Goldfarb Center for Public Affairs and Civic Engagement

There's never been one America, Colin Woodard argues in this award-winning book, but rather several Americas, each with its own, centuries-old ideals, values, and religious and cultural heritage. Understanding the real map of the continent and its rival cultures is essential to grasping our history, from the divisions of the American Revolution and Civil War […]

Economic inequality is the defining issue of our day. The gap between the very rich and very poor in developing nations dashed hopes that all boats would rise together. Certainly the writings of Katherine Boo, the 2015 Elijah Parish Lovejoy Award Winner, underscore what some believe to be the persistent link between rapid growth and […]

For shining a spotlight on poverty and the heartrending inequalities of our era, Katherine Boo has a Pulitzer Prize, a National Book Award, and a MacArthur genius grant. In October, she will receive Colby College's Elijah Parish Lovejoy Award for courageous journalism. Boo will receive an honorary doctoral degree along with the Lovejoy award and will […]

What’s it like to lead a small Ugandan village? Milly Businge will share her experiences of leadership & development in Kikuube, a village where Colby students studied abroad in January 2015. Businge will speak about the challenges for food security and sustainability posed by the arrival of multinational corporate agriculture in Kikuube, as well as her family’s […]

Dan Wasserman will show and discuss his cartoons from the current and past election campaigns. He will be joined by his images of all your favorite political characters, from Bernie and Hillary, to Jeb! and the Donald. Dan will discuss the role of satire in a democracy, his sources for cartoon ideas, conflicts with editors […]

Reginald Dwayne Betts will graduate from Yale Law School in May. This is a far cry away from May of 1997, when a sixteen-year-old Dwayne was sentenced to nine years in prison for carjacking. He knows the criminal justice system from both ends of the spectrum and describes his chosen field as “the business of […]

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; […]

 Paul Gorski, cofounder of EdChange and associate professor of integrative studies at George Mason University, will discuss how poverty impacts opportunity in today's education system. In addition to his work in poverty and educational opportunity, he also writes about social justice education and social justice activist sustainability.

The Goldfarb Center for Public Affairs is hosting guest speaker Roger Schulman, President and CEO of Fund for Educational Excellence on March 4th for a 7 pm lecture in Roberts, Robins room on Colby campus. Mr. Schulman who has over 20 years of experience in urban education works closely with a wide variety of district, […]

Please join the Goldfarb Center at Colby College for a lecture by Brigadier General Stephen A. Cheney, USMC (Ret.) of the American Security Project on the threats that climate change presents for national and global security. The world is heating up. Despite skepticism from climate change deniers, our bases and stations are literally going under […]

A Conversation with Congressman Henry C. "Hank" Johnson, Jr. Join the Goldfarb Center for Public Affairs tomorrow for A Conversation with Congressman Hank Johnson: The U.S. Criminal Justice System & Racial Inequities from 7 – 8 p.m. on Wednesday, October 28. This public event is the official kick-off for our annual public policy theme of criminal injustice […]

Join the Goldfarb Center for our 2021 Cotter Debate to explore this topic with two top experts in the field of constitutional law. Suzanna Sherry, the Herman O. Loewenstein Professor of Law at Vanderbilt University Law School, will discuss the merits of lifetime appointments. The opposing view will be argued by Ilya Shapiro, director of […]