Alumni of color gathered at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem, N.Y., on Oct. 4 to commemorate Colgate at 200 Years and celebrate the impact of its multicultural community. This was the first stop on a traveling celebration that is continuing on to 30 cities from coast to coast and around the world throughout the academic year.

“There is a shift happening,” President Brian W. Casey said. “I hope that it is a shift to a Colgate that is more joyful, empathetic, graceful, welcoming, healing, confident, positive — more beautiful. That’s what we are celebrating tonight. It’s just a seed. Let’s hope that, during our third century, it grows into a magnificent tree.”

In particular, attendees honored Provost and Dean of the Faculty Tracey Hucks ’87, MA’90 (pictured). “I, who stand in front of you, am an embodiment of those who came before me,” Hucks said in response to tributes from trustee emerita Diane Ciccone ’74, P’10 and professors Christopher Vecsey and Harvey Sindima. “I stand here as someone who brought the blood of indigenous nation people and the blood of the descendants of enslaved Africans from my parents and their parents. These are those who are with me in the ancestral world and motivate the work and the life that I live daily.”