Community Conversations: Home

What must we give — and give up — to be American?

With Thought leaders Bethashley Cajuste and Rabbi Erica Asch

Bethashley Cajuste, Colby Class of ’20, has been working intimately with the Pugh Administration for two years and has been serving as a domestic violence advocate for five years.  She is an Independent Global Health major at Colby with a focus on Women’s Health. Bethashley is also a QuestBridge scholar and mentor.

Rabbi Erica Asch is the spiritual leader of Congregation Beth El in Augusta, and the Hillel advisor and Jewish chaplain at Colby. She received her rabbinic ordination from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in 2008 and then took a position as a community organizer with the Industrial Areas Foundation, the first rabbi to do so directly out of rabbinical school. After three years with IAF, she served as an assistant rabbi at Temple Sinai in Washington, D.C., before moving to Augusta in 2013.

Community Conversations is a series of three events bringing together Waterville faith and community institutions with Colby faculty and students to consider major issues of common concern. This series began last year, with scholars from the field of Jewish studies and civic leaders discussing the intersection of Jewish civilization and current political issues in the United States.

This year, Community Conversations will bring Waterville’s diverse constituencies together in the Chace Forum to engage in three conversations guided by the theme word “home”. We will delve into these three questions:

1. What must we give—and give up— to be American?
2. What is the role of the American family today?
3. Colby and Waterville today—who really calls Waterville home?

The conversations will take place over the course of the 2018-2019 academic year.