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The Student Government Association (SGA) convened on Sept. 22 at 7 p.m. in Page Commons for its weekly meeting. As always, this meeting was open to the public.

The first order of business was bar night, which almost deserves to be capitalized (Bar Night) because of its proper noun status. The first bar night of the year (Thursday, Sept. 10) was hosted at Mainely Brews and featured a dramatically larger-than-expected crowd, many of whom were underage. The Sept. 10 bar night was cleared out with the help of the Waterville Police Department.

Major Joshua Woods of Waterville PD confirmed that the police were called by Mainely Brews staff members after too many people crowded into the building. Four officers responded to the call and helped the staff clear out the students in attendance. Major Woods also clarified that Waterville PD did not “raid” bar night. “Raid” is a term that is sometimes misused on campus, which has a specific meaning at Waterville PD.

“A raid involves taking control of the situation,” Major Woods said. That is not what occurred at the Sept. 10 bar night.

SGA has been drafting a response to address the overcrowding. The challenge was figuring out how to phrase the email.

A few SGA members proposed writing, “No underclassmen,” but Director of Student Engagement and Leadership Development Nathan Baird observed that this would be exclusive. So the phrasing was amended to, “Nobody under 21.”

“We heard that there had been some kind of debauchery downtown,” Aubrey Costello `27, co-president of SGA, said, “and we’re just reminding the student body to be respectful of the community.”

Costello has taken the lead on writing this email, which was sent out earlier this week (as of the Echo’s Thursday printing).

Keeping under-21 students away from bar night is a chronic problem. Fizz, the College’s anonymous social media platform, is awash with derogatory remarks about underclassmen attending the event most Thursdays.

Later in the meeting, Jacob Ittycheria `29, the SGA treasurer, delivered a slideshow presentation on the Student Life budget.

In years past, each class year (2027, 2028, etc.) would get a specific budget allocation, like clubs used to. But most class years didn’t spend their whole allotment, while others spent it and wanted more money. So the class budget system has been revised for 2026–27. Now, all class years share a pool of $10,500 for the purpose of putting on events.

How much money is there to go around for all clubs and class year events, etc., from SGA? The answer is $450,024; that’s SGA’s total budget. Of that, $231,000 goes to clubs (excluding club sports), with that pool further subdivided based on the category of club. The Echo, for example, falls into the media/publications category, which it shares with WMHB. The Echo confirmed these numbers with Ittycheria.

Finally, for those hoping to eat Mr. Tuna sushi on campus this year, the Echo advises lowering your expectations. When Beckett Stratton `29 asked if the College could bring the Mr. Tuna food truck to campus, Nathan Baird replied, “Keep dreaming,” and then explained that it cost at least $5,000 to get them to drive up to Mayflower Hill.

The Echo also advises clearing your schedules for Denim Derby, which will take place on Saturday, Oct. 17. SGA talked about Denim Derby planning near the end of their meeting.

~ Elias Kemp `27

Two hundred years after Elijah Parish Lovejoy graduated from what was then Waterville College, three journalists gathered at the College to accept an award bearing his name and to describe the growing challenges of reporting on national security.

The 2026 Lovejoy Award for Courage in Journalism honored Helene Cooper of The New York Times, Tara Copp of The Washington Post, and Phil Stewart of Reuters for their work covering the Pentagon and U.S. national security operations.

For the journalists, courage in journalism has increasingly meant finding ways to report when traditional access is no longer available.

“We were all forced with a final choice,” Stewart said, describing the Pentagon press corps’ decision to refuse a policy governing their access and reporting. “Either sign this agreement or surrender your valid badges.” The journalists ultimately surrendered their badges and left the Pentagon.

Copp described what the loss of access has meant for the press corps and the public. Before journalists were removed from the Pentagon, reporters could question officials together, building on one another’s questions to press for answers.

“They have shut off access to independent journalists being able to challenge principles and decision makers,” Copp said. “The briefing room is silent.”

Without that access, the reporters have had to rebuild their routines outside the building. Copp said much of her reporting is now conducted through encrypted messaging and private conversations, while sources face greater risks for speaking with journalists.

“I really wish that there was an award we could give to the people that still trust us to talk to us because they’re heroes, in my opinion,” Copp said.

The loss of access has also affected the relationships that journalists rely on to report. Copp described the importance of being physically present in the Pentagon and developing relationships with officials over years.

“We want to be in the Pentagon because you can bump into people in the hallways,” she said. “It’s those long-seeming relationships that are saving us right now.”

Cooper emphasized another essential part of the job: knowing how to ask questions that produce information.

“It’s not necessarily about showing how smart you are and how much you know by asking the most challenging question you can think to ask,” Cooper said. “It’s about eliciting information.”

For Alison Beyea, executive director of the Goldfarb Center for Public Affairs, those challenges make Lovejoy’s legacy particularly relevant.

“Lovejoy’s story is deeply connected to Colby and Waterville, but it also belongs to the larger story of the American democratic experiment,” Beyea said. “A free press is fundamental to our democracy, but it cannot be taken for granted. It must be taught, valued, and protected. Colby has a special responsibility to preserve that legacy and carry it forward.”

Lovejoy graduated from Waterville College in 1826, making this year the 200th anniversary of his graduation. His namesake award therefore carries an especially significant connection to the College this year.

For the journalists honored in his name, the ideals associated with Lovejoy are reflected in the realities of reporting today: protecting vulnerable sources, working without traditional access, and continuing to seek information when answers are difficult to obtain.

“For journalists and students today,” Beyea said, “his legacy is a reminder to remain curious, independent, and willing to pursue the truth even when doing so is difficult or unpopular.”

“This anniversary gives us an opportunity to consider how each generation must renew its commitment to a free press,” Beyea added. “Honoring these courageous journalists is one way Colby keeps that commitment alive.”

For the students who gathered to hear Cooper, Copp, and Stewart, the event offered more than a look back at the College’s history. It offered a firsthand view of the persistence, adaptability and responsibility that journalism can demand, and a reminder that the work of a free press does not belong only to the journalists being honored, but to the generations that follow them.

~ Mia Dinunzio `28

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been looming large in the minds of educators for years. Since ChatGPT was released in 2022, we have been experiencing a phenomenon referred to as an “AI boom.” The field of generative AI has experienced particularly massive expansion and has drawn economic investment and public attention in spades. At this point, the development of AI technology has impacted almost every aspect of modern life, including education. 

The College unveiled the Davis Institute for Artificial Intelligence in 2021, making it the first small liberal arts college in the United States to establish an AI institute. Town & Country magazine recently ranked the College in the top three US colleges and universities preparing undergraduate students for the AI economy. But for a higher education institution, adjusting to AI is much more complex than simply establishing an institute. Students, faculty, and staff are all impacted by the technology in distinctive and varied ways, and each individual interacts with it differently.

A recent step forward has been the introduction of an educational module about AI into the freshman orientation process. Due to the cross-disciplinary nature of the project, it was created by a group of faculty and staff from various departments. Information Technology Services, the Davis Institute for AI, the Writing Department and Writing Center, and the Colby Libraries were all involved. Kara Kugelmeyer, a Data Services Librarian and Science, Technology, and Society (STS) Professor, is a part of this group. According to Kugelmeyer, all of the group members “have deep concerns about helping students navigate the complexities of AI, particularly when we’re thinking about AI in the classroom.”

Kugelmeyer first began to see tangible impacts of generative AI on student learning mid-2024. She recalls, “[AI] became clear that students were using it to write their papers, students were using it to solve their complex math problems, and… I had so many faculty in my office just asking, ‘How can we tell?’” 

When students use AI to write an essay or summarize a text for them, it is what Kugelmeyer would call a “frictionless” process. She explains, “One of the things that we really try to emphasize in this module is that learning takes friction.” When you use AI to do the work, she says, “you’re outsourcing really important aspects of your learning.” And in the post-grad world, “your expertise will be what will get you paid… and that will only be based upon your true learning.”

The College is an institution dedicated to student learning. The website touts “excellence in undergraduate education,” “an atmosphere of rigorous intellectual pursuit,” and an environment where “critical reasoning abilities are honed by questions, challenges, and discussions.” The AI boom has left educators across the country scrambling to create curricula that are able to achieve such goals effectively in this new technological era. 

Google Gemini and Notebook LM are included in the Google Suite tools that all students have access to at the College. “There’s quite a burden now on faculty about rethinking how to teach all of their courses,” Kugelmeyer says. “When you have a group of academics together who are really thoughtful, deep thinkers, when this thing gets placed on top of that…they haven’t been trained to be quick turnaround strategists.”

Rather than one overarching college policy, each professor creates their own policy regarding AI. Some are completely against students using AI for reasons both pedagogical and ethical. Some embrace it, hoping to prepare students for an AI-infused world. There are faculty at every point on that spectrum. Kugelmeyer explains, “academia is all about critical inquiry, challenging ideas and conventions, and it also makes it really hard often for academics to norm around what should happen.”

Faculty and staff who were involved in creating the module hope that it will clarify expectations for students and help them think critically about their usage, no matter what policies are implemented in the classroom. According to Kugelmeyer, “the module is not anti-AI or pro-AI… it’s like, ‘Here are the sociotechnical challenges that surround AI. Be aware of them.’” 

The module has two major aims. The first is to inform students about how AI technology works, what AI tools are available to them through the College, and what the College’s AI policies are. The second is to provide them with a critical lens through which to view the technology by explaining the social and ethical concerns around it, its impact on learning, and emphasizing that it “is not a neutral tool.”

As Kugelmeyer concludes, “This is the liberal arts. There isn’t one answer to something, it’s how you may want to approach it from multiple different ways.” This module is just a part of the process of learning to adapt to AI that students at the College will experience throughout their four years. “It’s the beginning of a conversation, not the end.”

~ Anna Izquierdo `29