A celebrated jazz singer and an acclaimed international artist will be on campus and in the village of Hamilton in the coming days.

Jane Monheit, who has established herself as one of the post-millennial jazz world's foremost vocalists, will perform a free concert at 8 p.m. Friday in the Palace Theater.

Monheit has released seven CDs and collaborated with artists such as Michael Bublé, Ivan Lins, Terence Blanchard and Tom Harrell.

Her latest CD -- The Lovers, The Dreamers, and Me -- mixes a blend of world music with her jazz roots. It includes standards such as Cole Porter's "Get Out of Town" to Fiona Apple's "Slow Like Honey."

Monheit's drummer and husband is Rick Montalbano Jr., who grew up in nearby Rome, N.Y. They met in 1997 while students at the Manhattan School of Music.

Next week, artist Eduardo Kac will be on campus for a lecture and an interdisciplinary panel discussion.

Eduardo Kac, Natural History of the Enigma, transgenic work, 2003-08.

Kac, who considers himself a bio artist, first gained prominence with his transgenic work GFP Bunny (2000), centered on the green-glowing bunny named Alba that he created through genetic engineering.

He will give a free public lecture at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday in Meyerhoff Auditorium in the Ho Science Center. The Harvey Picker Distinguished Lecture in the Visual Arts is co-sponsored by the Picker Art Gallery and the ICPA.

Kac will discuss his projects, including a recent transgenic artwork called Natural History of the Enigma.

The central work in that series is a plantimal, a new life form Kac created and that he calls Edunia, a genetically engineered flower that is a hybrid of the artist and petunia. The Edunia expresses Kac's DNA, taken from his blood, exclusively in the flower's red veins.

At 11:30 a.m. Thursday in Golden Auditorium, the artist will take part in a panel discussion that will examine the relationship and confluence of art and science and the implications it has on contemporary society.

Other panelists are Jason Meyers, biologist at Colgate; W.C. Richardson, professor, University of Maryland, College Park; Anthony F. Aveni, Russell B. Colgate Professor of Astronomy and Anthropology at Colgate; and Lynn Gamwell, director-emerita, Binghamton University Art Museum.

Meyers recently landed a gig as an associate producer with NBC Sports. For the lifelong sports buff and former Raiders quarterback, it's a dream job.

In his role on the production staff, Meyers acts as a "spotter," the eyes of Sunday Night Football's producer. That puts him inside the broadcast booth with sportscasters Al Michaels and Cris Collinsworth.

"I'm positioned just off camera. My responsibility is to keep a close eye on the field and pick out things that might be noteworthy, such as injuries and formations."

Through a headset, he relays the information to the producer who decides whether the details should be aired. If Meyer's talking points make the cut, Michaels and Collinsworth will pass the details onto viewers.

Ryan Meyers '10 poses inside the new Dallas Cowboys stadium. The senior was helped by two alumni in landing a job as an associate producer for NBC Sports.

"Along with plenty of adrenaline, the tremendous learning opportunity the position presents keeps me motivated, helping me keep up with a busy schedule," added Meyers, who transferred from Tulane University to Colgate after Hurricane Katrina.

The New Orleans native tackles coursework during the week before catching a flight out of Syracuse on Thursday nights or Friday mornings to that weekend's game location.

Meyers landed the position with NBC Sports, thanks to a Colgate connection. He met Ken Schanzer '66, president of NBC Sports, during the Center for Career Services' A Day in the Life program, which allows students to shadow Colgate alumni and parents in a variety of professions.

Schanzer later offered Meyers an internship position in the executive offices of NBC Sports, where he also developed a relationship with alumnus Drew Esocoff '79, director of Sunday Night Football.

When the associate producer position opened up over the summer, Meyers said he was honored that Schanzer and Esocoff thought of him.

"If there is one piece of advice I could pass along to students it would be to build relationships with Colgate alumni. They want to help you so much."

The Colgate connection has certainly opened up a world of opportunities for Meyers.

Once the NFL season ends, he will mostly likely assist in NBC's coverage of other sporting events, possibly even the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

"As you can imagine, I'm the envy of all my friends," joked Meyers. "In all honesty, I feel very fortunate."

ABC's Bob Woodruff '83, P'13 moderated a panel discussion featuring six alumni who represented diverse perspectives on the energy field: journalist and Alaska resident Elizabeth Arnold '82; energy investor Bob Gold '80; London-based energy policy advisor and attorney Jane Kozinski '82; wind entrepreneur David Mortenson '88; Edgar Lampert '62, P'10, a real estate developer committed to sustainable building; and Bruce Selleck '71, Harold Orville Whitnall Professor of geology at Colgate.

Innovation, he said, is the only way to fuel a true green revolution. "How do we stimulate 10,000 innovators in 10,000 green garages, trying 10,000 different things, 1,000 of which will be promising, 100 of which will be way cool, and maybe two will give us sources of abundant, cheap, clean, reliable energies?"

ABC's Bob Woodruff '83, P'13 (left) moderates a panel discussion about energy featuring six alumni. Next to him is keynote speaker Thomas Friedman, New York Times columnist and Pulitzer Prize-winning author. (Photo by Lorenzo Ciniglio)

Colgate experts agreed on the power of innovation; yet, as Friedman had, they also stressed the importance of price in terms of stimulating both investment and consumer demand for clean energies -- from wind turbines, solar, and hydropower, to clean coal, the smart grid, and natural gas.

Arnold said she sees the power of innovation firsthand in oil-dependent Alaska. "In places where they are still hunting whales and seals, where they still use skin boats, there are wind farms going up." The wind technology, she said, is being developed using dollars that are earned from fossil fuels. "The symbol can't be lost."

Gold said that oil companies will clamor to help once they have a strong profit incentive. "If we want to cure cancer, we wouldn't think of excluding the drug companies. But we're trying to cure an energy problem while excluding the energy companies."

Mortenson, whose company is the largest design-builder of wind energy in the United States, confirmed that price incentives gave European companies a head start in turbine innovation.

"Unless you have a balance of either incentives, through the production tax credit, or the pricing of carbon on polluting industries, you have no price incentive and you don't have any stability or predictability. We are getting our proverbial rear ends kicked," said Mortenson.

Finally, bringing the debate closer to Colgate, Selleck advocated for a source of energy that is abundant below campus, in the Marcellus Shale. "Natural gas is the perfect intermediate fuel," Selleck said, "especially for transportation."

What, then, does the future hold for the science students whose energy is spent above ground at Colgate?

"There's so much geology needed right now," Selleck said, "more than ever before. With the expansion of natural gas development in this country, there are jobs available in spite of the economy and in spite of the low cost of natural gas. Companies know the demand is going to be there."

Theodore D. Weld

Colgate's Upstate Institute and the NAHOF organized the weekend's events, many of which are on campus and free for members of the Colgate community.

The ceremony will be held 8 p.m. Saturday in Golden Auditorium, Little Hall. Hugh C. Humphreys of Hamilton has prepared a performance piece for the ceremony that highlights the abolitionists' fiery rhetoric. Moana Fogg '10, an Upstate summer fellow, will sing as part of the performance.

The film, which will be shown tonight at 6 in Meyerhoff Auditorium in the Ho Science Center, tells the story of Child, the abolitionist and writer who penned the famous poem turned song: Over the River and Through the Woods (to grandmother's house we go).

Throughout the day Saturday there are several interesting lectures about Weld, Tappan, Abraham Lincoln, and the American Anti-Slavery Society.

The lectures begin at 1 p.m. in Golden Auditorium. They are free and open to the public.

Steven Spielberg's film Amistad will be shown at 5 p.m. Friday at the Hamilton Theater. There will be a panel discussion about the movie and the Amistad incident afterward at the Colgate Bookstore.

The NAHOF is located in Peterboro, a hamlet northwest of Hamilton, the scene of the first New York State Anti-slavery Society meeting in October 1835.

The Upstate Institute and NAHOF have been working together for the past five years to honor abolitionists and to bring attention to modern battles against injustice around the world.

Using historical data gathered from his research conducted on several continents, Rejali will frame the modern debate surrounding torture, specifically the treatment of terror suspects by the Central Intelligence Agency.

"Rejali offers us a rigorous historical analysis of the way that democracies have developed forms of torture that escape oversight of international human rights regimes, and shows why they have felt it necessary to do so to begin with," said Daniel Monk, George R. and Myra T. Cooley Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies and one of the event organizers.

As part of his address, Rejali, a political science professor at Reed College, will take up the question of whether torture works and explore prospects for the future prevention of torture internationally.

His award-winning book, Torture and Democracy (2007), is an examination of the use of torture by democracies in the 20th century. As the 20th century progressed, he argues in the book, democracies not only tortured, but also set the international pace for torture.

Torture and Democracy won the Human Rights Book of the Year Award from the American Political Science Association and the 2009 Raphael Lemkin Award from the Institute for the Study of Genocide for the best non-fiction work in English which addresses the causes of genocide and crimes against humanity.

The Fulbright Commission awarded Rejali the Distinguished Danish Chair for Human Rights and International Studies in Copenhagen.

In addition to his public talk, he will meet with students in the P-CON program as well as alumni who established the lecture series in honor of the late Peter Schaehrer '65, a career educator and champion of civil rights.

The lecture series will bring prominent figures to campus annually to discuss peace and conflict issues.

Schaehrer spent two decades as a beloved counselor and administrator at Lehman College, where, early in the 1970s, he organized the school's outreach to returning Vietnam veterans and developed programs to reintegrate them into campus life.

"Rejali is a fitting choice for the inaugural lecture because he writes and speaks with sincerity, thoughtfulness, and scholarship in a manner reminiscent of Pete," said Rick Stege '65, a former classmate of Schaehrer.

"I hope the lecture series and memory of Pete will inspire many within the Colgate community to dedicate their lives and their work to a cause which is much bigger than themselves."

Nearly 100 students poured into the Hall of Presidents earlier this month to find the answer to the question, "Do you know what I did last summer?"

Career Services hosted the Summer Expo to highlight students' summer experiences in research, internships, and volunteer service at Colgate and elsewhere.

More than 40 sophomores, juniors and seniors volunteered to share reflections of their summer experiences.

Chris Dell'Amore '11 (right) talks with students about his internship with the Global Fairness Initiative in Washington, D.C.

The event was intended to assist younger and undecided students to see the breadth of meaningful opportunities in which Colgate students engage, and to understand the importance and accessibility of internships, research opportunities, and service projects early in their college careers.

Through one-on-one conversations and in viewing the presenters' prepared materials, attendees learned how other students determined their interest areas, obtained their summer experiences, and learned what they found most rewarding.

Most importantly, students gained valuable peer-to-peer advice on how and why it is important to consider summer opportunities.

"Just get out there and do something! Anything! I promise, doing so will help you learn so much about yourself and what you might like to do," said Eileen O'Brien '10. She served as an educational intern at NBC Learn in New York City this past summer.

Students offered presentations about internships and research and service opportunities in diverse fields such as advocacy, health, consulting, education, communications, finance, government, environmental affairs, and sports management.

Several students, who were among the more than 100 who conduct research at Colgate each summer, talked about staying on campus to explore topics such as the politics of Civil War monuments and engaging artists in central New York.

Stephen Hansen '10 said there is real value in seeing all the available options both on and off campus.

As a summer research intern for Potomac Advocates in Washington, D.C., he knows it boils down to one thing: "Keep an open mind, and follow your heart. Your interests could mold into many different careers that you may not even know exist yet."

Harris-Lacewell, a frequent contributor to MSNBC and other media outlets, tackled the broad topic by explaining race in four ways: racial context, race as a factor in candidate choice, race and governing, and race inequality and policy-making.

"After Hurricane Katrina, the American sentiment was, 'How can we execute a war overseas if we cannot give water to an American city for three days?'"

Melissa Harris-Lacewell speaks at Colgate on Wednesday about "Race and the Age of Obama." (Photo by Brooke Ousterhout '10)

By identifying these trends, Harris-Lacewell explained how the 2008 election with its open-seat contest in both parties and emerging "youth technology" such as Facebook and Twitter crossed many borders, assisting Obama's rise to power.

"These new technologies created echo chambers so people could immediately see what was going on," said Harris-Lacewell. "It made it more democratic because people could rely less on external authority."

She explained that while America is not in a post-racialization era, it is in a different racial climate.

"There are new racial possibilities and they have everything to do with addressing something that at the turn of the 20th century was described by (W.E.) DuBois as a doublethink," she said. "It is a double conscience descent of two-ness within the American context that the African Americans would all somehow find a way to heal the double conscience of being both black and American."

Harris-Lacewell said that attending the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver was when she personally sensed the possibility of healing that double conscience.

Students seemed to appreciate Harris-Lacewell's clear dialogue. "She really addressed the issues of race in an organized and very honest way," said Lauren Lisbon '11.

"I think that as an African American woman academic she has a unique vantage point from which to analyze the politics of race in the current period," said sociology professor Rhonda Levine, who organized Harris-Lacewell's visit. "She has an ability to draw on multiple political meanings of important racial issues to provide a coherent explanation."

Harris-Lacewell's appearance was part of a celebration of Colgate's Africana and Latin American Studies (ALST) Program.

On Tuesday night, Rex Nettleford, a Caribbean scholar, cultural historian, and political analyst, delivered the W.E DuBois Lecture. An open house with music and food was held earlier the same day.