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

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Linda Cotter Summer Speaker 2024 Co-hosted by the Mid-Maine Global Forum and the Goldfarb Center for Public Affairs at Colby College, the Linda Cotter Speaker Series honors Linda Cotter, founder of the Mid-Maine Global Forum and late wife of former Colby College president William Cotter. The Threat of Authoritarianism with David J. Kramer Date: Wednesday, July 24 […]

Bro Adams What is the value of academic preparation in the “humanities”? How does one leverage such preparation to work in the “real” world? If you are asking these questions as a student, faculty member, administrator, or a member of the local community, join us for a lively exchange with Bro Adams, Aaron Hanlon and […]

The Goldfarb Center for Public Affairs cordially invites you to attend the 2023 Senator George J. Mitchell Distinguished International Lecture. Democracies worldwide are under sustained attack. At the heart of all democracies are their institutions, with the justice sector at its core, buttressed by media, civil society and others which reflect the voice of those nations' […]

12 founders + 12 weeks + 72 mentors + 40 presenters = 1 amazing cohort! We’re celebrating the inaugural Dirigo Labs class with a demo day and pitch event. Once you meet this amazing group of entrepreneurs we know you’ll be impressed. Twelve companies will each have 5 minutes to present their company to a […]

Join Kimberly Flowers, executive director of the Goldfarb Center, for this lecture. As the climate crises worsen we are simultaneously seeing a rise in global hunger, unprecedented humanitarian need, and increasingly protracted conflicts. Flowers will unpack the considerable threat that climate change is having on both political stability and food systems, particularly in fragile states. She […]

The wealth gap between the haves and the have-nots is at an all-time high, and the disparity is even larger among marginalized sects of the population. In line with the Goldfarb Center’s theme this year, Associate Professor of Sociology Christel Kesler will examine the influence of various policies in the growing and shrinking of the wealth gap in the United States. […]

Expressing one’s voice is an important part of the political process, and there are a number of ways to express your opinions. Join us for a workshop on writing letters to the editor. This one-hour session will be led by Bets Brown, a member of the American Association of University Women (AAUW). The focus of […]

Pay Equity, the Gender Wage Gap and Policies Toward Pay and Parenthood Fifty-seven years after the Equal Pay Act in 1963, the median woman who works full-time earns only 82 cents for each dollar earned by her male counterpart. Recent economics has found that, on average, women’s annual earnings fall after having children but men’s […]

Democracies around the world — in Brazil and Venezuela, Hungary, Turkey, and Great Britain, and elsewhere — have been challenged by popularly elected leaders who have acted far outside of traditional democratic norms. This year’s first Cotter Debate, sponsored by the Goldfarb Center, addresses whether American governmental institutions are capable of responding to the threats […]

How can we make sense of the byzantine world of politics framing the 2020 presidential and congressional elections? Join former Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank, who served 16 terms in the United States House of Representatives as one of the most outspoken and thoughtful Members of Congress, and Hannah Dineen ’17, weekend anchor and political reporter […]

Come to hear leading experts on the subject use a major historical event, the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968, as a gateway to discuss a key geopolitical issue today: the rise of Russia and resurgence of Russian expansionism. Josef Pazderka is a Czech journalist, author, and editor-in-chief of Aktualne.cz, a leading Czech news […]

At least 21 journalists have been killed in Russia since Putin became president in 2000, and 58 since the early 1990s. Also given state control of the media, renewed protests against the administration, and growing economic and political problems at home, what are the prospects for journalists in present-day Russia who wish to write about […]

Race continues to play a fundamental role in shaping economic, social, and political life in the United States and across the world. Yet many Americans have limited knowledge of the historical and contemporary processes that account for racial inequality. As a result, few people are equipped to recognize and confront racial inequities in their own lives and communities. Americans’ collective inability to conscientiously contend with race enables systems of oppression, […]

This year’s Hunt Lecturer is Dr. Jemima Pierre of UCLA. She is a sociocultural anthropologist whose research and teaching interests are located in the overlaps between African Studies and African Diaspora Studies and engage three broad areas: race, racial formation theory, and political economy; culture and the history of anthropological theory; and transnationalism, globalization, and […]

Please join the Goldfarb Center to hear José Miguel Vivanco, one of the nation’s experts on human rights in Latin America, give this year's Senator George J. Mitchell Distinguished International Lecture. Over the last 70 years, the international community has reached a key consensus on human rights issues, ranging from torture to freedom of expression, from women’s […]

The military is one of the most diverse American institutions; success is a function of bringing people from different backgrounds and perspectives together to achieve a common goal. How do military leaders promote inclusivity? How are diverse talents identified? What gets in the way of leading a diverse organization? Hear LCDR Melissa Maclin ’98, Naval […]

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 documentary film by Antonia Grace Glenn with scholar commentary by Evelyn Nakano Glenn. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with director and producer Glenn and scholarly commentator Evelyn Nakano Glenn, a sociologist who was Colby’s 2012 Kingsley Birge Lecturer. She has written extensively on the intersection of race, class, citizenship, and gender in […]

Throughout his brief but brilliant career, the French phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty maintained an intense interest in painting, and especially in the painting of Paul Cézanne. Merleau-Ponty saw Cézanne as a fellow explorer in the primordial land of perception, a pioneer in the archaeology of the visible world. This talk explores Merleau-Ponty’s philosophical interest in the […]

Roberto G. Gonzales is professor of education at Harvard Graduate School of Education. His research centers on contemporary processes of immigration and social inequality and stems from theoretical interests at the intersection of race and ethnicity, immigration, and policy. His book, Lives in Limbo: Undocumented and Coming of Age in America (University of California Press), is based on an […]

Join the Oak Student Committee in dialogue with alumni as they share their experiences with activism on Colby’s campus and beyond. Alumni in attendance will include Muheb Esmat ’16, Tionna Haynes ’15, Eric Mehnert ’82, and Charles Terrell ’70.

Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian, journalist, and book publisher. He is director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research and chief editor of LeftWord Books. He reports for Frontline, The Hindu and Newsclick (in India), BirGün (in Turkey), and Alternet (in the United States) and appears regularly on The Real News Network and Democracy Now. […]

This evening will feature author Earl Smith in a conversation with Morning Sentinel journalist Amy Calder. A former Colby College dean, Smith is the author of five books including "Head of Falls," a book of historical fiction about a teenage Lebanese girl growing up on the riverfront in 1950's Waterville. Post-interview book signing opportunity will be […]

In a world fractured by unjust relations among humans, in a world in which humans have been wreaking global climate destruction, what kinds of ways of being human might make it possible for humans to have a future at all? And, are there better ways of imagining and being human? In this talk, Denise Buell, […]