With a collective 186 years of service, the following faculty members have retired:
Jeff Baldani
Professor of economics
Joined Colgate in 1982
Specialties: microeconomics, mathematical economics, and game theory
“Working with students was the highlight [of my time at Colgate]. I tried to maintain exacting expectations and to provide support commensurate with those expectations. My reward was watching so many students, despite their occasional despair at the challenges, thrive as critical and creative thinkers.
“As associate dean of faculty, it was a joy to work with a close-knit team of people who supported each other, were creative problem solvers, and constantly strove for excellence with integrity. I feel privileged to have worked with such truly wonderful people.
“Finally, the core program holds a special place in my memories. As someone who was trained to work with equations and graphs and whose main teaching was in mathematical economics, the core was always a challenge. It was also faculty development writ large: colleagues supporting each other’s pedagogy and intellectual growth in the best traditions of a liberal arts education.”
Robert Garland
Roy D. and Margaret B. Wooster Professor of the classics
Joined Colgate in 1986
Specialties: Ancient history and classics
“I’ve been happy here because I haven’t had to be a classicist only. One high point of being at Colgate was teaching Challenges of Modernity. Colgate didn’t say to me, ‘You’re a classicist. How can you teach Darwin? How can you teach Nietzsche?’ No, [they said], ‘We need somebody to teach this stuff. Will you do it?’ I’m very grateful for that because it’s helped me to expand my horizon. So what would I take away from Colgate? That it trusts its faculty to be able to get up on something they’re not trained in. I always say I’m only comfortable when I’m outside my comfort zone, and I’ve been privileged to teach at an institution that understands and values that.”
Deborah Knuth Klenck
Professor of English
Joined Colgate in 1978
Specialties: 18th-century British literature, British fiction, women’s studies, the drama and culture of London
Colgate Alumni Corporation Board of Directors Award for Distinguished Teaching, 2004
“Most of my syllabi ended back ‘home,’ with Samuel Johnson’s essays. Johnson’s writing shows great care and elegance. The Idler collection ends with a meditation on last things, May 4, 1760: Though the Idler and his readers have contracted no close friendship, they are perhaps both unwilling to part. There are few things … of which we can say, without some emotion of uneasiness, this is the last. … [Even] the Idler, with all his chillness of tranquility, is not wholly unaffected by the thought that his last essay is now before him. … [I]n every life there are certain pauses and interruptions, which force consideration upon the careless, and seriousness upon the light; points of time where one course of action ends and another begins; and by vicissitude of fortune, or alteration of employment, by change of place, or loss of friendship, we are forced to say of something, this is the last.
“But I have ‘contracted’ many ‘close friendships’ here. And ‘chillness of tranquility’ hardly describes the professor whom many students remember
tearing up whenever reading aloud. Nevertheless, Johnson ‘forces’ me to be ‘serious,’ even though my ‘alteration of employment’ means neither a ‘change of place,’ nor (I hope!) a ‘loss of friendship.’ I am still here, eager to learn about your lives beyond Colgate.”
Philip Mulry
Professor of computer science
Joined Colgate in 1984
Specialties: Discrete structures, theory of computation, programming language semantics, formal methods, object-oriented programming
Research grants: 6
“I feel very fortunate to have spent most of my working life living in Hamilton and working at Colgate. The University has provided a wonderful opportunity to enjoy a rewarding and productive career working with talented students and faculty. It has also provided a conducive environment for collaborating on my research with outstanding scientists from around the world.
“Hamilton has been a wonderful place to raise a family, and we cherish our many lifelong friendships. I look forward to new challenges as well as continuing to enjoy all that Hamilton and Colgate have to offer.”
Carol (Kira) Stevens
Professor of history and Russian and Eurasian studies
Joined Colgate in 1984
Specialties: History of Muscovy, Russian Empire and USSR; military history of medieval and early modern Europe, law and conflict resolution in early modern Russia
“It has been my privilege to participate in Colgate’s growth and change over more than three decades. There are many cherished memories on and
off campus. Among them, a 2018 extended study trip to Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan stands out as recent and dramatic. It’s a larger-than-life example of several things that I’ve enjoyed at Colgate: the room to develop unusual courses; unique opportunities for study abroad, including an off-road trip to the banks of the drying Aral Sea; tours of oil-rich Azerbaijan; and sharing students’ expanding understandings of the world with other faculty. It’s been a pleasure.”