was hired 10 days later.
Relevant Reminders:
Researching, and Teaching, the Long Shadows of the Holocaust
There was palpable tension on Monday, Aug. 14, 2017, as I started my third week of work at the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.
When It Just Clicks
Alicia Lacasse ’19
Communication studies major Alicia Lacasse ’19 helped capture some of love’s most magical moments while interning at Loon Weddings last semester. Working behind the scenes to get the perfect shots in front of her lens, Lacasse gained professional experience while preserving time so that couples could relive their special day.
Colby-Sawyer Selected to Join BOLD Women’s Leadership Network
Receives $1.1 Million Grant
Colby-Sawyer College has been selected to join the BOLD Women’s Leadership Network, a highly selective national program of female scholars, and was awarded a three-year, $1.1 million grant for scholarships and transformational campus projects.
Life-Saving Relationships
Talia Hardy ’20
It’s become a routine activity, but donating blood is a powerful reminder of humanity’s interdependent nature. The word “blood” even serves as shorthand for close relationships. Blood donors, of course, are vital to the crucial exchange, but so are the behind-the-scenes people who drive individuals to give. As a relations intern for the Blood Donor Program at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center (DHMC), sociology major Talia Hardy ’20 of Litchfield, N.H., established connections with community partners to encourage blood donation. In doing so, Hardy learned that relationships are at the heart of hospitals.
Love's Labor's Found
Joanne Candler Linehan '86
In the Northwest corner of Montana, a stone’s throw from Canada and Idaho, the Yaak Valley is a jewel box of sparkling rivers and lush forests ringed by bold peaks. This secret treasure, an eight-hour drive from the Yellowstone region, is where Joanne Candler Linehan ’86 and her husband Tim have built their world of hospitality with a dash of adventure.
Witness to It All
Ayla Cordell ’19
Ayla Cordell ’19, a sociology major from West Chesterfield, N.H., interned in D.C. this summer with New Hampshire’s U.S. Maggie Hassan. As a legislative intern, Cordell attended legislative hearings and briefings, conducted tours of the Capitol and served as an interface between the senator and her constituents.
Pathfinder
An Internship Points Caroline Wall ’19 Toward Her Future
After pouring all her passion for social work into her internship with the Division for Children, Youth and Families (DCYF) in Claremont, N.H., child development major Caroline Wall ’19 learned to have confidence in herself and her goal to be an assessment worker for the agency that manages protective programs on behalf of some of the state’s most vulnerable citizens.
Building Relationships, Building Futures
Kavyaa Rizal ’17
Six months after graduating with her degree in sociology, Kavyaa Rizal ’17 returned home to Nepal to contribute to the country’s social development. She landed a job as a program officer for Women Development Advocacy Center (WDAC), a nonprofit dedicated to helping young women secure sustainable livelihoods. The job means she now spends her time putting the sociology theory she learned at Colby-Sawyer into practice. Her most recent accomplishment? Raising nearly $6,000 in one month to support education in an impoverished area of Nepal.
New Frontiers
Bridging Traditional Chinese Medicine and Western Medicine
This summer, exercise science major Katherine Nguyen ’19 interned at the American Medical Center Shanghai (AMC). The AMC was the first Western surgery center to specialize in sports medicine and orthopedics in China. Nguyen, from Lowell, Mass., is on Colby-Sawyer’s pre-physical therapy track and wanted to learn more about the industry by observing China’s integration of Western medicine into its health care practices. After learning through a DNA test that she was not 100 percent Vietnamese as she believed but in fact had Chinese ancestors, Nguyen also wanted to experience the country’s culture. Her internship showed her both where she came from and where she’s heading for a career.
All the World's a Stage:
Lisa Hogarty ’81 Builds for the Future at Boston Children’s Hospital
At the back of Boston Children’s Hospital, a wall of windows looks onto a 2.5-acre pit where the 11-story Hale Family Clinical Building will open in fall 2021. The tower is the centerpiece of a $1.25 billion expansion and renewal project that includes improvements to the Longwood Campus; a pedestrian bridge between the parking garage and main building; and a new Brookline clinic. It’s all taking shape under the leadership of Lisa Hogarty ’81, senior vice president of real estate planning and development at the hospital and a trustee at Colby-Sawyer who joined the board in 2016.
Marina Good '19:
On the Other Side of the Bench
When biology major Marina Good ’19 started working in a biosafety cabinet during her summer internship with biotech company Adimab Lab in Lebanon, N.H., she became acutely aware of how she moved. Cell culture requires sterile conditions, so Good put on gloves, had her hands sprayed down with ethanol and donned a lab coat before getting to the task at hand. She felt like a giant trying to maneuver around her surroundings the first time, but now it feels natural.
An Investor's Paradise
The Investment Management Class Goes to Manhattan
It’s tradition. Each year, students in the Investment Management class visit New York City to tour financial institutions and meet with industry experts. This April brought the same trip but with an exciting spin: Professor of Business Administration Jody Murphy planned an itinerary that gave seven other classmates and me unprecedented access to the inner workings of the world’s financial capital. Here are my highlights, though I found every part of the trip enlightening.
Four Seasons:
Infinite Transformations
Seasons help mark the passing of a year, and Colby-Sawyer’s lucky to be nestled in the middle of New England where four distinct seasons are on permanent rotation.
Meet Your RA:
Nate Feleke ’19
When nursing major Nate Feleke ’19 graduated from his small boarding school in Maine and came to Colby-Sawyer College, he was guided by a group of student leaders dedicated to helping him make the most of his college experience. Those students were his resident assistants (RAs) in Lawson Hall, and they inspired him to pay it forward.
Will Hyland ’19
A Home Field Advantage
A love of sports usually begins in a fan’s hometown parks, streets and playgrounds where they learn to play the game, and then they learn to love the teams that represent their state and region. There’s a direct link between home team loyalty and hometown pride, and it is embodied by sport management major Will Hyland ’19.
Nicole Semeraro ’18
Bringing Beauty (and Utility) to Boston
After the Big Dig buried Boston’s interstate highway, the city put new surface space to good use and created a 1.5-mile ribbon of parks known as the Rose Kennedy Greenway. Environmental studies major Nicole Semeraro ’18, who interned at the nonprofit and took a position there after graduation, cultivates and maintains the plants that make Boston beautiful.
Nerves of Steel
Julia Martin ’19 Interns at Maine Medical Center
The nervous system is one of the most complex structures in the human body, and it requires a high level of skill and coordination from the specialists who care for patients with neurological disorders. This summer, nursing major Julia Martin ’19 learned exactly what that means during an internship at Maine’s largest hospital.
On Location
Colby Picanso ’11 Makes Movie Magic
The art of cinema is a bit like an extended magic trick. Both depend upon a suspension of disbelief and a carefully crafted performance to make the pretend seem real. But like any magic show, a lot of work needs to happen behind the scenes to bring the illusion to life. As a location manager, Colby Picanso ’11 is one of the first people to see a script. It’s his job to find and manage the locations that become the foundation of movie magic.
In Their Own Words
Three Students Reflect on their Service Trip to Nepal
Thanks to the efforts of three Colby-Sawyer students, farmers in the rural village of Phidim in eastern Nepal have a thrift store where they can find affordable winter clothes.
A Mile-high Adventure
Shea Shaugnessy ’11 Makes a Five-star Property Shine
The Ranch at Rock Creek 20 miles outside Philipsburg, Mont., is the world’s first Forbes Travel Guide five-star guest ranch. By default, that makes business major Shea Shaugnessy ’11 the manager of the only Forbes five-star activities department in the world. It’s a position that combines the business education he gained at Colby-Sawyer with the outdoor and hospitality skills he learned growing up in Vermont.
Prepared to Serve
Joan Weed Montagne ’67
In the Bozeman, Mont., home of Joan Weed Montagne ’67, there’s a wooden door with a large glass panel on which a spider web spirals out to fill almost the entire space. Joan’s father, famed furniture maker Walker Weed, built the door in memory of her mother, Hazel, a talented weaver, but it could well represent Joan’s own expansive life. She inherited her parents’ trait of embracing different cultures, and since her childhood in Gilford, N.H., she’s lived a year each in Norway and Japan. For the past 20 years, she’s focused on BioRegions International, the nonprofit she founded with her husband, Cliff, and its work connecting rural Mongolia with the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.
Designing Her Future
Gabrie Libby ’18 Interns at Studio Sage and Red Oak Montessori
Graphic design is an art form, but it’s also a creative service that fulfills a need for customers. This spring, graphic design major Gabrie Libby ’18 of Gorham, Maine, experienced the joy of delivering a final product to clients while interning with two local organizations. She discovered that delivering a meaningful product is the greatest reward.
180 Years of Welcoming Students
This year, the educational institution now known as Colby-Sawyer College will celebrate the 180th anniversary of welcoming its first students. While founded as New London Academy and officially established through a charter from the state of New Hampshire on July 4, 1837, the first class of 26 girls and a 10-year-old boy didn’t matriculate until May 1838.
How Art and Science Shape a Life
For more than a quarter of a century, Carrie and I were a part of the Colby-Sawyer community as college librarian and biology professor, respectively. We were attuned to the dynamic pulse of its daily life. Since our retirements, we live on an island off the coast of Maine, where life unfolds according to different rhythms. It was with some surprise, then, that I encountered a correspondence between these physically distant and seemingly disparate worlds.
In the Market for Success
Lauren Blanchard ’18 Interns at Pellettieri Associates
Business majors are expert marketers. They learn how to discover a product’s selling point and convince people to buy it. Most important, business majors learn how to market themselves. Lauren Blanchard ’18, who worked as a marketing and management intern at Pellettieri Associates, leveraged professional development skills she learned at Colby-Sawyer to land a job offer from her internship site.
Family Matters:
The Support Behind Student Success
For every student and alumni success story, there is a cast of supporting characters: the parents and families who help their children through life’s changes and stages. They play a major role in making a Colby-Sawyer education possible for those they love. From afar, and mostly behind the scenes, they’re essential to the success of Colby-Sawyer students and the future of the college. Though their stories and relationships with the school vary, they all have one thing in common: pride for their children-turned-college students.
Adventures in Service:
Nursing Major Brendan Libby ’19
In a polarizing world, it can be easy to forget that the people around us are more than what they appear to be on their surface. This is especially easy to forget while living in the intense microcosm of a small college, where it is all too easy to break apart social groupings by major, sport or club. Sometimes it takes meeting and getting to know someone like Brendan Libby ’19, a nursing major from Contoocook, N.H., to remember that we are all more than what is on our transcripts.
Raised to an Exponential Power:
Alumni Network Expands Experiential Learning
Experiential learning is a hallmark of a Colby-Sawyer education. Incoming students look forward to taking field study courses, working on research projects with faculty and peers, and gaining work experience through internships. While the power of those opportunities is often clear in the moment, after a few years those students-turned-alumni also have the perspective to reflect on the lessons they gained through direct experiences that occurred outside a traditional academic setting and how they affected their lives.
Winning the Lottery
Mohamed "Mo" Jafar '18
Early last April, I woke up on the wrong side of the bed and spent my morning complaining. There was still too much snow. The photocopier jammed again. I had a too-long to-do-list, and the news headlines made me cringe. The miserable day seemed endless.
Laughter, the Universal Medicine
A Medical Mission Trip to Costa Rica
This January, 24 fellow nursing students and I, along with two faculty members, traveled to Costa Rica on a medical mission trip thinking we would help change people’s lives. Little did we know the trip would have a tremendous impact on each of us as well.
True Blue
A Colby-Sawyer Love Story
On a warm June day in 1953, just hours after she graduated from Colby Junior College, Gretchen Hoch watched her family’s car drive off as she stood in the college parking lot. Gretchen was engaged to a man whom her father did not approve of because of religious differences, and given an ultimatum, she’d chosen her fiancé over her father.
Joy + Gravity in Design
Inspiring People to Care
Like many design educators, I pursue two primary activities: I design, and I teach. Along the way, I’ve come to realize that a common, fundamental purpose underlies my approach to both pursuits: I aim to move people.
Healing the Marines
I moved to New London in 1971. Colby-Sawyer was a junior college then, and I saw all the wonderful changes the institution underwent during the 30-plus years I lived there.
Containing Contradictions
A Nursing Student Writes Herself Out of the Box
Good writers know that compelling characters are often contradictory. Take Marvel superhero Matt Murdock — blind lawyer by day, vigilante by night — or Jesse Pinkman, the drug dealer with a heart of gold on Breaking Bad. Contradictions make a story more interesting by subverting an audience’s expectations. They also express a seeming paradox of life: People are one thing, but they’re also another.
Variable Conditions
Carving Careers in the Ski Industry
Colby-Sawyer alumni work in almost every facet of the ski industry, from coaching and sales to ski patrol and program direction. Sport management major Brian Heon ’98 and exercise and sport science major Megan Costello Burch ’01 are among those who constantly think snow. They’ve traversed winding paths back to New Hampshire: Heon is vice president and general manager of Wildcat Mountain in Gorham, and Burch is marketing and sales director at Mount Sunapee, home of the Chargers’ alpine ski program. Both exude passion for the sport and industry that has taken them from college ski racing to working with the biggest boss of all: Mother Nature.
Testing the Water
Town Partnership Powers Student Research
Symbiosis describes a relationship between two or more organisms that live closely together, often for the benefit of both parties. From the microbes taking up residence in the human gut to the bumblebees that pollinate flowers on their search for nectar, life depends on—and is better—in partnership. The same holds true for research. Learning is most meaningful when applied to real-world scenarios, and the relationship between Colby-Sawyer College and its hometown of New London has allowed environmental students to collaborate with local stakeholders to solve community problems.
Top Charger
Peter Sula ’03 Builds a Dream Team to Transform Boston’s Battery Wharf Hotel
By the time sport management major Peter Sula ’03 gathers his team for its daily 9:30 a.m. stand-up meeting, he’s been awake for almost seven hours. The general manager of the Battery Wharf Hotel in Boston’s North End steps outside his office into the circle of directors. He positions his six-foot-five basketball player’s body into a comfortable power stance, arms crossed, and listens.
Mather Cleveland and His Service
Celebrating the 100th anniversary of America’s Involvement in World War I
Mather Cleveland was born in 1889; he graduated from Yale University with a B.A. in 1911 and an M.A. in 1914. Cleveland enrolled in the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons to earn an M.D., but before completing it, he left to serve a tour of duty with the Harjes Ambulance Corps in France. Of note is that Cleveland did so more than two and a half years before the United States entered the conflict on April 6, 1917. He returned home and completed his medical degree only to return to military service when America joined the war effort.
An Office as Big as All Outdoors
Diana Abbott ’18 Fly Fishes Her Way to the Future
Montana is the kind of state where people go to find second chances and start a new life, and where people care more about what you will do than what you’ve done.
Aquaculture for a Cause
Professor Pine Shares Agriculture Expertise in Senegal
This summer, Associate Professor of Environmental Studies Harvey Pine shared his expertise in aquaculture with agricultural extension agents in Senegal as part of a volunteer project funded by the United States Agency for International Development. And, as a bonus, he donated a set of Colby-Sawyer soccer uniforms to a local youth group.
Forward Momentum
Colin Turner '19 Interns at Physiotherapy Works
Physical therapists are experts in movement — they help patients restore mobility through exercise and similar treatment plans. Exercise science major Colin Turner '19 received hands-on clinical experience while also experiencing a new culture when he spent his summer working alongside physical therapists in Ireland. The exposure to his discipline in an international setting took his learning to an even higher level, and the transferable skills he learned brought him one step closer to his ultimate goal of helping people improve their quality of life.
Being Seen as Susan
Susan N.T. Sam-Mensah ’18 is a champion among the approximately 1,100 smart, motivated students who attend Colby-Sawyer. Setting her apart is her public and conscious journey to shape her identity in a world that attempts to dictate her self-worth.
Getting Down to Business
Maliha Azizi '17 interns with PricewaterhouseCoopers
This summer, Maliha Azizi '17 worked as a private company services tax intern for PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), the second largest professional services firm in the world. As a multinational network, its 223,000 employees help individuals and companies maximize value by providing assurance, tax and advisory services in more than 157 countries. At their office in McLean, Va., Azizi helped the company achieve its ultimate goal of solving important tax problems for clients in local, national and global markets.
Giving It Her Best Shot
Alex Danas '18 interns with Virginia Military Institute’s Basketball Program
Alex Danas '18 knows there are plenty of benefits to playing a team sport in college. Not only do student athletes benefit from the regular physical activity, but they also learn time management and leadership skills. And if sports are useful to students like Danas, then they are especially advantageous to cadets studying at military colleges like the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) in Lexington, Va., where Danas interned this summer.
Experiencing Science
Students Conduct Important Research with Real-World Impact
“Imagine if schools taught baseball the way they taught science,” goes a popular saying. If it were so, students would spend 12 years reading about the game, with a few opportunities as high schoolers to reproduce famous plays. Only as graduates would they have a chance to get out on the field and learn what it means to play the game. Of course, the analogy is a critique of how many schools at all levels teach: out of a book and in a classroom instead of engaged in the scientific process.
On Course:
Emily Lopez ’17 Combines a Passion for the Sea, Conservation and Law
Just south of Portland, Maine, Cape Elizabeth juts out into the Atlantic between Saco Bay and Casco Bay. On the southeast edge of the cape is Two Lights State Park. There are no lighthouses in Two Lights State Park, a source of consistent dismay and clarification for the park rangers who patrol the 41-acre park. What there is, instead, is an abundance of wildlife and a well-worn trail whose loops combine for a two-mile stroll that offers glimpses of minke whales making their way up the coast.
My Top Ten(ish) List
Local Places You Should Know About
Honestly, this is a Top 20 list of places I think Colby-Sawyer students should know about. The college provides numerous opportunities on campus, but there are also lots of activities and adventures to be had in town … and beyond. You’ll really make New London your home when you explore all the town and the area have to offer. These are just my personal favorites — get out there and find your own!
A Dog-Powered Sport
Bailey Friedman '18 Interns at Alaska Heli-Mush
Controlling 30 strong, high-energy sled dogs is an exercise. It is an exercise in flexibility and teamwork, but it’s also just plain exercise. Mushing requires intense and precise physical exertion from both the dogs and people trained to practice Alaska's official sport. This summer, Bailey Friedman '18 applied her exercise science major to her canine athletes while interning at Alaska Heli-Mush Inc.
Ready to Research
John Rojas '18 Interns at the National University of Natural Medicine
John Rojas '18 possesses a variety of talents. Last semester, he made the Dean’s List while majoring in health promotion and minoring in psychology and studio art. Outside the classroom, he’s active in the Hispanic-Latino Club and Student Government Association. He’s also known around campus for his expressive breakdancing. This summer, however, he focused on tackling a self-admitted weakness: research.
Ambition Has No Limit
Omar Hajajra '18 Interns with U.S. Senator Jeanne Shaheen
For history and political studies major Omar Hajajra ’18, working in the heart of the nation’s capital this summer was his “dream internship.” As an intern for New Hampshire’s U.S. Senator Jeanne Shaheen, Hajajra assisted senior staff, completed clerical duties and, most importantly, was on the frontline of communication with Senator Shaheen’s constituents.
Business of Care
Brigitte Ruiz '18 Interns with Genesis Rehab Services
Brigitte Ruiz '18 has found a variety of ways to improve the well-being of others at Colby-Sawyer, such as participating in Christian Navigators Fellowship and the Medical Reserve Corps. A health care management major in the Business Administration Department, Ruiz worked at New London Hospital as a community wellness intern and helped launch the “Healthy Eating Initiative” in the New London community last summer. She wanted to make an impact on yet another community, though, so she secured a second internship. This time, it took her to the other side of the world.
Stepping Up to the Plate
Chris Hood '18 Interns with the Upper Valley Nighthawks
Baseball is in full swing in the summer. For a lot of students, the season is also the perfect time to complete Colby-Sawyer’s required internship. Chris Hood '18, a sport management major from Goffstown, N.H., paired the classic summer activities as an intern with the Upper Valley Nighthawks in White River Junction, Vt. Baseball is America’s pastime, and it was Hood’s job to make it the pastime of the Upper Valley, too.
First Exhibition in New Center for Art + Design
“Inner Visions: Selections from the Collection of Beverly Stearns Bernson ’55” Features Outsider Art
Colby-Sawyer invites the public inside its new Center for Art + Design to view an extraordinary exhibition composed primarily of outsider art. Colby-Sawyer and the Fine and Performing Arts Department is proud to host “Inner Visions: Selections from the Collection of Beverly Stearns Bernson ’55” as the first exhibition in the center’s stunning Davidow Gallery. An opening reception will be held Friday, Oct. 13, at 4 p.m. during Homecoming.
Renaissance Woman
Morgan Forrest '18 Interns at Royall & Company
As a corporate events intern with the direct marketing agency Royall & Company, Morgan Forrest '18 of Brewer, Maine, had the opportunity to view higher education from the perspective of her business administration major. At Royall’s offices in Richmond, Va., she worked to improve the performance of higher education institutions, and the experience showed her how everything comes full circle — she helped market colleges to prospective students, which she once was.
Solid Foundations:
A Colby-Sawyer Couple Builds a Life Together
When David Rosso ’10 turned 18, his girlfriend Lindsey Brown ’12 whisked him away for his first visit to the Big Apple. Navigating New York City’s grid with confidence, she guided him from one landmark to another with unerring accuracy while he shook his head at the roar, stared up at the skyscrapers and wondered how anyone could ever be part of it. The city was, the Vermonter thought, overwhelming and unreal.
Giving Back with Every Cup
Nishchal Banskota's Commitment to Corporate Responsibility
A cup of hot tea holds more than just a strong, aromatic liquid. In its nearly infinite mutability, the beverage has served as a tonic, a centerpiece to social gatherings and even as the spark of a political revolution. For Nishchal Banskota '15, a cup of his company’s tea holds the product of a small business and its commitment to corporate responsibility.
Research on High
A Season in Phenology
Plant phenology describes the science of annual life cycle phases of plants, and collecting this data can help scientists understand how factors such as climate and elevation in influence those cycles. I’m one of several people who do this work for the Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC), which has determined that plants now bloom as much as two weeks earlier in the valley than they have historically, but only two days earlier on the summit. This change is likely connected to climate change. Our data is also fed to the National Phenology Network, and Colby-Sawyer’s Alpine Communities Field studies class uses it as well.
From Theory to Practice
Aaron Records '15 Reflects After Year One of Law School
Aaron Records '15 majored in philosophy and creative writing and spent a year after graduating as the Presidential Fellow for College Communications before enrolling at Syracuse University College of Law. This summer, he is working for the Hon. Thomas J. McAvoy, senior judge for the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York, at his Binghamton chambers.
Lobbying on Capitol Hill
Emily Johnson '16 Leads Students
This spring, nearly 200 volunteers with Save the Children Action Network (SCAN) traveled from across the country to Washington, D.C., to speak with their representatives. The group included two Colby-Sawyer juniors, who lobbied on Capitol Hill for children’s rights. The students, along with the rest of the New Hampshire delegation, were under the leadership of Emily Johnson ’16.
Going the Distance
Colby-Sawyer Invests in Students to Make a Private Education Possible
When Emily Lopez ’17 and her mother started the college selection process during her junior year of high school, they had no idea that a small, private liberal arts-based college like Colby-Sawyer could be even more affordable than a public school because of generous institutional aid.
Challenging Stereotypes
Nathaly Abreu '17 Breaks Away from Misconceptions
Communication studies major Nathaly Abreu ’17, the daughter of Dominican-born parents and a native of the Bronx, has spent most her life defying stereotypes. “As a Latina, people think I’m crazy and sassy. Sure, I can be kind of sassy, but I don’t think that is because I’m Latina,” said Abreu. “I think it’s because that’s who I am.”
Everything I Wanted
Why I Chose Colby-Sawyer
I discovered Colby-Sawyer as a junior at a college fair in Baltimore, Md. I pocketed the information collected from the royal-blue booth and pulled it out months later, in the fall of senior year, when I began my priority application. On paper, Colby-Sawyer had everything I wanted – a New England location, a creative writing major and small classes. Then my acceptance letter arrived, along with my financial aid award. The college was more than affordable.
Leader of Change
Theresa Edick ’18 Selected for Emerging Leaders Fellowship
Environmental studies major Theresa Edick ’18 of Dublin, N.H., was one of 20 scholars from around the world – and the only undergraduate – chosen to participate in a week-long fellowship this month in San Francisco with The Unschool of Disruptive Design, an international organization that aims to activate positive social change by facilitating experiential knowledge labs.
On the Right (Pre-Law) Track
Jacintha Jackson ’17 helped trauma victims heal
Jacintha Jackson ’17 of London, England, is a history and political studies major and is on the pre-law track. She used the skills and knowledge garnered from her studies at Colby-Sawyer to make a difference through her internship with the Association for Trauma Outreach and Prevention (ATOP) Meaningfulworld. The international organization has chapters in three countries and works with the United Nations (U.N.) in an effort to heal trauma experienced by victims of war and natural disasters as well as transgenerational trauma.
In the Students' Service
Doug Atkins Reflects on 30 Years of Service
My earliest recollection of being cognizant of Colby Junior College was when I was 10 years old and in New London visiting my grandparents. It was June, and with the house full, my bed was on their porch. At eight o’clock in the morning, I was awakened by the carillon that used to play from the tower on Colgate Hall. Little did I know then that some 50-plus years later I’d be contemplating retirement after more than 30 years of service to that very same college.
Health Beyond the Hospital
Stephanie Cameron ’11 Helps Health Care Leaders Collaborate
The health care issues that New Hampshire faces are tied up in a complicated knot. Mental health disorders are linked with physical health conditions, and the presence of one can dramatically increase the severity—and costs—of the other. Ideally, treatment should address issues in conjunction, not in isolation. Public health major Stephanie Cameron ’11, a research associate at the Institute for Health Policy and Practice (IHPP) at the University of New Hampshire, knows this. It’s her job to make sure others do, too, and to help health care leaders collaborate in order to ensure New Hampshire residents have the chance to achieve their healthiest selves.
Law of the Land
It’s Never a Dull Day for Conservation Officer Christopher McKee ’06
“People just don’t know what we do,” says Fish and Game Department Conservation Officer Christopher McKee ’06, who’s been on the job for more than a decade and a member of the dive team for five years. That may start to change Sunday, March 5, when “North Woods Law: New Hampshire” debuts on Animal Planet. The series shows conservation officers working across the state to enforce laws, protect wildlife, aid the lost and injured, and recover drowning victims. McKee expects to appear on at least the first episode. Regardless of his airtime, he says, the film crew was on hand for some good cases.
Thriving in the ICN
Elizabeth Abbott ’17 Provides Care for Newborns and Their Parents
Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center (DHMC) is home to an Intensive Care Nursery (ICN) with a twist: among those providing care for the newborns and their parents are a troupe of Colby-Sawyer alumni, faculty and student nurses, including Elizabeth Abbott ’17. Now, she's passed her NCLEX-RN and works in the ICN where she trained.
A Smuggler's Poetry
An Interview with Ewa Chrusciel
Associate Professor of Humanities Ewa Chrusciel’s whirlwind of a sabbatical took her to many European countries, including her native Poland. It also gave her the opportunity to put the finishing touches on her book, Contraband of Hoopoe, released in 2014.
Mind Games
Brandon Legendre '17 Explores His Interests in Psychology and Athletics
Psychology major Brandon Legendre ’17 of St. Johnsbury, Vt., was an intern this summer with the Psychology Department at Columbia University in New York City. There, the captain of Colby-Sawyer’s track and cross country teams was able to explore the intersection of his interests in psychology and athletics.
A Dash of Confidence
Developing Self-Esteem Through Fitness
Running has been an emotional outlet for exercise science major Olivia McAnirlin ’17 of Newport, Maine, since she was 10. “I started running because I had a lot of problems with self-esteem,” she said. “I wanted to better myself and found that exercise is really good for that.”
No Dream Too Big
Aaron Feng '14 Finds a Home for His Dreams as a Graphic Designer
Aaron Fan Feng ’14 is a graphic designer at Compass, a high-end real estate brokerage that trades in luxury and the promise of guiding buyers home. He’s based at the Fifth Avenue office, where he works on print and digital pieces with marketing and product managers and agents throughout the design cycle. For all his self-professed shyness and diligence, the fact that Feng walks through Compass’s doors five days a week points to his secret status as a bit of a rebel.
The Highest Court
Ashley Woodside ' 18 Interns at the International Tennis Hall of Fame
If Ashley Woodside ’18 is not studying, she’s on or near a tennis court – and that includes during her internship this summer at the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, R.I.
From the East Coast to the Far East
Jon Keenan's Sabbatical Journey
Jon Keenan peered into his wood-fired anagama kiln as the star-filled September sky erupted with plumes of smoke. The hand-built kiln, modeled after the natural firing environment of sixteenth-century Japanese potters, was the centerpiece for the final night of the semi-annual ceramics firing at Professor Keenan's home studio.