Parker-Reed Room, Schair-Swenson-Watson Alumni Center, Colby College

Steven Simon is John J. McCloy ’16 Visiting Professor of History at Amherst College. Simon has held a variety of positions in the U.S. State Department, White House, and academe as a Middle Eastern policy advisor, consultant, and scholar; he’s also widely published as both a national commentator and book author. He’s a former director of the U.S. […]

Regina José Galindo’s artistic practice situates her own body in public space as a way to address the ethical implications of social injustices related to racial and gender discrimination and the history of violence and abuse in her birth country of Guatemala. She has exhibited her work in the Venice Biennale and was awarded the Golden Lion in 2005. This talk is organized […]

George Biddle, chairman of World Connect, will discuss what is being done to alleviate the Syrian people’s suffering, how Syria’s neighbors are faring, what the impact on Europe has been, and how the crisis is forcing the international community to reconsider its responses to refugee and humanitarian crises.

Richard Ford, born in Jackson, Miss., is the author of eleven books of fiction, including The Sportswriter, Independence Day, Canada, and Let Me Be Frank With You, and the short story collections Rock Springs and A Multitude of Sins. He’s won a Pulitzer Prize, a Carnegie Gold Medal for Fiction, the PEN-Faulkner Award, and the […]

Rabbi Alan Lucas will discuss tattoos, which have become enormously popular. According to popular lore, people with tattoos can’t be buried in a Jewish cemetery. Why was Judaism against tattoos, and are those concerns relevant today? Rabbi Lucas wrote a position paper on tattoos and body piercing for the Conservative Movement’s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards. […]

John Della Volpe, is director of polling at the  Institute of Politics at Harvard University. Each semester, he leads a public opinion survey group of students who develop, field and report on the attitudes of young Americans (Millennial Generation) toward politics and public service. Since 2000, the IOP survey has tracked pre- and post-9/11 attitudes; […]

Tim Clorius, a.k.a. Subone, was the first artist in Maine to pursue a professional career as a spray painter. He labeled himself an “aerosol artist” to emphasize his interest in spray painting fine-art-oriented works that range from abstraction to realism yet remain resolutely what he calls “graffitiesque.” Clorius conducts workshops for students that advocate for the potential that aerosol […]