200 Years of Academic Excellence

Explore how faculty and staff are celebrating the Bicentennial spirit in classrooms, performances, special events, and more.

Lafayette College’s 200-year history is a testament to the dedication of our faculty. For two centuries, our faculty’s scholarship and innovation have driven institutional and student success. Here’s a snapshot of that remarkable legacy in practice, as we take a look at Bicentennial academic grants.

Art Galleries, Landis Center, and Lehigh Valley 250

Harry V. Keefe III ’83 Colloquium in the Public Humanities: Revolution Revisited: How We Shape and Share History, Then and Now

Rico Reyes, director of Lafayette Art Galleries; Chelsea Morrese, executive director of community engagement, director of Landis Center; and Jessica Edris, project administrator, Lehigh Valley 250

Snapshot of the event:

The 2025 Keefe Colloquium,”Revolution Revisited: How We Shape and Share History, Then and Now,” was held Thurs., Nov. 6, and featured keynote speaker Ariel Waldman from the American Alliance of Museums. Waldman discussed how, over generations, Americans have shared, questioned, and reimagined our history, and how the nation’s upcoming semiquincentennial and Lafayette College’s Bicentennial challenge us to engage audiences in innovative and inclusive ways. The event coincides with the Bicentennial exhibition Facing Lafayette: Man, Myth, Image on view at the Williams Center Gallery until Dec. 5.

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Biology

Becoming Biology: An alumni speaker series for the Bicentennial to celebrate where biology at Lafayette has been and where it is going

Ezra Lencer, assistant professor of biology

(Fall 2025 through spring 2026)

Snapshot of the series:

The Biology Department is hosting an alumni speaker series throughout 2025-26, linking the department’s historic past with its bright future. Organized with the Biology Inclusion Committee, the series will bring alumni from diverse backgrounds and career paths back to campus to share their experiences, connect with current students, and strengthen the Lafayette community.

“The seminar will help the Biology Department and the College build strong connections with our extended Lafayette College family,” shares Lencer. “Alumni will interact with current students, catch up with faculty members, and have an opportunity to share their knowledge and experience with the College and department that started them on their career trajectory.”

The first event, “Dr. Glenn Rall ’85, Telling the Truth: The Existential Threat to Science and Medicine,” was held in November. Stay tuned for future events from this series.

Film and media studies

Japanese Paper Film Project

Katherine Groo, associate professor and chair of film and media studies

(Fall 2025)

Snapshot of the project:

This performance celebrated Lafayette College’s long-standing commitment to the “and” of interdisciplinarity, its extraordinary special collections of Asian visual culture, and the recent transformation of the Williams Center for the Arts’ projection facilities with one of the most important programs of early and silent film in the world. The Japanese Paper Film Project brought together the digital humanities, Asian studies, film and media studies, and music.

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Film and media studies

Run-of-the-River: Liminality and Refusal at the Foot of College Hill: A Bicentennial Reflection

Nandini Sikand, professor of film and media studies

(Fall 2025)

Snapshot of the event:

“Run-of-the-River: Liminality and Refusal at the Foot of College Hill: A Bicentennial Reflection,” held in October, was a unique opportunity to highlight and reclaim not only the large, visible moments but also the less visible, the overlooked, the liminal histories that underlie Lafayette and are embedded in every landscape. This one-time performance engaged Lafayette students, faculty, and community members in site-specific dusk performances along the Karl Stirner Arts Trail, exploring the histories of Bushkill Creek and its 200-year connection to the College.

“Through dance, spoken word, music, visual art, and audience participatory elements, the event reflected on the creek’s ecological, industrial, and cultural legacy, using performance to reanimate and reimagine this vital communal space,” shares Sikand.

Film and media studies

REVOLUTIONS

Nandini Sikand, professor of film and media studies

(Fall 2025)

Snapshot of the program:

REVOLUTIONS, a Bicentennial interdisciplinary documentary screening series, will feature public screenings, talkbacks, and classroom engagements with contemporary filmmakers and their impactful films. Expansive conversations with artists who excavate themes and forces that have shaped the last two centuries have persisted into the present. These events, alongside the intimate classroom engagements for students, will align with Lafayette’s long-standing commitment to democracy and academic excellence at a critical moment in U.S. history.

Documentary screenings to take place Oct. 28, Nov. 4, and Nov. 11.

Indigenous studies, anthropology & sociology

Lenape Homelands and Lafayette: How a College Got Its Land

Andrea Smith, professor of anthropology and sociology, and Katelyn Lucas, visiting instructor and tribal heritage preservation officer of the Delaware Nation

(Fall 2025)

Snapshot of the class:

Students in A&S 320: Lenape Homelands and Lafayette: How a College Got Its Land are conducting original research to understand how Lenape homelands became Lafayette College. Students start in special collections assigned to specific College parcels and trace the parcels back to the land’s original inhabitants. Co-taught by the tribal heritage preservation officer of the Delaware Nation, they learn about the Lenape, the colony’s founder, William Penn, land speculation, Penn’s sons’ duplicitous actions dispossessing the Lenape with the Walking Purchase, and early settlers linked to the creation of the town and the founding of the College. Through this original research, students develop a digital archive of their findings, making a public presentation the last week of the semester.

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Languages and literary studies, medieval studies, renaissance and early modern studies

Lafayette Forever: A Look at Dances During the Lifetime of the Marquis de Lafayette

Olga Anna Duhl, Oliver Edwin Williams Professor of Languages

(Fall 2025)

Snapshot of the workshop:

The Marquis De Lafayette was celebrated as a hero by both the American and French people. He was received at the palace of Versailles, at George Washington’s Mount Vernon, and at numerous balls throughout the American states. Several dances were even named in his honor. This workshop, led by Dr. Dorothy Olsson and Dr. Peggy Murray, will explore the dances popular during Lafayette’s lifetime, including the minuet, allemande, waltz, and group dances like the contredanse, cotillon, and quadrille, and consider how dance styles changed along with political and social attitudes in Europe and in the nascent United States. Participants will also have the opportunity to learn a few selected dance steps and sequences.

Languages and literary studies

A Rephotography Exhibit of Lafayette College for Bicentennial Celebration in Kirby Library with Ricard Martínez, Special Collections, and FYS 164: Adaptation: In the Humanities

Katherine Stafford, associate professor of languages and literacy studies
(Fall 2025)

Snapshot of the exhibit:

Rephotography is the artistic and historical practice of taking two photographs from the same point of view during two moments in time to create a dialogue between the past and present. Students in FYS 164 will work with visiting artist Ricard Martínez and the College’s Special Collections to create an exhibit in Kirby Library that reflects on the past and present (in dialogue) of Lafayette College and interacts with the space.

“Rephotography reveals the energy that emerges when connecting moments and places, creating visual narratives deeply rooted in the places they represent,” shares Stafford. “The rephotography exhibition is a particularly meaningful event for celebrating the Bicentennial of one of the oldest educational institutions in America.”

Languages and Literary Studies, German Studies, and the Max Kade Center for German Studies

German Studies at 200: A Tribute to Professor Margarete Lamb-Faffelberger

Michelle Geoffrion-Vinci, Thomas Roy and Lura Forrest Jones Professor of Languages and Literary Studies and assistant head

(Fall 2025)

Snapshot of the event:

The Department of Languages and Literary Studies organized a symposium in honor of Professor Emerita Margarete Lamb-Faffelberger, whose distinguished career as a scholar, educator, and academic leader has profoundly shaped German Studies and the intellectual life of Lafayette College. This event also highlighted the enduring relevance of German Studies—a field that has been part of the College’s academic identity since its inception 200 years ago, and celebrated two centuries of scholarly tradition and innovation in German Studies at Lafayette College.

“The symposium marked Prof. Lamb-Faffelberger’s retirement and honored her decades of service to the College,” shares Geoffrion-Vinci. “It celebrated her leadership in developing German Studies at Lafayette, particularly through her stewardship of the Max Kade Center, and her contributions to international scholarly exchange, undergraduate research, and institutional partnerships.”

Russian and East European studies

American Democracy Goes Global: The Untold Story of the 1825 Russian Decembrist Uprising

Lindsay Ceballos, associate professor and chair for Russian and East European studies

(Fall 2025)

Snapshot of the event:

Dr. Emily Wang (University of Notre Dame) will come to campus for a public lecture 7 p.m. Tues., Nov. 18, in the Gendebien Room of Skillman Library. Wang’s lecture is titled “American Democracy Goes Global: The Untold Story of the 1825 Russian Decembrist Uprising.” Drawing on her recent book, Pushkin, the Decembrists, and Civic Sentimentalism (Wisconsin, 2023), Wang will examine the culture and ideas that inspired the first revolutionary action in Russian history, placing it in the greater context of the French and American revolutions.

“Wang’s lecture is our area-studies homage to Bicentennial themes at Lafayette—the ideas that inspired the Marquis and the Decembrist rebels extend to the local context of the College’s core mission and the global dimensions of political resistance to autocracy in Russia and beyond,” shares Ceballos.

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Theater

Stuart Little

Mary Jo Lodge, professor and department head of theater

(Fall 2025)

Snapshot of the event:

The Theater Department is partnering with the Easton Area School District to bring students to campus to attend a production of Stuart Little, as performed by Lafayette College students. Third grade students will be split into small groups for drama workshops—also led by our students after training from faculty.

“One of the most important legacies of Lafayette, on the occasion of its Bicentennial, is its championing of excellent education in Easton,” shares Lodge. “This project marks one effort to formally support arts-oriented education for the elementary school students in the local school district.”

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Theater

Sense and Sensibility

Mary Jo Lodge, professor and department head of theater

(Fall 2025)

Snapshot of the performance:

Celebrating both the College’s Bicentennial and Jane Austen’s 250th birthday, the Theater Department presented Kate Hamill’s adaptation of Sense and Sensibility in fall 2025, connecting Lafayette students to a work contemporary with the College’s founding. Programming included a lobby event on period fashions and customs, and a joint birthday celebration for the College and Jane Austen.

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Women’s, gender, and sexuality studies

Hidden No More: Lafayette College and the Invisible Women of the Smithsonian Meteorological Project

Mary Armstrong, Charles A. Dana Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and English

(Fall 2025)

Snapshot of the event:

In the 1850’s, Lafayette Prof. James Coffin was mathematical head of the Smithsonian Meteorological Project, the first settler-operated national weather data collection project in the U.S. Sara Grossman, professor at Bryn Mawr, has examined Lafayette’s role in this project, uncovering a Lafayette-centered hidden history of (white) women in science and revealing that Lafayette’s data processing efforts were in fact largely performed by unrecognized women Easton public school teachers.

Grossman’s Nov. 6 lecture, “Weathering Bias: Lafayette College and the Invisible Women of the Smithsonian Meteorological Project,” focused on this hidden Lafayette history and examined how gender shapes the ways the scientific labor of women has (not) been recognized.

“To augment Grossman’s lecture, spark interdisciplinary conversations, and raise awareness of Lafayette’s largely unknown history around gender, data, and STEM, the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program and the Hanson Center have teamed up to create three ‘Hidden No More’ displays that will appear on campus throughout the Bicentennial year,” shares Armstrong. “The ‘Hidden No More’ displays pair a nameless 19th-century woman with an accomplished Lafayette alumna who has excelled in a STEM field. These displays acknowledge our complex past while showcasing the extraordinary Lafayette women who continue to make STEM history.”