In November, the Indian Econometric Society awarded Ghate the Mahalanobis Memorial Medal, given every two years to the best research economist in India under age 45. Around the same time, he was made full professor at New Delhi\u2019s Indian Statistical Institute.<\/p>\n Both news items came to CC through Professor of Economics Esther Redmount, who along with Professor Emeritus of Economics and Business William Weida and Professor Emeritus of Economics and Environmental Science Walt Hecox \u201964<\/strong>, is among about a half-dozen professors whom Ghate considers influential in his career.<\/p>\n \u201cCC\u2019s professors were excellent mentors and scholars,\u201d Ghate explains in an email interview. \u201cThey have a passion for teaching. They didn\u2019t mollycoddle students. At first, it took some getting used to. But in the end you begin to understand that they are trying to treat you as an adult, and so you have to buckle down and work and figure things out.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe strength of a Colorado College education, he continues, \u201cis the constant grinding in of the fact that the outer world matters. After my degree, I felt empowered to go and change things.\u201d<\/p>\n Having earned graduate degrees from the Delhi School of Economics and Claremont Graduate University \u2014 and having taught at CC between 1999 and 2003 \u2014 Ghate is certainly in that position now. In addition to leading the Economics Department at ISI, he\u2019s also a member of the Monetary Policy Committee (also called the Technical Advisory Committee for Monetary Policy) at the Reserve Bank of India.<\/p>\n \u201cI see academic work plus having such an advisory role as a \u2018beautiful blend,\u2019\u201d he says. \u201cIt is very exciting because this is a country with a billion-plus people, and one wants to get macroeconomic policy right!\u201d<\/p>\n Professor of visual culture and director of the Curatorial Design Research Lab, Parsons School of Design at The New School, New York City<\/em><\/p>\n In 17 years at California College of the Arts, Matthews not only taught visual studies, but also co-founded and chaired the Visual Critical Studies Program and co-directed the MFA Fine Arts program. After leaving in 2006, she served for five years as Dean of Academic Programs for Parsons School of Design at The New School, where she collaborated with faculty to restructure Parsons and redesign its undergraduate curriculum. She currently teaches in the Fine Arts program and has launched Parsons\u2019 Curatorial Design Research Lab, an amalgamation of exhibition spaces, public programs, archives, collections, and collaborators across the university.<\/p>\n Outside the classroom, she regularly spearheads complex socially engaged art initiatives that take her deep into city or village life in the southern Mediterranean and the Post-Soviet world. Projects like Discover Eliava, shining light on the various tendrils of an open-air bazaar in Tbilisi, explore \u201cthe intersection of contemporary art\/craft\/design practices, diverse local cultures, and global economies.\u201d<\/p>\n So it\u2019s no surprise that when she recalls her time at CC, the 57-year-old recognizes a mash-up of influences that helped push her through grad school at both the Courtauld Institute in London and the University of California, Berkeley, and into a dynamic career as a teacher, curator, and scholar.<\/p>\n There was the encouragement of Ruth Kolarik, the art history professor who helped her write her own major merging philosophy, classics, and studio arts; bold intellectual challenges from Philosophy Professor Judith Genova; a study-abroad year in Greece; and time interning, working, and teaching under Joyce Robinson at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center\u2019s Bemis Art School. Matthews even talks about her CC roommates \u2014 who still meet up at least annually \u2014 as making up an influential \u201cinterdisciplinary\u201d household.<\/p>\n And of course, there was the Block Plan.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s the ability to really focus, get organized, and understand how much you can get done in a short amount of time,\u201d Matthews says. \u201cI think that training is ideal for people who are in the creative fields, because usually project life is like that.\u201d<\/p>\n Professor of English and Hamilton Holmes professor, University of Georgia<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cHe paused and looked at me very quizzically, and said, \u2018Are you mocking me?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n McKnight remembers. \u201cI said, \u2018No, sir. This is how I talk.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n McKnight had already served in the Marines by the time he enrolled in college \u2014 first at Pikes Peak Community College and then, with PPCC professors\u2019 encouragement, at CC. His creative writing class with Yaffe (whom he calls \u201cprobably the greatest writing teacher I\u2019ve ever met\u201d) was a bracing two-block course that demanded two stories each week.<\/p>\n \u201cHe got us accustomed very, very quickly to thinking and writing like a professional writer,\u201d McKnight says.<\/p>\n McKnight didn\u2019t major in English; he created his own major in African studies, loving the school\u2019s small classes and the chance to pursue vast interests in \u201ca two-fisted sort of way.\u201d But almost daily at CC, and then through grad school at the University of Denver, he wrote. In fact, by the time he took any real break, it was the mid-\u201990s, he was teaching at the University of Pittsburgh, and had already brought a couple of books and the first of five children into the world.<\/p>\n Today, at 60, McKnight writes regularly but also teaches a slew of creative writing and literature courses at the University of Georgia, where he holds the prestigious Hamilton Holmes professorship. In a sea of 35,000 undergrads, he aims to treat students the way he was treated at CC \u2014 one place where he may have lost outlier status forever, considering the honorary doctorate he received a few years back.<\/p>\n McKnight explains, \u201cEverything that I do in the classroom \u2014 I\u2019m hopeful anyway \u2014 is an outgrowth of what I learned at Colorado College.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"CC-BUL-APRIL2016-29-AlumniProfs-Ghate\"](\"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/files\/2016\/04\/CC-BUL-APRIL2016-29-AlumniProfs-Ghate.jpg\")
<\/a>By most measures, 2015 was a very good year for the Indian economy. It may have been an even better year for 44-year-old Chetan Ghate<\/strong>.<\/p>\nLydia Matthews \u00a0\u201981<\/h2>\n
<\/a>Immersion is a way of life for Lydia Matthews.<\/strong><\/p>\nReginald McKnight \u201981<\/h2>\n
<\/a>Reginald McKnight <\/strong>says he\u2019s always been something of an outlier in academia. In one of his earliest CC days, he addressed James Yaffe, professor of English (now emeritus), as \u201csir.\u201d<\/p>\nNick Nesbitt \u201987<\/h2>\n