Bates Magazine, Fall 2023

Fall 2023

48 Hallie Herz ’11 co-founds the first queerfocused outdoor gear library.

58 A faculty member gives voice to an ALS sufferer’s right-to-die plea.

90 Recalling the Ben Mays–Jimmy Carter friendship.

“The brightness that shines through is the immense capacity of our shared humanity.” Pages 14–16

PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN

2 Comments 4 Bates in Brief 32 Amusements 34 Features 62 Notes 90 History Lesson 96 From a Distance

Take a closer look at this balloon slipping earth’s surly bonds. Page 29

OPENING THOUGHT: CARL SHELINE MAYOR OF LEWISTON Source: Sheline addressing students during the Nov. 1 Vigil for Grief and Remembrance, held in Gomes Chapel on the one-week anniversary of the Lewiston shootings.

“Lewiston is your city, just as much as it is mine. You are throughout this city: in our schools, studying, working, living. Together, we are sharing in this tragedy. We are not going through separate events, but the same dark time. We will stand shoulder to shoulder together, and so we will rise together.”

Bates and Lewiston

This QR code links to Bates stories and photographs in the wake of the Lewiston shootings of Oct. 25, 2023.

Fall 2023

1

c o mme n ts

After October 25 Via email and social media, Bates people expressed support for the college and for Lewiston following the shootings of Oct. 25.

Pratyusha Mulpur ’23

Westford, Mass.

Thank you to the entire staff at Bates for your support and hard work these past weeks. During a traumatic and emotional time for the entire state, your care for our children, your college community, and each other was so evident. We as parents appreciate so much all you did to ensure the students were provided for practically and personally during a time when you and your own families were going through a difficult experience.

The coordination needed to provide food, ensure safety, and provide medical and mental health services while

PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN

Bates and Lewiston were my home for four years.

The depth of my love for this beautiful community cannot be overstated. It is enormously unfair that this space has been marred and hurt by such terrible violence. The destruction and despair is immense.

Simultaneously, though, I see the beauty in a community embracing one another, students and staff planning a joyful Halloween trick-ortreat event on campus for the children of Lewiston, and sharing words of love amidst all the pain. It is this very community that makes Lewiston so special. It is this

desire for love, despite the great tragedy that you have suffered, that will remind you who you are and why you stand together.

communicating plans to an anxious community was no small endeavor. We thank you for all you have done and continue to do to create a positive environment at Bates, and we send love and healing your way.

Johanna Halperin P’26

Meredith, N.H.

Thank you to all the people who kept my daughter safe.

Thank you to the staff and faculty who watched over her and her fellow students in the library [during the shelter in place order] all night, and who gave them information and reassurance until they were able to return to their dorms. Thank you to the Dining Services staff for keeping her fed.

Thank you to the administration and Campus Safety for watching over all the students, faculty, and staff.

Thank you to all the people who have worked so hard in the days since to give all the students the solace they need. May you all find solace, peace, and healing.

Rachel Renton P’27

Brookline, Mass.

I love Lewiston with my head and heart — the people, the landmarks, the Bates campus, and, of course, its soccer fields. I will continue to tell Lewiston’s stories as best I can, and I’m grateful to Bates for bringing me there.

Amy Bass ’92

New Rochelle, N.Y. Bass is the author of the book One Goal, the inspiring story of the 2015 championship Lewiston High School soccer team, many of whose members were Somali immigrants.

Two students walk beneath a home-made “Lewiston Strong” sign outside Chase Hall on Nov. 17, 2023.

2

Fall 2023

Knowing that Bates was a wonderful place to spend four years back in the ’50s, it was incomprehensible that such an awful tragedy occurred in Lewiston. My heart goes out to all affected by it. May the community of Lewiston recover from this, and healing wishes to all affected.

Barbara Smith McIntosh ’59

Uncasville, Conn.

Mouthpiece Memories My grandfather, who graduated in 1927, was always proud of the Mouthpiece, the gift that his class bestowed to the campus, and returned for many Reunions (“Introducing the campus Mouthpiece, version 2.0,” BatesNews, June 8, 2023).

In my work at Bates I’ve felt a family connection ever present through the Mouthpiece.

After his passing at age 87 in 2017, we found his old Reunion cap with “27” on it, and I have set a goal to witness Commencement of the Class of 2027, this year’s first-year class, standing by the Mouthpiece while wearing my grandfather’s very old cap! Great work at keeping this landmark for all of us.

David Chick, staff

Lewiston

Fitting Tribute After hearing that Ahmed Abdel Khalek ’16 had won College Squash Association National Championship and that Bates would be charged with displaying the 3-foot tall trophy, which dates to 1928, Tom (Espeaignnette, carpentry and paint services manager) emailed me to say he would build, on his own time, a proper case to display the trophy during its time at Bates. It was an amazing, generous gesture.

Tom’s beautifully crafted 6-foot trophy case now stands at the Bates Squash Center, housing a replica of the trophy that Khalek won in 2015 and again in 2016. Kudos to Tom, and to his carpentry colleague Tom Winslow!

Pat Cosquer ’98

Canandaigua, N.Y. Pat Cosquer coached Bates squash from 2008 to 2019.

Helicopter Parent The story about Victoria Wyeth ’01 teaching a First-Year Seminar on the Wyeth family was excellent (“Wyeth World,” Bates

e dit or’s not e Magazine, Spring 2023).

Here is my Bates-Wyeth story. At my graduation, Andrew Wyeth received an honorary degree. Now, my parents are Wyeth fans.

Not huge, but they have five prints in their house in York.

They’ve been to Farnsworth, and my dad knows a lot about the family. They visited Bates when Victoria was a student for a Wyeth exhibit she curated.

So my dad finds out that Andrew is going to be at my graduation. He shows up on the Quad with a print of Christina’s World.

Graduation ends. Andrew is heading out to a helicopter that is on Garcelon. My father hustles and tracks the guy down as he’s getting ready to board. Gets him to sign the print. Finally made it back to see his eldest son.

Clearly, the autograph was the priority that day.

Eric Schlapak ’87

Dover, N.H.

Big Jim In June 1966, I was thrown out of my Long Island high school and was sent to Lakemont Academy for Boys, just south of Geneva, N.Y., where my dorm parent, history teacher, and coach was a giant of a man, Jim Sutherland (“Remembering the big center Jim Sutherland ’61 and the Bobcats’ NCAA tourney,” BatesNews, March 6, 2015).

Combining wisdom, a strong hand, and a ton of love, he and his wonderful wife, Laurie (Sunderland Sutherland ’61), a caring and compassionate woman, set me straight and taught me about life and success. I’m in my 52nd year as a high school math teacher now, and not a day goes by when I don’t think of Mr. Sutherland. Since my first day as a teacher in September 1972, I have hoped to be like him, although I know he is impossible to duplicate.

Jeff Ruskin

Salisbury, Conn.

“ In this place of memory and hope ” is how Carl Straub, the late, beloved professor and dean, often began spoken remarks about Bates.

Lewiston, too, is such a place, within which are many smaller places — and communities. Of the two Lewiston locations targeted in the Oct. 25 mass shootings that killed 18 people and injured 13, one was a mile north of campus, bowling lanes known as Just-In-Time Recreation, the other about 2.5 miles south, Schemengees, a bar and pub that hosts competitive darts and cornhole.

The attack took lives and also ripped apart places where people found common ground, where simple pleasures like bowling a few frames or tossing a few darts can be an antidote to the isolation created by America’s workism culture.

“It’s what we do here,” said Justin Juray, describing his bowling community in an interview with a Portland TV station. “We get every side of the political spectrum, every side of every kind of argument that this country is going through. But you leave all that stuff at the door. We’re people. We’re humans.

We all have feelings and our own junk to deal with, and we help people with their junk.”

Through the years, Lewiston has offered different places, often unheralded and sometimes quirky, where students could leave their junk at the door and join communities. Jim Weissman ’84 had a few of those local haunts where he discovered a “gritty but totally decent town with genuinely hard-working people.”

A few older alumni will remember the old Youth Center hockey rink, now The Colisee, where the Bates club hockey team had epic games — Slap Shot meets Shoresy — not against other college clubs but local men’s teams like Koss Shoe, Fortin’s Funeral Home, and Michael’s Hamburg House. Bates players got used to hearing their opponents speak French, seeing open beers on the bench, and, yes, getting into fights.

Further back in time: In the 1930s, an Auburn diner called Jimmy’s, about a 40-minute walk from campus, was frequented by students. Friends from Wilson House called their nights out at Jimmy’s a “splurge,” and once wrote an “Ode to a Hotdog” with lines: “Oh, luscious cytoplasm / We sink our teeth in thy cell walls.”

A popular horse track called Lewiston Raceway once sat on the very ground where Just-In-Time recreation sits now. Like the bowling lanes, it attracted a melting pot of locals. Old cigar chompers from Lewiston mingled with rural Mainers from farming towns like Hebron or mill towns like Rumford — and with more than a few Bates students who discovered a community outside campus.

Jim Weissman remembers it as a place where he could “just be himself.”

Classmate David Brenner recalls it as a quintessential Lewiston place where “there was camaraderie among the characters.” When he heard about the shootings, on that very ground, all sorts of names and faces and good times flooded back to him and many others.

Lewiston will remain a place of good memories. Since Oct. 25, it must also be a place of even deeper hope.

H. Jay Burns, Editor jburns@bates.edu

Comments are selected from Bates social media platforms, online Bates News stories, and email and postal submissions, based on relevance to college issues and topics discussed in Bates Magazine. Comments may be edited for length and clarity.

Email: magazine@bates.edu Postal: Bates Magazine Bates Communications Office 2 Andrews Rd. Lewiston, ME 04240

Fall 2023

3

BATES IN BRIEF FALL 2023

4

Fall 2023

CARLY PHILPOTT ’27

An Eastern painted turtle basks in the early-October sun at Lake Andrews. Carly Philpott ’27 of Centennial, Colo., who took this image, explains that the turtles are year-round Puddle residents who burrow into the muck and remain quite still over the winter, “not needing to break the ice even for a breath” — or even for the Puddle Jump.

Fall 2023

5

BATES IN BRIEF FALL 2023

STUDENTS

Students had snowball fights after the first snow on Dec. 3.

Renovated Chase Hall has become a popular study spot.

Stickering With It

HANNAH KOTHARI ’26 (2)

It’s a typical fall Sunday in Ladd Library: Students are typing away, eyes locked onto laptop screens in front of them, completing assignments that they’ve put off all weekend.

While the students immerse themselves in work, their personalities are still on display for onlookers to discover: The 13-inch canvas in front of them is painted with stickers representing their interests and identities, from favorite vacation locations and hometown slogans to Bates activities and social causes.

Decorated laptops are a common sight anywhere, but for students, such artwork can help to “anchor students and give them a feeling of comfort,” says Professor of Rhetoric, Film, and Screen Studies Stephanie Kelley-Romano. “They can look at their [laptop] and see a sticker from a friend back home, or one that represents an experience they had with a loved one.

College can be very disorienting, and I think stickers are one way to remember and express who we are.”

Some students display their commitment to the community on their portable devices. “Take this Green Dot sticker,

for example,” says Alden Zhang ’26 of Bethesda, Md. “I’m a Junior Advisor this year, and I got this sticker after completing training for Green Dot,” the college’s bystander intervention program.

Other stickers that adorn Zhang’s laptop capture a meaningful aspect of her identity: her favorite music artist (Camila Cabello), her high school (Sidwell Friends), and her favorite hobby (running), evoked by a “Rise and Run” sticker.

John Campana ’26 of Detroit has a slew of stickers promoting his favorite band, Fleetwood Mac, for which he admits a kind of obsession. (The Campana family dog is named “Stevie.”)

John Campana ’26 of Detroit has a slew of laptop stickers promoting his favorite band, Fleetwood Mac.

Amanda Power ’26 of Scottsdale, Ariz., has a laptop case in a lovely shade of pink — but it’s bare for now. “I’ve got sticker-commitment issues,” she laughs.

“I feel like putting a sticker on my laptop is such a commitment. I know that people will see these stickers every day, and that they will instantly make assumptions about my interests and my identity.”

The source of more than a few student stickers is the college’s Post & Print operation, which will produce a student’s self-designed sticker for the low starting price of 70 cents per sticker.

Examples include stickers for Cold Front, a club ultimate team; TakeNote, a Bates a cappella group; and the NCAA-winning women’s rowing team.

6

Fall 2023

Bates had more students from Texas (41) than Vermont (39) in 2022–23.

Chicken recipes (tenders, nuggets, etc.) are increasingly popular in Commons.

Dining Services incorporates recipes from students’ home countries and cultures.

Admitting DeFeet

PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN

While hanging out on the Historic Quad near Gomes Chapel, two juniors, Adi Kolff, a double major in biology and earth and climate sciences from Philadelphia, and Abby Marriott, an environmental studies major from Brooklyn, N.Y., compare the size of their feet. It was a close call: Marriott is a women’s size 11; Kolff, a men’s 10.5.

Stickers hold so much more than initially meets the eye, and make for great conversation starters, says Kelley-Romano.

“If I see a student with a sticker from a cool place, or of a band I know — we can talk about that. Or, if I don’t recognize the significance, I can ask and learn more about them.”

Kelley-Romano also hands out stickers to students. “I’ve gotta say, it makes me feel happy when they publicly display their stickers,” she said. “It’s really just a symbol of a particular moment, but it’s an educational moment shared, and I think celebrating moments is really what it’s all about.” — Hannah Kothari ’26 A selection of stickers produced by the college’s Post & Print operation captures the diversity of interests in the Bates community.

Fall 2023

7

STUDENTS

PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN

BATES IN BRIEF FALL 2023

8

Fall 2023

Community Center On Oct. 31, six days after the Lewiston shootings, hundreds of Bates students transformed Alumni Walk into a Halloween paradise to support the families and children of Lewiston.

Maggie Forger ’25 of Norwell, Mass., has gotten to know and love Lewiston through her community-engaged courses.

“It felt really cool for so much of the Lewiston community to be with so much of the Bates community at once.”

Fall 2023

9

BATES IN BRIEF FALL 2023

CAMPUS

You now can walk 47 paces (about 140 feet) in renovated Chase without encountering a door.

Sunrise was 7:12 a.m. and sunset 4:05 p.m. on the winter solstice, Dec. 21.

Gillespie Hall The residence hall located at 280 College St. is now named in honor of John Gillespie ’80, whose engagement with the college spans more than four decades and two generations, including 20 years on the Board of Trustees and four years as chair.

Located at the foot of Mount David at the corner of College Street and Mountain Avenue, Gillespie Hall opened in 2007 and was designed by the firm Shepley Bulfinch.

Gillespie, who retired from the board on June 30, 2023, served on 10 of the board’s 13 standing committees during his 20 years as a trustee. He chaired or co-chaired the board’s Investment Committee for nine years, and he led the work to transition the endowment’s dayto-day management from trustees to an external investment firm, working under the guidance and oversight of the board.

PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN

Beneath the skybridge at Gillespie Hall, three student Orientation leaders get ready to welcome new students to campus on Opening Day, Aug. 31.

From left, Maddy Ewell ’24 of Ridgewood, N.J., Kendall Jones ’25 of Plymouth, N.H., and May Whelan ’25 of Bristol, R.I. 10

Fall 2023

The Coram Library columns are 9 feet in circumference.

The portrait of Johnny Stanton in Ladd Library is 4 feet tall.

Some cushioned chairs in Ladd Library date to 1982.

Left: Campus Safety Officer Kevin Michaud lays a flower at Veterans Plaza during the 2023 Veterans Day observance. Right: Sophia Cattallani ’25 performs “Taps” during the 2023 Veterans Day observance.

Longsdorf asked those gathered to think of one veteran they knew when they placed their carnation on top of the plaza’s smooth, reflective black surface.

“It really means something to pause today to acknowledge all of the ways our country, our communities, and our lives have been shaped by the veterans in our midst,” Longsdorf said.

Bates Campus Safety Officer Kevin Michaud, who served in the Air Force for

13 years, appreciated that Bates created Veterans Plaza three years ago, offering a place he can visit on a more regular basis to remember all the veterans he has known.

Michaud also appreciates that President Gary W. Jenkins sent letters to all the veterans on the Bates staff and faculty this year, to thank them for their service. “It means an awful lot.

It’s nice to know Bates remembers us,” Michaud said.

Jenkins, who is now more than half a year into his presidency, made an impression wherever he went. Earlier, at a gathering near Lake Andrews, Jenkins weaved in and out of the crowd of 50. A wide range of folks in the Bates community got to meet him, and many described Jenkins as authentic, attentive, and just plain kind. At every turn, he stopped to ask what people did, then

listened intently to each person’s story.

“I was very impressed that his eyes never left mine,” said Kirk Read, professor of French and francophone studies. “I spoke with him about department work on diversity, equity, and inclusion. He’s tapping into everyone’s talent and good will. I’m wildly enthusiastic. I’ve been here 33 years, but I don’t want to miss this next chapter.”

PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN

PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN

Sophia Cattallani ’25 of Skaneateles, N.Y., kept her trumpet zipped in her jacket, protected from the chilly November air, until midway through the 2023 Veterans Day observance at the college’s Veterans Plaza, near Garcelon Field.

Then it was time to play, and she did, offering a slow, haunting rendition of “Taps.”

During the gathering, the Rev. Brittany Longsdorf, the college’s multifaith chaplain, invited attendees to join the ritual of laying flowers of remembrance.

When Cattalani placed her flower, she remembered her grandfather, who had served in the Vietnam War and died two years ago. He was one reason she wanted to come play the iconic bugle call that is played at military funerals.

“I felt I was playing it for him today, in his honor, and for the people here, for those they hold in their hearts,” said Cattallani, who offered last year’s “Taps” as well.

PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN

Time to Pause

The Next Chapter On an early July day that Garry W. Jenkins used to get to know campus, the new president stopped by the vegan bar in Commons, where he talked with Jason Tardif, a cook supervisor.

“He seems like a cool guy, very down to earth. He seems authentic,” Tardif said later.

Fall 2023

11

BATES IN BRIEF FALL 2023

ACADEMICS

A Winning Equation

BRETT “Usually,

we’d be down in the lecture hall.”

— Associate Professor of Biology Brett Huggett, noting the typical meeting location in Carnegie Science Hall for his dendrology students, rather than the alternative “classroom” he chose for a September day: the rooftop greenhouse, where they learned to identify various tree species using specimens from Huggett’s fieldwork.

12

Fall 2023

PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN

Nerea Barranco Aramburu ’25 experienced culture shock in an unusual place when she arrived at Bates from Spain: in a mathematics classroom where Associate Professor of Mathematics Katy Ott was the teacher.

For one thing, Aramburu was allowed unlimited revisions of homework. “In Spain I would submit something, get a grade, and move on,” she says, echoing the way math is taught in the U.S., too. Another difference was learning through small group collaboration.

The net effect of the Ott classroom, Aramburu says, is that students feel more included, which makes learning math more meaningful and less stressful — even fun. “It was completely different. And, it turns out, it really works.”

Ott’s inclusive and innovative approach to her craft is a big reason she earned the college’s 2023 Kroepsch Award for Excellence in Teaching, the college’s highest award for teaching.

Ott is part of a cohort of Bates faculty members who are shifting their pedagogy — in dramatic fashion, in some cases — to make their classrooms and the material they teach more accessible to students of all backgrounds.

This shift means taking on, and disrupting, longstanding attitudes about teaching, including the “deficit mindset,” says Lindsey Hamilton ’05, director of the Center for Inclusive Teaching and Learning.

With a “deficit mindset,” an educator believes that a students’ lack of skill or knowledge needs to be fixed or filled in. It leads students very often to say, “I can’t do this,” Hamilton says. A more productive approach, which Ott uses, is to “coach them to say, ‘I’m still learning how to do this.’

It’s a minor thing. But it’s impactful.”

An infamous contributor to the deficit mindset in education

Ladd Library has 914 study spaces, half of which have power connections.

The percentage of grads with double majors has jumped from 13% to 21% in 20 years.

Associate Professor of Mathematics Katy Ott earned the 2023 Kroepsch Award for Excellence in Teaching for an inclusive approach to teaching that, yes, includes having some fun in the classroom.

Fall and winter semesters start on the first Wednesdays of September and January.

Typically, there are 8 time slots for classes: starting at 8 a.m., ending at 8:50 p.m.

RONALD WOAN

By policy, the library does not disclose names of patrons who borrow items.

One of the renowned Fat Bears of Katmai National Park snags a salmon in August 2022. “Charismatic” animals have greater value than other wildlife, according to Bates-authored research.

THIS JUST IN A sampling of recent articles by faculty, plus one student.

PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN

The Charisma Premium: Iconic Individuals and Wildlife Values

Learning math is not about memorizing or performing under pressure. It’s about deep thinking and being persistent, making space to understand things. is the timed exam, because students who perform poorly are often seen as lacking what it takes.

“I was very lucky in that I was predisposed to liking math.

So none of that turned me off. And I did well on timed exams.

But I don’t think that should be an entrance to mathematics because, in the end, it’s not a skill you need,” Ott said.

“It’s unfortunate for so many who really enjoy math but are left out, turned away, or lose interest because of these high-stakes exams. I think if a class has clear learning objectives and students can show they’ve met those learning objectives, in my view, that deserves a good grade.”

Her grading is focused on encouraging students to revise and reflect on their work, rather than on test scores.

“Almost everything I do now is revision without penalties,” Ott says. “Learning math is not about memorizing or performing under pressure. It’s about deep thinking and being persistent, making space to understand things. Where are the boundaries of their understanding? Don’t hide because it’s a failure. Know what to work on.”

Publication: Journal of Environmental Economics and Management • Author: Lynne Lewis (economics) and coauthors • What It Explains: A new theory about the high value of “charismatic” wildlife, such as the salmon-eating Fat Bears of Katmai National Park in Alaska, has implications for how government agencies assign damage values if such animals are poached or accidentally killed.

Private Equity Blues: Warner Music Group, Nonesuch Records, and Jazz in the Era of Financialization

Publication: Journal of the Society for American Music • Author: Dale Chapman (music) • What It Explains: Since the 1980s, Nonesuch Records, a subsidiary of Warner Music Group, has developed as a jazz niche amidst industry turbulence driven by financialization and mergers, with remarkable market stability.

On Definitions of “Mathematician”

Publication: Journal of Humanistic Mathematics • Author: Carrie Diaz Eaton (digital and computational studies) and coauthors • What It Explains: Accepted definitions of “mathematician” can be narrow, excluding people from the discipline, both explicitly and implicitly.

A narrow definition does create opportunities to highlight, examine, and challenge systemic barriers.

Alzheimer’s Disease: A Mini-review for the Clinician

Publication: Frontiers in Neurology • Author: Rishi Madnani ’23 (student), who adapted a research paper completed for Bruno Salazar-Perea, Bates lecturer in biology • What It Explains: Current research, clinical aspects, and diagnostic guidelines for treating Alzheimer’s are contained in an open-access journal to support equity and accessibility for clinicians.

Fall 2023

13

PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN

BATES IN BRIEF FALL 2023

14

THE COLLEGE

Fall 2023

Holding Hope Bates students light one another’s candles during a Vigil for Grief and Remembrance held in Gomes Chapel on the one-week anniversary of the Lewiston shootings.

“Generosity and care and eagerness to help, to support, to embrace, have emanated from every corner of this city and this college community like a beacon of light, filling our hearts and mending our souls,” said President Garry W. Jenkins. “They remind us of human goodness. They remind us to hold onto hope. They remind us that together, over time, we will recover and heal. In that, I have faith.”

Fall 2023

15

BATES IN BRIEF FALL 2023

THE COLLEGE

Bates now has a registered dietician on staff.

The Bates endowment comprises some 1,440 individually named funds.

PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN

‘Our Shared Humanity’

The October 25th Fund Created following the Lewiston shootings, a new endowed fund will support the Lewiston-focused mission of the college’s Harward Center for Community Partnerships.

Established by the Bates Board of Trustees and the Cheney Society, comprising former and emeriti trustees, the October 25th Remembrance and Resource Fund will support and strengthen the Harward Center’s mission “to weave together campus and community for the enrichment of both liberal education and public life.”

PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN

The 30-foot Hopeful sculpture on Bates Mill No. 5, on Main Street in Lewiston, was installed in 2019.

16

Fall 2023

On Nov. 1, with students, faculty, and staff sitting shoulder to shoulder in Gomes Chapel, President Garry W. Jenkins reminded the Bates community of the capacity for human acts to help lift the darkness left in the wake of the Oct. 25 shootings in Lewiston that resulted in the deaths of 18 people.

“The brightness that shines through the dark of a tragedy such as we have suffered here in Lewiston, our home, is what it always is in times like these: the immense capacity of our shared humanity,” Jenkins said. He called on those gathered — filling the chapel — to continue to support each other.

The Vigil for Grief and Remembrance was presented by the college’s Multifaith Chaplaincy on the one-week anniversary of the Lewiston shootings. Speakers included Lewiston mayor Carl Sheline. “Most of you, like me, are from away, but while you are here, you belong to us,” he said. “Lewiston is your city, just as we are sharing in this tragedy. We are not going through separate events, but the same dark time. We will rise together.”

The fund will expand support for two Harward Center programs that directly support the community.

The Bonner Leader Program equips students with financial need with Bates-sponsored support to become civic leaders by working throughout their four college years for Lewiston nonprofit organizations.

The Carignan Community Grants Program provides grants of up to $2,000 to support local projects. @ The October 25th Fund | bates.edu/caring

Bates-issued ID cards feature a photograph, ID number, and barcode.

Bates licenses 200-plus software apps for teaching, learning, research, and administration.

PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN

The Bobcat Den added a smoothie machine in 2023.

Left: Bates students love to prowl campus for study spots, and newly renovated Chase Hall has umpteen new nooks and crannies. “I used to study in Pettengill but this is my new spot,” said Issy Baumann ’26 of Falmouth, Maine.

Below: Snipping a ceremonial ribbon during the reopening ceremony for Chase Hall are, from left, Geoff Swift, vice president for finance and administration and treasurer, Bates President Garry W. Jenkins, and student government Co-President Dhruv Chandra ’25.

President Garry W. Jenkins said he’s noticed a frequent theme in chatting with members of the college community: their warm feelings for 104-year-old Chase Hall.

“They tell me about special, unforgettable moments that happened here,” Jenkins said to a crowd celebrating the building’s re-opening after an in-depth renovation— whether those moments were simple like casual encounters at the old mailboxes or big ones like major lectures, parties, and dances.

“Now, after 14 months of renovation and rejuvenation, it’s absolutely fantastic and ready to bring students and faculty back — throwing open the doors, welcoming people in, ready to be relevant.”

Restoring the relevance of Chase tackled a variety of goals: consolidating Student Affairs staff and functions in a handy location, improving physical access to the building, making wayfinding easier, and brightening and opening up spaces once dim and confined.

Chase gained not only new spaces for students to study, meet, or zone out, but a wild diversity of configurations and appointments for those spaces — “interesting, comfortable nooks and crannies where you can hide out if you need to make a call, review your notes, or have a mindful few minutes,” said Allen Delong, senior associate dean for Purposeful Work and one of the building’s new inhabitants.

“It’s my hope for each of us that we get to know the timeless, beautiful multi-use spaces like Hirasawa and Skelton lounges, and the lovely little quirky ones that you’ll discover on your own.”

PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN

PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN

Back to the Chase

Flipping the Switch

Environmental Sustainability visited the site, joined by representatives from ReVision, including Holly Noyes ’10, During the week of Sept. who helped find the site for 11, the figurative switch the future array, which comwas thrown connecting prises nearly 18,500 panels the college’s solar array in Skowhegan to the grid, adding and is ReVision’s largest array to date.

7.131 megawatts of current One benefit from activating to the region’s capacity.

In a years-long process of the array is financial. Although Bates is leasing the array from planning and development, ReVision, income from Maine with students playing a decisive role, Bates partnered solar credits will cover the with REC Solar, a nationwide cost of the lease — and could exceed it. solar provider, and project Another benefit is how the contractor ReVision Energy, a South Portland–based leader in array moves Bates forward Maine’s solar-electric industry, on its sustainability roadmap. to create the array on 20-plus One milestone on the map is the sourcing of the college’s acres of leased farm land.

In November, members of entire electricity supply locally and renewably by 2045. “This the college’s Committee on

In November, Izzy Larson ’25, a student EcoRep from East Aurora, N.Y., joined fellow members of the college’s Committee on Environmental Sustainability for a visit to the college’s new solar array, in Skowhegan.

one project puts us way ahead of schedule to meet that 100 percent goal,” says Tom Twist, Bates’ sustainability manager. “It leaves

us only 25 percent of our power to make up” through smaller projects such as rooftop solar or additional ground-level arrays.

Fall 2023

17

BATES IN BRIEF FALL 2023

Eva and Tammy Roy Caron, senior designer for Bates Communications and Marketing, pose near the Philip J. Otis Memorial Wall and Reflection Area next to Lake Andrews.

18

Fall 2023

DOG DAYS photography by phyllis graber jensen These nine dogs, including one ageless canine, the Dan’s Beagle statue outside Ladd Library, were photographed during the dog days of August. But let’s be honest: Every month on the Bates campus is filled with dog days.

Spring 2023

19

THEOPHIL SYSLO

BATES IN BRIEF FALL 2023

20

SPORTS

Fall 2023

Garnet and Blue One week after the Lewiston shootings, the field hockey team observes a moment of silence before facing Bowdoin.

They showed solidarity and support for the city and people of Lewiston by wearing Lewiston Strong T-shirts for the warmup and, during the game, bright blue socks, the school color of Lewiston High School. “We wanted to play for each other, play for this school, and play for this city,” said Maria Femia ’25 of Canton, Mass. Bates won the game 2-1, propelling the team to the NCAA tournament.

Fall 2023

21

BATES IN BRIEF FALL 2023

SPORTS

The first home contest of the “spring” season is ​​men’s lax vs. Emerson, Feb. 21.

No more than 50 swimmers are allowed in Tarbell Pool during recreational swim time.

Cat Quotes Quotes from Bobcats, gleaned from the Bobcast podcast and elsewhere.

1. “It’s like a freshman dream come true for us.”

Men’s cross country runner Ned Farrington ’24 of Cohasset, Mass., on sharing the lead in races with senior roomies Victor Kering and Sam Kartsonis, who became friends as first-years. The trio is seen below.

2. “It needs to be done.”

Volleyball player Katie Kortekaas ’25 of Manhattan Beach, Calif., on receiving a set from classmate Chrissy Chu that let her deliver a match-ending kill vs.

Connecticut College.

3. “Dude, just come out and play football.”

Football player Johnny Walker ’24 of Brooklyn, N.Y., on being encouraged by classmate Ben Conrad to try the sport even though he had never played in high school.

TOM LEONARD ’78

Friends and senior roommates Ned Farrington (10), Sam Kartsonis (14), and Victor Kering (15) run together at the Bates Invitational on Sept. 17 at Roy’s Disc Golf in Auburn.

22

Fall 2023

4. “I just did what my coach had been telling me to do.”

5. “This gives them 6. “I am Sergio, I’m an opportunity to dust from California, and I’m a quarterback/ off their old shoes.” athlete.”

Field hockey player Danny Feldman, Anna Cote ’25 of Football player Sergio head coach of cross Auburn, Maine, on Beltran ’26 of East country, on adding her winning overtime an alumni throwing Palo Alto, Calif., goal vs. Trinity, taking event to the schedule recalling how he her shot as soon as introduced himself as of the Annual Cross she advanced inside Country Alumni Race a first-year in 2022, the circle, the way and how, prophetically, this year. head coach Dani he is now playing a Kogut told her. new and very athletic position: receiver.

Dining Services reports athletes these days are drinking more whole milk and eating more rice.

About a quarter of students play intramural sports.

BREWSTER BURNS

Sports Medicine Student Aide is one of nine student jobs in Athletics.

During pre-season sports photo shoots, Bobcats like to pose with their home state or nation flags, so head coach Emily Hayes helped out by supplying all the flags for this year’s shoot.

Nine states and the province of Quebec, Canada, were represented on this year’s volleyball team.

(McKenzie Barker, a youngster from nearby Norway who is a Bobcat through the program Team Impact, is the Mainer.)

“I love the idea of showcasing the fact that even though many of us are from different places, with different experiences, and different backgrounds, we are all united through Bates volleyball,” said Alma Mackic ’24 of Lake Forest, Ill. “We get to see where everyone is from,” said Kate Hansen ’25 of Menlo Park, Calif. “At home, I’m surrounded by people who come from the same community. But on our team so many different people from different backgrounds makes for an interesting dynamic.”

Following a legendary 29-year women’s basketball coaching career, Adrienne Shibles ’91 has returned to Bates as an associate director of athletics.

Shibles will focus on student-athlete leadership development, academic success, health and well-being, and equity and inclusion. She will also help to continue the development of the Friends of Bates Athletics giving program and oversee a coach-development program.

Speaking with the Bates Bobcast, Shibles said that she hopes to use her extensive experience in NCAA Division III athletics “to be a strong administrator here and a voice for student-athletes and coaches.”

She added, “I am really proud of the way that Bates has grown and developed since I graduated. I’m so excited to come back and be a part of it. The people here are second to none — it’s a true community. It definitely feels like we’re all on the same team.”

Originally from Knox, Maine, Shibles scored 1,005 career points for the Bobcats under the late Marsha Graef.

(In fact, three members of the Class of 1991 are 1,000-point scorers: Shibles, Julie Roche Simplicio, and Amy Schrag.)

As head coach of women’s basketball at Bowdoin for Adrienne Shibles ’91

12 seasons, Shibles led her teams to two NESCAC championships and 11 NCAA tournament appearances, including back-to-back NCAA Division III title game appearances in 2018 and 2019. Her overall record was 281–65. She was inducted into the Maine Basketball Hall of Fame in 2022.

MUSKIE ARCHIVES AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS LIBRARY

Flying the Flag

‘Second to None’

During her playing days, Adrienne Shibles ’91 goes up for a shot in Alumni Gym during the 1989–90 season.

THEOPHIL SYSLO

Nine U.S. states and the province of Quebec were represented on this year’s volleyball team.

Fall 2023

23

ARTS & CULTURE

Chase Hall was the site of a CBB International Fashion Show in November.

The Museum of Art debuted a podcast in 2023.

CARLY PHILPOTT ’27

BATES IN BRIEF FALL 2023

Purple Power Uche Anwanyu ’25 (aka Uche the Chomp Man) of Brooklyn, N.Y., performs at the outdoor bash known as BatesChella —the name is a play on the Coachella music and arts festival — on a cool September evening.

“Whether students came straight from doing homework or other social gatherings, they provided so much energy for the student artists to feed off of,” said Carly Philpott ’27 of Centennial, Colo., who took this photograph. “It felt like a really happy environment in the midst of academic work.”

Word for the Day Myronn Hardy often creates his poetry just as the sun rises, not long after some Bates students have called it a day.

After Hardy’s October reading in Gomes Chapel, in which he shared poems from his newly published book, Aurora Americana, students were intrigued. Why does he wake so early to write?

Hardy, an assistant professor of English, responded poetically. “There is a reason why the natural gives us night and day. It is showing us the possibility of something new.”

The poems in his new collection are all set around the dawn of a new day. As he told the literary journal The Rumpus, “I wake up before the sun emerges and write as its light covers the page.”

He says he’s never centered temporality this way. “This is very new for me. Also, of course, there is the metaphor of ‘dawn’ that I hope the poems interrogate. What does it mean to be on the cusp of 24

Fall 2023

something? Are we on the verge of evolution or devolution?”

Speaking of his process to The Rumpus, Hardy described the inception of his poetry as an image or images.

“I see something I can’t shake,” he said. “The image remains in my mind. I dream about it. I wait for that particular image to morph, a subtle change in color or a repositioning. When that happens, I know I’m in the process and nearing the page.”

There is a reason why the natural gives us night and day.

It is showing us the possibility of something new.

The poet Myronn Hardy (right) talks with Nathan Conroy, a member of the community, after his reading in Gomes Chapel on Oct. 11.

Watch and listen to Olin Arts music concerts: bates.edu/ music/concert-recordings/.

Several music practice rooms in Olin Arts Center have Steinway grand pianos.

Harmonizing

CARLY PHILPOTT ’27’27 CARLY PHILPOTT

In October, the college’s five student a cappella groups took center stage in the Clifton Daggett Gray Athletic Building for their annual Back to Bates concert.

The concert featured the Merimanders, Deansmen, TakeNote, Manic Optimists, and Crosstones.

The concert gives the singing groups a chance to introduce their newest members to a big audience. “I feel like we are such a talented group this year,” says John Campana ’26 of Plymouth, Mich., a member of the Deansmen, the college’s oldest a cappella group. “I loved showing off our new members.”

Showing off includes having some fun. For the Deansmen, it’s when each new member is given a silly hat to wear during their performance. Last year, Campana wore a bright pink flamingo cap, a keepsake that he’s held on to since.

Since the group’s founding in 1957, the Deansmen have identified as men. Now, the membership is male and nonbinary identifying. And the college’s traditionally all-female group, the Merimanders, founded in 1958, now welcomes women and non-binary individuals to their community.

The day after the concert, as Campana strolled into Commons for breakfast, a Bates parent and alum introduced herself and complimented Campana on how the group is more inclusive while maintaining their best traditions.

“She said how it was so good to see the Deansmen reinvented from when she was at Bates,” recalls Campana.

It was a cool moment for the sophomore. “I feel like I’m part of the history of Bates.”

PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN (3)

The Museum of Art’s collection has photos by legendary sports photographer Walter Iooss.

Top, juniors Christian Cabello of La Cañada Flintridge, Calif., and Dhruv Chandra of Kolkata, India, of the Manic Optimists perform “It’s Raining Men” by the Weather Girls. Middle, the Merimanders offer a hair-flipping bow after their high-energy performance at Back to Bates. Bottom, a new member of the Deansmen, Joey Ireland ’27 of Oxford, Fla., rocks a Cat in the Hat cap as an initiation hat.

Fall 2023

25

PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN

BATES IN BRIEF FALL 2023

26

LEWISTON

Fall 2023

Love Lewiston Nine days after the Lewiston shootings, Tree Street Youth in downtown Lewiston led an outpouring of support called “Love Lewiston Day.” Julia Sleeper Whiting ’08 is co-founder and executive director of Tree Street Youth, which offers programs and partnerships that encourage leadership, learning, exploration, and growth for young people.

On Love Lewiston Day, activities included lots of hugs. Here, Starr Bradley ’25 (right) of Houston, a part-time staffer at Tree Street who supports the afterschool program and mentors teens, embraces Abdurahman Abdi, age 13.

Fall 2023

27

LEWISTON

BATES IN BRIEF FALL 2023

After their state title win, the Lewiston boys’ soccer team were guests at a Patriots game.

The tower lights of Lewiston City Hall blink when a parking ban is in effect.

Last April, students road-test their new online tour of Riverside Cemetery.

Older alumni will recall Mount Gile (called Mount Giles by some sources) as an oft-visited recreation spot featuring a ski slope — and a monument to a 19th-century tragedy.

The Mountain Soaring 545 feet above sea level, Mount Gile sits in East Auburn across the Androscoggin River from Lewiston, about 3.5 miles from campus. Mount David, for comparison, is 381 feet high.

The Person The mountain is named for Edwin Tuttle Gile, the late-1800s landowner who turned his hill into a recreation spot. A newspaper ad in 1886 promised “Mountain Air! Mountain Scenery! Mountain Recreation!”

The site included an observatory, croquet court, and picnic tables.

28

Fall 2023

The Ski Slope Into the early 1970s, the Mount Gile ski slope had a 550-foot rope tow. At one time, Maine had more than two dozen rope-tow ski slopes serving local communities.

MUSKIE ARCHIVES AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS LIBRARY

What’s in a Name: Gile

Today In the news lately is the possibility of a housing development for the Mount Gile area.

Lewiston’s motto is “Industria,” Latin for “industry” or “diligence.”

A senior thesis detailed likely benefits of high-efficiency affordable housing in Lewiston.

On Tour Located along the Androscoggin River, the aptly named Riverside Cemetery is the site and subject of a new self-guided historical tour created by Bates students.

A project for the course “Public History in the Digital Age,” the online tour brought together the personal and professional interests of their professor, Assistant Professor of Digital and Computational Studies Anelise Hanson Shrout.

As a digital humanist and historian, she looks at how technologies can illuminate history in new ways. Specifically, Shrout’s expertise is in the everyday people in the 19th century — her forthcoming book, Aiding Ireland, is about why people sent money to Ireland during the famine of 1845–52.

Shrout also knows her cemeteries, and serves on the board of Riverside, located a walkable half-mile from campus along the Androscoggin River. Riverside, she explained during a visit in April, was founded in the 1840s as part of the rural or garden cemetery movement. “That means it was designed as a place to walk around in.”

She added, “I do love cemeteries, and I love this cemAnelise H. Shrout etery in particular,

The Bates Connection Into the early 1900s, legendary professor Johnny Stanton brought each incoming class on a trolley ride to Mount Gile.

After his death, the orientation tradition became known as the Stanton Ride.

The Tragedy In 1866, expelled from the Maine Wesleyan Seminary and Female College (now Kents Hill School), a 22-year-old woman named Louise Greene committed suicide by poison. Her father erected a granite monument on Mount Gile where her body was found. Every year during the Stanton Ride, Bates students visited the grim monument and heard the sad tale.

Though undated and uncaptioned, this historic Bates photo could show students on a Stanton Ride picnic at Auburn’s Mount Gile, circa 1890s.

both because I live nearby and because it has such a rich history of Lewiston.” She pointed to a band of trees. “That’s the old Lewiston potter’s field, where people whose families didn’t have the money for a formal funeral or gravestone were buried.”

One goal of the walking tour, she said, is to encourage visitors “to explore this beautiful green space in Lewiston more.

It’s a place of rest and contemplation but also a place to interact with nature.”

The online tour features stories about the lives of various people buried in the cemetery. Even if you’re far from Lewiston, you can take a listen: Download the ECHOES app on your phone, search for “Riverside Cemetery Tour,” and tap into one of three tours: Civil War, Immigration and Medicine, or Maine Industry.

PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN

THEOPHIL SYSLO

Lewiston homeowners can keep up to six chickens — but no roosters!

Rising Action A multicolored hot air balloon seems to emerge from another historical hot air producer, the iconic smokestack of Lewiston’s Bates Mill No. 6. The balloon took off on Aug. 20 from Lewiston’s Simard-Payne Memorial Park during the Great Falls Balloon Festival, held annually along the banks of the Androscoggin River.

Fall 2023

29

PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN

The orangutan is now one of the most threatened species on the planet, found only in parts of Borneo and Sumatra.

30

Fall 2023

There’s a Bates Island in the Solomon Islands.

HARRIS RAMLEE ‘25

THE WORLD

BATES IN BRIEF FALL 2023

Bates will sponsor a semester in Berlin in fall 2024.

Orangutan Opportunity Harris Ramlee ’25 woke up one morning last summer to find an unwelcome sleeping companion in his bed: a snake, most likely a reticulated python, the world’s longest at about 15 feet.

“I didn’t realize it was a snake until one of my friends screamed,” Ramlee said. “Another day I woke up and saw a monkey trying to steal my clothes.”

At the time, he was living in a ramshackle cabin in North Sumatra, helping to study orangutans in the Batu Kapal Conservation Sanctuary.

While Ramlee’s career interest is in marine biology, not wildlife biology, the opportunity, funded by a Bates Purposeful Work internship, to monitor endangered apes spoke to him — and Ramlee wanted to answer the call.

“It was beyond what I could imagine.

I loved every single moment of it,” said Ramlee, who is from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. “You hear about elephant conservation, but rarely do people know that orangutans are an endangered species.”

In fact, the orangutan is now one of the most threatened species on the planet, found only in parts of Borneo and Sumatra.

Ramlee helped a team of five other interns identify and map the travel coordinates of 17 wild orangutans in the sanctuary, located near Gunung Leuser National Park, which is part of a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Short Term courses travel to the Buddhist Himalayas, New Zealand, and Vietnam in 2024.

75% of students who earn Fulbrights have at least one non-English language course credit.

THEOPHIL SYSLO

An entree with halal meat is served at every dinner in Commons.

Harris Ramlee ’25

The orangutans have been cut off from the national park due to human activity, such as farming and deforestation. Batu Kapal is working to help the apes, which prefer to travel through treetops rather than on the ground, find routes back to the larger orangutan population in the park.

The Batu Kapal interns also worked to discourage local farmers from planting palm oil trees, a lucrative crop but one that is harmful to the orangutans because of the tree’s thorny branches.

Because Ramlee speaks a language similar to one used in Sumatra, he helped his team communicate with the local farmers in Indonesia.

“I learned it was not just about taking care of the conservation of orangutans, but also the relationship between the project and the local people,” he said.

“Every single moment at Batu Kapal I was gaining knowledge. Now I’m trying to see what I can do with this knowledge. I have two more years at Bates.

I have some time to think about this.”

United at Bates Forty-seven students from 28 countries have come to Bates as Davis United World College Scholars this year.

These three senior Davis Scholars stopped by the Bates Communications photo studio for portraits, and had some fun: Miguel Angel Pacheco of Caracas, Venezuela; Sebastián León Fallas of Perez Zeledon, Costa Rica; and Maria Francisca Pereira Pinto Costeira da Rocha of Porto, Portugal.

As photo props, they used juggling rings belonging to Pacheco.

The Davis program awards need-based scholarship funding for graduates of United World Colleges to attend college in the U.S. UWC is an international network of schools that aim to “make education a force to unite people, nations and cultures for peace and a sustainable future.”

Alan Wang learned about his adopted home state through a Purposeful Work internship with Maine’s secretary of state, including work in the Maine State Archives, helping to process and make accessible incoming historical records.

Questions Answered Growing up, New Englanders, and Mainers especially, quickly learn that Maine was once part of Massachusetts. But facts like that weren’t what Alan Wang ’24 learned growing up in Yinchuan, China.

So when he landed a summer Purposeful Work internship with Maine’s secretary of state, he knew he had some boning up to do.

“Everyone assumes a certain level of familiarity to Maine history. I didn’t even know Maine was once part of Massachusetts,” he says. “So I gave myself a crash course on Maine history.”

A politics major, Wang pursued the internship after meeting secretary of state Shenna Bellows last October at Bates, where she spoke about free and fair elections in Maine. “The Secretary of State oversees all elections,” Wang says. “I did not know that. Because I major in politics, elections are a major theme, which is why I’m here.”

Part of his summer was spent working in the Maine State Archives, helping to process and make accessible incoming historical records.

“There were people asking the archives about a list of Maine lumber sites in the 1970s, but that information was in boxes that are still waiting to be processed,” said Wang.

“And that is what I’m doing. If I happen to sort through that box, then that person’s question can get answered. Whereas if nobody does anything, questions can never be answered.”

Fall 2023

31

am use me n ts in a pickle

BOOKS

Book suggestions from the college’s annual Good Reads summer reading list:

T-Minus AI

by Michael Kanaan

Sophie’s World

by Jostein Gaarder

Recursion

by Blake Crouch

Fly Girl

by Ann Hood

Suggested by Michael Sargent, Associate Professor, Psychology : Published a few years ago, T-Minus AI still feels relevant, explaining not only what AI is but placing AI into historical context, relative to disruptive technologies that have come before.

Suggested by Blake Edwards, Associate Director, Center for Purposeful Work : A young girl receives mysterious notes from a stranger encouraging her to question her reality. A great book for anyone interested in philosophy, the meaning of life, and mystery.

Suggested by Lindsey Hamilton ’05, Director, Center for Inclusive Teaching and Learning : Fast-paced, modern-day time-travel book about people having memories of lives they didn’t live.

Read it before it is inevitably made into a movie (maybe in the style of Memento?).

Suggested by Shonna Humphrey, Director, Sponsored Programs and Research Compliance : A memoir of a flight attendant in the late 1970s to early ’80s.

Rich in airline history and what the job was like during a tumultuous era for airline travel, including deregulation.

BATES HISTORY

QUIZ

Bobcat Pickle Ball Set | $59.99

32

Fall 2023

23

A century ago, what well-known figure sent a telegram to then-President Gray apologizing for not being able to attend the campus debate between Bates and Oxford Debating Union of England?

Answer: Edward, Prince of Wales — later to become King Edward VIII, and later to abdicate the throne — was on vacation in Canada “in a private capacity,” which meant that he could neither attend nor send an official message to be read at the debate.

Something You Didn’t Know You Needed from the Bates College Store

BATES.EDU/STORE

19

PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN

g row n a c o stumed

AS PRINCESS FIONA AND SHREK: Verina Chatata ’26 of Lilongwe, Malawi, and Eliza Dewey ’24 of Washington, D.C.

PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN

PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN

COSPLAY AT KEIGWIN

The annual AESOP orientation trips for first-year students kick off at Keigwin Amphitheater when trip leaders, with costumed panache and pop-culture whimsy, introduce themselves and their trips.

PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN

A

B

A | AS ZACH AND CODY (SUITE LIFE OF ZACH AND CODY ): Dylan Nordstrom ’24 of Pelham, N.Y., and Sadie O’Neil ’24 of Concord, Mass.

B | AS GUY FIERI (DINERS, DRIVE-INS, AND DIVES ) AND BOB ROSS (JOY OF PAINTING ): Olivia Smith ’26 of Lafayette, Ind., and Sean Gilliam ’26 of Charlotte, Vt.

C | AS SPONGEBOB AND PATRICK STAR: C

Austin Hurley ’26 of Mendham, N.J., and Nick Annenberg ’26 of New York City

Fall 2023

33

The sculptor Ziltamir Sebastião Soares de Maria, aka “Manxa,” created this pine sculpture reflecting his Brazilian heritage while in residence at Bates in spring 1971. Titled Auto Retrato Do Meu Povo (“self-portrait of my people”), it was taken out of storage last spring for photography along Lake Andrews.

34

Fall 2023

‘My People’

LONG IN STORAGE, A WOOD SCULPTURE depicting christ on the cross tells a historical story about bates, its one-time sister state in brazil, and a young artist sharing the plight of his homeland

PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN

by jay burns

On

A photograph from the April 12, 1971, edition of the Lewiston Evening Journal shows Manxa with Auto Retrato Do Meu Povo during a reception in his honor in Chase Hall attended by a number of Maine artists and hosted by President Hedley Reynolds.

36

Fall 2023

MUSKIE ARCHIVES AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS LIBRARY

NEWSPAPERS.COM

April 12, 1971, the day after Easter Sunday, a 23-year-old Brazilian artist in residence at Bates unveiled one of his newest works — a strikingly tall wood sculpture depicting Jesus Christ on the cross — to a gathering of fellow sculptors in Chase Hall.

The artists who came to campus to meet Ziltamir Sebastião Soares de Maria, aka “Manxa,” were an eclectic group of homegrown and from-away artistic talent, typifying the burgeoning and quirky arts community of early 1970s Maine.

A story in that day’s evening newspaper shows the attendees gathered around the artist and his sculpture. There was Robert Phinney, a carpenter who hand-built a funky pine-board cabin on the Kennebec River that was the subject of Robert Petroski’s book The House with Sixteen Handmade Doors.

And Dutch-born Harry Stump, whose World War II resistance efforts with the Dutch Underground made him a hero before coming to Maine.

And sculptor Norman Therrien, who cast the bronze statue The Lobsterman displayed on Canal Plaza in Portland, Maine. There was Nancy McGuire, known for whimsical sculpted creations from found objects, and Marian Dwyer, known for works in stone.

The Bates faculty on hand that day, meanwhile, suggested a strengthening heartbeat for the college’s arts presence. Then-President Hedley Reynolds was the host — he would later secure major funding to build the Olin Arts Center — and he was joined by esteemed poet and Professor of English John Tagliabue and by Don Lent, Manxa’s host during his residency, who had arrived a year earlier as Dana Professor of Art. Thanks to Lent’s advocacy, Bates would add art as an academic major in 1972.

Manxa works in Chase Hall during his residency at Bates in 1971. The unfinished sculpture of the crucifixion is behind him on the wall.

Fall 2023

37

38

Fall 2023

PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN

The sculpture’s depiction shows Christ with his eyes open. “There’s pain and suffering, yet Christ’s eyes are open. It’s like we are awake to it,” says Longsdorf.

The initialism INRI stands for the Latin phrase “Iesus Nazarenus, Rex Iudaeorum,” or “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews,” the sign that Pontious Pilate had affixed to the cross of Jesus.

that Manxa created in a makeshift studio in Chase Hall has its title written on the back in Portuguese: Auto Retrato Do Meu Povo. It means “Self-Portrait of My People.”

To appreciate the layers of meaning, one must know about Manxa’s homeland in Brazil’s Northeast Region and the state of Rio Grande do Norte, says Torres. “It’s the poorest area of Brazil, and was much worse in 1971 than today, plagued by long droughts and constant neglect by all levels of government, with poor health and poor education.”

With the phrase “my people,” Manxa might mean “the population of the interior of [Brazil’s] entire Northeast,” says Torres. “Some rhetoric compares the suffering of ‘my people’ to the suffering of Christ on the cross, and that faith in God — Jesus Christ — is their only hope of survival.”

“It’s a beautiful title for the piece,” says the Rev. Dr. Brittany Longsdorf, the college’s multifaith chaplain, who teaches the First-Year Seminar “Arts and Spirituality.” Her doctoral dissertation looks at how U.S. college chaplains can embrace the arts to meet the needs of students of diverse religions as well as nonreligious students.

The title Auto Retrato Do Meu Povo brings together art and culture and religion, says Longsdorf.

“Many people, when recalling their sacred religious moments, also think of art — stained glass windows from childhood, songs, or poetic scriptures.

The art associated with religion often stays with us in memory as we age. By naming this for his people, Manxa beautifully acknowledges how religious practices and art are deeply intertwined in his culture.

And how it all enriches their shared experiences.”

PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN

And then there was the imposing sculpture itself — 7 feet tall and 5 feet, 8 inches, wide. It has long been in storage at Bates, and when it was brought out recently for a viewing, its sheer dramatic presence sent us down a rabbit hole to learn about the artist and how Bates came to be the place he created it.

Manxa was one of several Brazilian artists who had residencies at Bates over the course of a few years, starting in 1968, under the auspices of Partners of the Alliance, a federal economic and cultural exchange program with Central and South America.

In Maine, the partnership was with the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Norte, Manxa’s home state.

Among the guests at Manxa’s 1971 luncheon was Humberto Torres ’73, a fellow Brazilian whose connection to Bates went back to 1967, when he served as the interpreter for a Partners of the Alliance visit to Brazil. The Maine group he translated for included President Hedley Reynolds and religion professor Arthur Brown.

Torres, who now lives in Natal, the capital city of Rio Grande do Norte, explains how the artist got his nickname. “After all, from ‘Ziltamir’ to ‘Manxa’ is a tremendous distance!”

“The word ‘mancha’ in Portuguese means a spot or stain. Manxa had a round white spot of hair on his head,” and thus picked up the nickname when he was a schoolboy. “‘Ch’ and ‘x’ are pronounced in Portuguese the same when between vowels, so he changed the spelling, capitalizing on his nickname for his benefit. It really sounded better for an artist’s name.”

Carved from thick pine boards probably purchased at a Lewiston lumber yard, the sculpture

The sculpture depicts Christ on the cross holding fruit and leaves in his hands, which might mean that “his suffering is really about resilience and growth, which is different from most crucifix pieces,” says the Rev. Brittany Longsdorf.

Fall 2023

39

JAY BURNS

Manxa’s depiction of Christ on the cross hews closely to traditional depictions of the crucifix, says Longsdorf. The sculpture depicts the Five Holy Wounds, Christ’s crown of thorns, and the initialism INRI, which stands for the Latin phrase “Iesus Nazarenus, Rex Iudaeorum,” or “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews,” the sign that Pontious Pilate had affixed to the cross of Jesus.

What’s worth noting, Longsdorf says, is that Christ’s eyes are wide open, rather than closed and downcast, as in some depictions. “There’s pain and suffering, yet Christ’s eyes are open. It’s like we are awake to it.”

Another departure from tradition is that Christ is holding fruit and leaves in his hands. Holding the fruit, she says, might mean that “his suffering is really about resilience and growth, which is different from most crucifix pieces.”

Torres remembers the artist “describing the fruit as cashew, though the fruit is not exactly as he carved it. The leaves are from the cashew tree, too.” The cashew is a major cash crop in Brazil’s Northeast Region. “Some families cultivate cashew as their main income. The nut grows outside the fruit; you need to roast them and crack them out of the shell.”

What’s worth noting is that Christ’s eyes are wide open, rather than closed and downcast, as in some depictions. “There’s pain and suffering, yet Christ’s eyes are open.”

40

Fall 2023

PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN

At the bottom of the sculpture, Manxa added the date of the Bates reception in his honor (April 12, 1971), his name, and a circle with a cross radiating light, which might have a specific meaning, says Humberto Torres ’73.

Manxa left some open space around the arms of the sculpture, which “emphasizes the body over the cross,” Longsdorf says. “It draws your attention to the body and the wounds, both the pain and awakeness.”

This depiction refrains from implying the Resurrection, Longsdorf says. “This is still the Good Friday scene, the crucifixion. Christian traditions try to let there be grief and sadness and loss between Friday and when Easter brings joy.

You need that liminal space of mystery and grief, so that when the stone is rolled away, there’s surprise and joy together.”

At the bottom of the sculpture, Manxa added a personal detail, carving his name, the date of the Bates unveiling, and a symbol of a circle and cross

Safely stored at Bates most of the time, the scupture was photographed outdoors near Lake Andrews in April 2023.

radiating light next to his name. “I interpret it as a carved globe, with the cross above and the rays, as representing Jesus in his glory,” Torres says. “It resembles the Catholic icon that depicts Jesus as a child with a globe in his hands.”

The circle has a diagonal line through it, which Torres thinks might suggest an armillary sphere, a navigation device associated with the Portuguese during the Age of Discovery. “It made it possible for them to cross oceans and not be lost in the middle of nowhere. It has a line, the Milky Way, crossing the sphere. So the line carved crossing the globe could be taken from this instrument.”

After his several-month residency at Bates, in which he created a number of pieces that have been displayed in various campus spaces over the

years, Manxa returned to Rio Grande do Norte. He worked in media that included steel, marble, and concrete, as well as wood. “He left a lot of work all over Natal, and some in other towns,” says Torres.

He had a role in the creation of Natal’s huge Portico dos Reis Magos, or Statues of the Wise Men. Manxa died on March 19, 2013, in São Vicente, where he was born and lived for many years. An artists’ website has this personal statement from Manxa, translated here from the Portuguese original: “I am a plastic artist, sculptor in granite, marble, bronze, and wood. I am also dedicated to agriculture and cattle and horse-breeding. I love my children and nature with its ecosystem, thanking my beloved God every day for all this wonder of life that he has given us on Earth.” n Fall 2023

41

A Brush With Discovery For painter and faculty member Michel Droge, the opportunity to depict marine discovery through art was “like a dream I didn’t even know how to dream”

BY FREDDIE WRIGHT

42

Fall 2023

Fall 2023

43

MICHEL DROGE

Plants on the ocean floor create a tightknit ecosystem in this untitled oil painting by Michel Droge.

Above is a photograph of octopus hatchlings taken during the expedition. Below is Michel Droge’s interpretation: a charcoal on paper sketch, Baby Octopus.

44

Fall 2023

MICHEL DROGE

Even in the mess hall, there were screens livestreaming the work below so “you wouldn’t miss anything,” said Droge, an artist in residence aboard the research vessel.

Like everyone aboard the vessel, Droge pitched in, part of a bucket brigade unloading a submersible when its crew returned with samples of seawater, sediment, corals and creatures from the deep, and celebrating in the palpable excitement over what the scientists had seen and found.

“There was input coming from everywhere on the boat,” Droge says.

As Droge painted or sketched on the aft deck, or sat in a space created in the lab for the two resident artists (Costa Rica’s Carlos Hiller was also aboard), creating art while the scientists gazed into their microscopes, their job on its simplest level was to create art.

For years, Droge has been working with Beth Orcutt, the senior research scientist at Maine-based Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences. In recent years, their creative partnership inspired multiple paintings that explore the wonder and potential of the deep sea. That project culminated with the 2022 exhibit All the Light Below at Cove Street Arts in Portland.

From that, Droge began scanning the horizon for a new source of inspiration and connection. “I thought an immersive

MICHEL DROGE

In summer 2023, during Michel Droge’s journey aboard a marine research vessel off the coast of Costa Rica, the Bates visiting assistant professor in art and visual culture saw screens everywhere: offering a cinematic window into what the scientists were doing under the sea.

experience might be good, but I didn’t think that was on the radar.”

But then Orcutt extended an invitation to join a summer 2023 research trip aboard the research vessel Falkor (too), led by Orcutt and Jorge Cortes of the University of Costa Rica and sponsored by the Schmidt Ocean Institute.

The trip to explore the Dorado Outcrop, which is like

an underwater mountain, was dubbed the “Octopus Odyssey” because one of its goals was to learn more about something witnessed a decade ago.

In 2013, scientists visiting the seamount saw a veritable octopus garden of female cephalopods laying their eggs near hydrothermal vents along the outcrop. The scientists saw eggs but nothing more — no young ’uns — leading them to believe

ALEX INGLE/SCHMIDT OCEAN INSTITUTE

the crew unload the samples at night, getting hands-on experience studying their subjects, sometimes using samples of the sediment to mix into their paint.

As an artist, Droge is wellknown for creating art with a queer lens, an awareness that assumptions related to gender, sexuality, and identity shape our understanding of life — above and below the surface of

Michel Droge works on artwork in the main lab of the Falkor (too) during the expedition to the Dorado Outcrop. At left is fellow resident artist, Carlos Hiller.

The pair painted or sketched alongside the scientists.

the ocean. Indeed, the creatures of the deep sea exhibit gender and sexuality in a “much much more expansive way than human beings,” Droge explained.

“So many deep sea creatures

MICHEL DROGE

that the site was not a viable nursery due to the oxygen-poor water coming from the vents.

Aboard the ship, with mystery in the air, Droge soaked up the buzz of scientific curiosity and discovery and the collaborative work with the scientists.

Every day, the team would sink SuBastian, their remotecontrolled submersible vehicle, to explore and collect samples.

Droge and Hiller would help

The title of this research sketch/watercolor by Michel Droge is Brooding Octopus.

Fall 2023

45

MICHEL DROGE

One of the creatures that fascinated Droge the most was the Dr. Seuss-like tripod fish, shown here in a watercolor sketch.

are hermaphrodites, and they’ll shift from male-female mating to mating with themselves in order for the species to survive, because they’re very rare.”

One of the species that fascinated Droge was the tripod fish, which uses its much-elongated tail and pelvic fins to balance on the ocean floor, looking like something “made up, like a dream, or like a Dr. Seuss drawing. There were so many crazy things that I’d never seen,” said Droge.

Many creatures made their way into the paintings, including comb jellies, which undulate through the darkness, giving off light — like “bioluminescent disco lights” — and Venus’ flower basket, a kind of glass sponge that has a symbiotic relationship with glass sponge shrimp.

The shrimp swim into the latticed sponge and take up residence, growing too big to exit and getting trapped. Usually a male-female pair, they 46

Fall 2023

then spawn, and the babies swim away, to start the cycle in another sponge.

And then there was the octopus garden. During the voyage, scientists witnessed an active octopus nursery, a startling discovery that disproved the idea from 2013 that the area is inhospitable to octopus young.

In fact, they found that the temperature of the water coming from the hydrothermal vents in the outcrop created the perfect conditions for a nursery, and they witnessed the hatching of a potential new species of Muusoctopus, a genus of smallto medium-sized octopus that lack ink sacs.

For Droge, witnessing this significant scientific discovery led to a personal discovery.

“I never knew scientists got excited like the way they were, so excited, even screaming. The idea of research being infused with such life. I had never really felt that before.”

The experience helped to reveal common ground between artists and scientists. “We’re both moving around ideas with our different mediums. For me, art is a way of investigating things. It’s a way to kind of explore ideas. And I think scientists are exploring ideas and they have hypotheses and sometimes, open-ended things where they’re just saying, ‘Let’s look at this.’”

When Orcutt invited Droge to join the expedition, it was a gift from scientist to artist, a gift of inspiration.

But the gift flows the other way, too, from artist to scientist. “The scientists that I’ve collaborated with, including Dr. Orcutt, and I have talked about this,” said Droge. “I think it can be easy to get very in your head as a scientist. To be very literal. When I make work that’s inspired by the research she’s doing, she connects more emotionally with her work, especially because my work is super emotional.

“It kind of allows her a doorway into the feeling part of the work.”

The public benefits too.

“People don’t get to see the deep sea everyday,” said Droge. “And when we can’t see something, it’s kind of ‘out of sight, out of mind.’ I think if we can expose people as much as possible to this rich, amazing environment, and the extremely important ecosystems that exist there, and if people can visualize it and connect with it, then they’re more apt to care.”

In a month on the ship, Droge completed 11 paintings that are on exhibition at the University of Costa Rica. A second body of work is forthcoming, using sketches, audio, and video gathered during the expedition, that will travel with the Schmidt Ocean Institute to museums and galleries around the world.

It’s been “an amazing adventure the past couple of years,” said Droge. “To get to go on the boat trip was like a dream I didn’t even know how to dream, but so amazing.” n

ALEX INGLE/SCHMIDT OCEAN INSTITUTE ALEX INGLE/SCHMIDT OCEAN INSTITUTE

“When I make work that’s inspired by the research she’s doing, she connects more emotionally with her work. It kind of allows her a doorway into the feeling part of the work.”

Top: Droge captured day-to-day life aboard the research vessel in sketches, which will become references for larger pieces.

ALEX INGLE/SCHMIDT OCEAN INSTITUTE

Middle: Every evening when the expedition’s submersible, ROV SuBastian, returned to the surface, Droge helped unload samples that had been collected, including sediment, coral, and live marine organisms.

Left: Beth Orcutt, co-leader of the research trip and collaborator with Michel Droge, gives the research team a briefing. Droge and fellow resident artist Carlos Hiller are at right.

Fall 2023

47

Hallie Herz ’11 (left) and partner Eva Fury pose at Kindling, located in a community center in downtown Portland, Maine.

“It’s important to focus on joy and on queer joy — especially right now,” says Hallie Herz ’11, co-founder of the nation’s first queer-focused outdoor gear library

GGGg

GEAR ALL FOR

STORY BY Deirdre Stires PHOTOGRAPHY BY Phyllis Graber Jensen

H

oused in the basement of a community center in downtown Portland, Maine, the state’s newest gear library might lack the storefront appeal of other outdoor outlets in a state famous for its outdoor recreation.

But at the Kindling Collective open house on June 10, the party lights, sound of laughter, and impromptu outdoor-gear lessons spoke of a warm, welcoming community and, most of all: joy.

Launched by Hallie Herz ’11 and partner Eva Fury, Kindling is an outdoor gear library focused on helping the queer community access the outdoors in a safe, fulfilling, and affordable way.

While it joins a growing network of outdoor gear libraries serving historically marginalized communities across the country, it is the first that caters specifically to queer people, according to the Outdoors Empowered Network in San Francisco.

For many, barriers to enjoying the outdoors abound. Even a simple weekend camping trip to a state park can require a level of expertise and expensive gear that many lack. For a queer person, add to those barriers the stress of facing unfriendly or even hostile strangers, and outdoor fun can become a nonstarter.

Yet the kind of joy found in the woods, Herz said, is essential for queer people today.

“We feel it’s important to focus on joy and focus on queer joy especially right now with all of the hateful anti-trans laws and rhetoric. It is a time when queer people need a space where they can be themselves and find connections to things that sustain them,” Herz said.

“We really think about it as a resilience practice, a refilling and recharging. We see this work as liberation work.”

Kindling Collective is among more than 25 outdoor gear libraries across the country that work with communities that encounter significant barriers to accessing the outdoors, according to Seraph White, executive director of the Outdoors Empowered Network. Such gear libraries are run by community activists and outdoor educators that see the importance of getting people, especially young people, outside.

“Traditional outdoor recreation culture caters very much to white, straight, male people. If you’re not that person, it can feel disorienting, like you don’t belong even though the outdoors should be where everyone belongs,” White said. “There are a lot of challenges beyond the gear. If you don’t know how to address the challenges in an outdoor space with racism, sexism, and homophobia, the outdoors can feel inaccessible.”

Fall 2023

49

Hallie Herz ’11 (left) and Eva Fury opened the nation’s first queer-focused outdoor gear-lending library in Portland, Maine.

The good news, said Cat Runner, founder of Queer Climbers Network in Kentucky, is that queer-focused outdoor groups are growing and more climbing gyms are holding events that cater to the LGBTQ+ community. His online directory that offers a calendar of events includes about 50 queer-climbing groups from Seattle to South Carolina.

“I think the societal want for these programs increased at the beginning of the Black Lives Matter movement,” Runner said. “There was a kind of collective push that came with gyms being way more receptive. To some extent, it’s performative. But I think some gyms really are pushing to try to make sure this space is a space [the LGBTQ+] community wants to come into.”

At Kindling in Portland, anyone can join the gear library, which allows members to borrow outdoor gear (similar to how a book library loans out books), but the focus also is on empowering the queer community, since so much of the outdoor recreation industry does not, said Herz and Fury, who are spouses as well as business partners.

Breaking down societal barriers forged by colonialism and privilege is central to their mission.

They’re quick to point out the land in Maine where they’ll lead outings and recommend camping trips is the native land of the Wabanaki people.

Fury said the global concern about climate change is another big reason why getting more people outdoors is so important right now.

“We all kind of have an anxious attachment to the planet because we’re worried she’s going to die,” Fury said. “We’re experiencing wildfires on the East Coast in a way the West Coast has experienced for years. And did everyone else hear about all the dead fish that washed up on the coast of Texas? It feels apocalyptic right now. So we need the joy (found in nature) to be able to keep surviving through this.”

Fury brings a decade of experience as a project

50

Fall 2023

manager and community organizer for public health programs and nonprofits focused on racial and gender justice. They worked with LGBTQ youth and young people experiencing homelessness, providing gender-affirming training to those who serve them. They also bring the unbridled energy of a competitive Ultimate Frisbee player and coach — one who coached Cold Front, the Bates’ women’s-matching Ultimate Frisbee team, for the 2022 spring season.

Herz is the outdoor-gear expert, wilderness guide, and outdoor educator, having worked for 10 years as a teacher and for 15 years as a backcountry guide throughout Canada, from Quebec in the east to the Yukon in the far northwest. They have led canoe and backpacking trips for queer and trans people for the Venture Out Project.

Growing up in the small coastal Maine town of Damariscotta Mills, Herz lived an outdoor lifestyle where they paddled, swam, and hiked — before finding a second home at a wilderness camp in Ontario at age 9.

After transferring to Bates from Barnard College their sophomore year in 2008, Herz joined the Bates Outing Club, leading trips, serving as secretary, and receiving the club’s Goodspeed-Sawyer Award for their contributions. The experience was positive, but not as inclusive as they would have liked, Herz realized years later.

“The culture of the BOC was typical of most outdoor spaces I’d found myself in up to that time in my life: male-dominated, bro-y, white, and upper-middle class or wealthy,” said Herz. Within that culture, Herz didn’t feel they could share their queer identity, so they hid it. “I unconsciously adapted myself to fit into that culture, and looking back, I’ve realized how that contributed to an exclusive and elitist environment and meant hiding my queerness and showing up as only part of myself.”

Over the last two years, the Bates Outing Club

revised its mission statement — and its programming — to focus more on diversity, equity and inclusion, noting that the club’s members “recognize that outdoor recreation has historically and continues to exclude people of marginalized identities.”

In Portland, Herz is now working to create an outdoor club that celebrates inclusion and champions queer people exploring the outdoors.

“I saw the harm caused by having that exclusive space. So I wouldn’t say the Outing Club is my origin story, but I think that experience influenced the way I want to approach this work,” they said.

Kindling Collective’s home in the Equality Community Center is part of Portland’s arts district.

Rainbow banners and a large Black Lives Matter flag welcome visitors in the large lobby. In the basement construction is underway on a large seminar room where Fury and Herz will hold demos and classes.

Already the co-founders have collaborated with outdoor organizations that also serve groups facing barriers to outdoor recreation, such as the Confluence Collective, which teaches fly fishing; Maine Gear Share in Brunswick; and Inclusive Ski Touring at Mount Abram.

Danielle Arroyo, a friend of Herz and Fury, looked around at the crowd that came to Kindling’s open house on June 10, nodded, and smiled.

“This is a big step for the queer community in Portland, to make the outdoors an inclusive space, because going backpacking, you don’t know who you’ll encounter,” said Arroyo. “Being a mixed-race

“Kindling” in the name Kindling Collective suggests starting a fire, which can warm and sustain us, offering light and joy.

“We really think about it as a resilience practice, a refilling and recharging,” says Herz. “We see this work as liberation work.”

queer person, safety is a concern. I want to put my money and energy toward people who will include me.”

Aided by Mission Earth, a nonprofit that serves as a fiscal sponsor, Kindling secured a $90,000 grant from the Sewall Foundation and one for $10,000 from the Quimby Family Foundation.

With the help of donations garnered through the Outdoors Empowered Network they’ve filled their gear locker with everything from backpacks, day packs, tents, and sleeping bags to camp stoves, headlamps, and camp chairs.

Fionnuir Ni Chochlain, who recently moved to Portland from Philadelphia for a summer internship, was astounded when they learned at the open house of the $5 monthly membership fee.

After stopping by the open house, Julia von Ehr noted Kindling’s social-justice component. “There’s so much capitalism in the outdoor economy. It’s nice to break away from that,” they said.

Michaela Cowgill reflected on a recent yoga class she attended that was devoted to queer people — and how it allowed for recreating and meditating with others without the fear of being judged. Kindling will offer that, she said.

“Normally, there aren’t a lot of queer people in these spaces,” Cowgill said. “I want to walk into a space where I can be myself and don’t have to worry about that. It’s fortifying.” n

Queer people need a space where they can be themselves and find connections to things that sustain them.

Fall 2023

51

LAB IN SPACE

52

Fall 2023

Award-winning Professor of Physics Nathan Lundblad has a lab in Carnegie Science Hall, and another that’s orbiting the Earth, creating data that’s helping scientists understand a magical fifth state of matter called the Bose-Einstein condensate

THE COLD ATOM LAB that Professor of Physics Nathan Lundblad uses to do his experiments was delivered to the International Space Station as part of the payload of this cargo spacecraft, launched from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia on May 21, 2018.

NASA/AUBREY GEMIGNANI

BY MARY POLS

PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN

W

hen your laboratory is a closed box, orbiting 250 miles above Earth on the International Space Station, it can be challenging to get a visual on what’s going inside the lab.

That was a problem that Professor of Physics Nathan Lundblad faced as the data from his experiments in the Cold Atom Laboratory started rolling in from the International Space Station a few years ago.

The equipment was working the way he’d planned when he conceived of the project and pitched it to NASA. Working with NASA to run the experiments remotely from Earth, he and his team had successfully created — for the first time ever — bubbles of ultracold atoms, which earlier physics had theorized could exist but which simply couldn’t be done on Earth, where the rules of gravity won’t allow it.

This huge advancement for science, and win for the Cold Atom Laboratory, known as CAL, was announced in 2022 and this spring led to two exciting pieces of news for Lundblad. The first was that NASA was extending his opportunities to do research in space with a $1.89 million award.

Second, the agency honored his breakthrough in manipulating atoms by giving him its NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal.

The space station’s program chief scientist, Kirt Costello, describes Lundblad’s work as “groundbreaking.”

“In the science program, we look for those people who have done investigations in the International Space Station and have also published 54

Fall 2023

findings that are really developmental for the field of science overall,” he says.

The new funding also meant that the assignment Lundblad had given one of the students who works with him in the Lundblad Laboratory at Bates was going to be more essential than ever. Earlier this academic year, he had asked Kona Lindsey ’23 of Colorado Springs, Colo., to develop software to make it easier to visualize what was happening with those experiments on the space station.

Lundblad pulls hundreds of shots a day when it’s his turn with the shared lab. Such a large amount of data means there’s a lot of analysis to be done. It’s not just about making the bubbles — or spheres — of atoms but understanding the topology of them, how they function and how they can be altered by changing elements of how they are created.

Lundblad’s “recipes,” tinkered with at extreme low temperatures in microgravity surroundings, include lasers, radio waves, rubidium, potassium, and various options for magnetic and optical trapping.

Exploring these variables further is the plan. But first, “we actually need to sort of visualize it and say, ‘OK, let’s look at and analyze these clouds,’” Lundblad says.

“Historically, I sort of painstakingly loaded each image and pondered it and cycled through it all. But what I asked Kona to do is write a more coherent software package where I can just say, ‘Hey, what did yesterday’s data look like?’ And you can hit a few buttons and yesterday’s data just pops up on the screen nicely organized.”

Lindsey, he says, “exceeded my expectations”

and established a baseline for future Bates students to build on. “Another student will continue this work for sure,” Lundblad says. “Because you can always make it better.”

If pressed, Lindsey, a physics and math double major with a minor in digital and computational studies, can boil it down to very simple terms, as he did when he was sharing his thesis at this year’s Mount David Summit: “There are pictures that are taken on the International Space Station of these experiments. And those pictures get sent back down to Earth. And I take those pictures and do some math on them.”

But the truth is, the work Lindsey is doing, along with the other physics majors Lundblad has brought into this project, involves complex science of mind-blowing proportions around what’s often described as a fifth state of matter (after solid, liquid, gas, plasma). Even Lindsey’s father, who teaches electrical engineering at the University of Colorado, finds what his son has been working with in the Lundblad Lab somewhat hard to grasp. “I think it’s a bit over his head,” Lindsey says with a smile.

The applications for this area of physics aren’t clear yet, but its scientific significance is. This work dates back to atomic behavior that Albert Einstein, in the 1920s, said he believed could happen — theoretically, at least — but doubted anyone would figure out a way to make it a reality. Those who succeeded some 70 years later became Nobel Prize winners, and today this area of science, revolving around something called the Bose-Einstein condensate, or BEC, is one of the hottest areas of physics research.

The name of the condensate honors the two geniuses behind the theory, Satyendra Nath Bose and Einstein. Bose was a young physicist from India who reached out to Einstein in 1924, sharing a statistical theory he’d developed about photons and asking for help getting it published. Einstein embraced it enthusiastically, made sure the theory was published, and then continued building on Bose’s work.

PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN

PROFESSOR OF PHYSICS NATHAN LUNDBLAD (right) has conducted groundbreaking experiments in the Cold Atom Laboratory aboard the International Space Station, with help from Bates students like Elias Veilleux ’23 (left) of Orono, Maine, and Kona Lindsey ’23 of Colorado Springs, Colo. They are seen in Lundblad’s lab in Carnegie Science Hall.

THE IMAGES SEEN on Kona Lindsey’s laptop, showing an ultracold gas bubble composed of rubidium atoms, are transmitted to the Lundblad Lab at Bates from the Cold Atom Lab on the International Space Station. “The visible ring indicates that the atoms are occupying a shell, or bubble structure,” Lindsey said.

What emerged was a quantum theory that individual atoms could turn into a superatom — many atoms behaving collectively as one — under very cold conditions. And not Maine winter cold, but rather, as close to absolute zero as possible.

That’s the lowest theoretical temperature, which temperatures in space come closest to naturally.

But it took the better part of a century — 71 years — to make the first of these superatoms.

Einstein probably wouldn’t have been surprised it took that long; when he described the state of matter that would become known as the Bose-Einstein condensate, he concluded with “this appears to be as good as it is impossible.” It’s no wonder the National Institute of Standards and Technology has referred to the quest to produce a BEC as a “Holy Grail.”

Adrian deCola ’23 of Southbury, Conn., a physics major with a minor in digital and computational studies, included a two-page summary of the fascinating history from idea to realization in his thesis.

“I wanted a hook,” he says. DeCola worked in the Lundblad Lab in summer 2022, modeling and building a laser-driven cooling and purification apparatus for his professor. (Lundblad has two BEC machines in Carnegie, one he’s been running for about a decade and a newer one, under development, that’s meant to more closely mimic the one up in space.)

THIS VISUALIZATION illustrates the emergence of a Bose-Einstein condensate inside the Cold Atom Lab. The cloud of atoms gets progressively cooler from left to right, and the darker orange and red vertical spikes show the condensate, which is a clumping together of the atoms with properties more like a wave than traditional matter.

NAT

Fall 2023

HAN

LUN

DBL

AD

55

NASA/JPL-CALTECH

ABOUT THE SIZE OF A MINI FRIDGE , the Cold Atom Lab cools atoms to nearly absolute zero, creating an environment for Professor of Physics Nathan Lundblad’s experiments with Bose-Einstein condensates.

DeCola included Einstein’s long-ago proclamation about what atoms could do, under the right circumstances, as well as that challenge he seemed to issue to future scientists by calling it “impossible.”

It’s been “super cool” to work on components of a scientific inquiry at this high level, deCola says, although he admits, he “had a ton of questions” initially. “I finally get it,” he says. “Sometimes it seemed like I was learning the point as I was doing it.”

Similarly, this was all new and intense material to Elias Veilleux ’23 of Orono, Maine, when he started doing research with Lundblad in his sophomore year. But by the time he applied for a slot in Princeton University’s electrical engineering doctoral program last fall, he was well versed enough to describe his work in Lundblad’s older BEC machine in Carnegie to his admission interviewer.

He landed a spot at Princeton, and is grateful for Lundblad’s guidance. “He’s been a really invaluable resource,” Veilleux said, including by helping him decide whether to pursue a master’s or a PhD., from both an intellectual and financial standpoint.

There are four other U.S. research groups sharing lab time with Lundblad’s team on the Cold Atom Laboratory. (The lab was devised to be something of a “jack of all trades” for scientists studying

NASA

THE COLD ATOM LAB is located within the International Space Station’s primary U.S. research laboratory, known as Destiny, which supports a wide range of experiments and studies. Here, mission specialist Soichi Noguchi traverses along the outside of the Destiny lab in 2017.

ultracold atoms, says Lundblad’s co-investigator Dave Aveline, who is based at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.)

Several Nobel Prize winning physicists were involved in the planning stages of Cold Atom Laboratory, including Eric Cornell and Wolfgang Ketterle, who received their Nobel Prize in 2001 for making the first BECs in 1995, as well as William D. Phillips, who won the Nobel in 1997. When Cornell, Ketterle, and a third physicist, Carl Wieman, won their Nobel in 2001, Physics Today spelled out how little was known about possible applications for BECs. They are “still on the far horizon,” the publication noted, but listed off possibilities that included playing a role in quantum computing.

That’s possible. But Lundblad promises only more experiments, not outcomes.

“I don’t see a pipeline in this work toward practical applications,” Lundblad said. “Certainly on maybe a 20- or 30-year time scale. But it’s not immediate.

“We don’t really understand how these laws of quantum mechanics work for objects that are this big, like millimeter-sized objects. We have a guess and we have a pretty good suspicion, but there’s kind of an open question for how it plays out in practice.”

Creating and manipulating spheres of atoms moving together in a lab in space might sound like a very narrow area of inquiry, he says. “But it actually hits some of the areas in fundamental physics where there are open questions. Like, what happens to well-understood physics systems when you squeeze them to be thin instead of thick? What happens if you curve them around on the surface, rather than having them be flat? What happens if they have holes in the middle instead of being continuous? These are all typical physics questions that we all study in our own way.”

Space represented the next frontier in the exploration of BECs. Creating a BEC on Earth is now

NASA/JOHNSON

a straightforward thing, but continues to be limited by the forces of gravity. The balls of atoms quickly collapse and flatten. Aveline points out that these spherical groupings of atoms created in “traps” in space have much more longevity, opening up more time to watch — and tweak — their behavior. “You can get a lot longer in observation time, or as we call it, interrogation time,” Aveline says.

Lundblad’s proposal to NASA a decade ago was inspired by a physicist from Sussex University in England, Barry Garraway, who in 2001 shared a theory about a way to manipulate the atoms into spheres and other hollow shapes using magnetic fields and radio waves. But in the presence of gravity, Garraway’s trick wouldn’t work.

Lundblad encountered the idea around 2006, when he was doing his postdoctoral work, “playing around with atoms and magnetic fields and radio waves,” he remembers. “And you sort of see that idea and you file it away, like, ‘OK, that’s cool.’”

Then he heard about NASA’s call for proposals for the Cold Atom Laboratory in 2013. “I remember someone saying to me like, ‘Hey, do you have any ideas tucked away that really need microgravity?”’

Lundblad did.

Bringing it full circle, Garraway has now visited Lundblad at Bates twice. “Because I’m a theorist, there is no greater honor than a theorist having their theoretical work starting to be implemented in experimental activity. I mean, that is just so fantastic,” Garraway says. On his second visit to campus, Lundblad had just gotten his first results from the International Space Station. The bubbles looked “a little alien-like,” Garraway says.

Lundblad and Garraway may ultimately publish

a paper together. In the meantime, the announcement of the $1.89 million in continued funding on the Cold Atom Laboratory means full steam ahead for Lundblad and his co-investigators Aveline and Smitha Vishveshwara at the University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign, where the grant will support a theoretical physics Ph.D. student.

“The first years were spent laying out some groundwork and techniques and the next step is exploring higher level goals of using that system to study other phenomena,” says Aveline, from a NASA perspective.

Lundblad anticipates that the work he has done and will do on the Cold Atom Laboratory will be his intellectual “meat and potatoes” for more than 10 years. More funding will mean he’ll have the capacity to bring in more students, collaborators, and visiting scientists onto the project (three postdoctoral researchers have worked on the project at Bates thus far). “I want more of that culture here.

I want our students to see more scientists, beyond just their faculty.”

In the meantime, Lundblad has praise for deCola, Lindsey, and Veilleux. “They’re fantastic young scientists who’ve all contributed — in very different ways — to pushing the envelope on this research effort.” n

PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN

ABOARD THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION, astronaut Kayla Barron holds replacement hardware for the Cold Atom Lab, seen at left, on Dec. 16, 2021. While astronauts aboard the space station handle lab maintenance, the Jet Propulsion Lab handles the experiments that Nathan Lundblad and other researchers request.

NASA’S EXCEPTIONAL SCIENTIFIC ACHIEVEMENT MEDAL was recently awarded to Professor of Physics Nathan Lundblad.

Fall 2023

57

Dániel Karsai, who has ALS, knew he needed voice coaching to argue his death-with-dignity case before the European Court of Human Rights, so he turned to Bates voice expert and fellow Hungarian Kati Vecsey

BY JAY B U R N S

At the end of November, Dániel Karsai traveled from his home in Budapest, Hungary, to Strasbourg, France. He saw old friends, took in a soccer match between Strasbourg and Marseilles, and dined on good Alsatian food.

While there, Karsai, an experienced human rights lawyer, argued before the European Court of Human Rights — with help from a Bates faculty member — a case that is literally about life and death: his. Does Karsai have the legal right to end his own life?

58

Fall 2023

The whole trip to Strasbourg, even the part where he and his legal team argued the case Karsai v. Hungary for his right to die, was fun for Karsai, because it made him feel alive, still able to do some of what he loves to do.

Karsai has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, an incurable, progressive, and fatal neurological disease that is slowly robbing him of his ability to control his muscles, including his ability to speak. He wants the right to die before he becomes completely incapacitated, stripped of his dignity.

BCM

A LIFE WORTH DYING FOR

In Hungary, assisted death is a crime, so Karsai appealed to the ECHR. The November hearing was conducted in English, one of the court’s two official languages (French being the other), so Karsai knew he needed help to deliver his personal statement — help with both pronouncing words difficult for a Hungarian, and contending with how the disease is ravaging his speaking ability.

So he turned to a fellow Hungarian and Bates faculty member: Kati Vecsey, a senior lecturer in theater, vocal director for all Bates theater productions, and a noted speech and language pathologist and therapist.

A member of the Bates faculty since 1996 and currently chair of the Department of Theater and Dance, Vecsey earned a doctorate in developmental and educational psychology from Eötvös Lóránd University in Budapest.

At Bates, Vecsey teaches courses, has served as vocal director for well over 100 theater productions, and was the longtime adviser of the student Robinson Players theater club.

She is also widely published in her field. Well known in Hungary for her voice work, she was awarded the Farkas Kempelen Plaque Award from the Hungarian Association of Phonetics, Phoniatrics and Logopedics for research and professional contributions to her field.

Sometimes, the goal of Vecsey’s voice teaching is to train someone’s voice toward something different, whether helping a theater student adopt a British accent or helping someone transform their very

Kati Vecsey and Dániel Karsai during a Zoom call in October.

“Dániel is a genuinely fine human being: charismatic, compassionate, and of great character and integrity,” said Vecsey.

ECHR

Dániel Karsai delivers his statement before the European Court for Human Rights on Nov. 28, 2023.

identity. In the early 2000s, for example, she worked with author and then-Colby professor Jenny Boylan in her transition to becoming a woman by helping Boylan achieve an optimal pitch and varied inflection.

With Karsai, the goal was to help him be the best Dániel Karsai possible, vocally speaking, for as long as possible.

“My work with Dániel was not different from what I do during voice coaching with actors,” Vecsey said. “I work to nurture the confidence and self-reliance — so vital to create the optimum conditions for spontaneous, truthful, and healthy expression.”

Karsai is no stranger to the European court, having worked there for four years in the mid2000s, helping to prepare more than 1,000 draft decisions in English and in French. Since 2011, he has run his own law office in Budapest dealing with constitutional law and human rights issues.

Karsai now must use a wheelchair. If he falls, it can take him up to eight minutes to get back into his chair, if he can at all. Still, he’s been able to go to work at his law firm each day.

Before his illness, his English was already quite good, in terms of his vocabulary, grammar, and sentence structure. But his speech is now slower and slurred due to an ALS-related

condition known as dysarthria that Vecsey studied during her training.

“The muscles become weak and tight, limiting tongue and/ or jaw movement,” she explains.

Swallowing is difficult, leading to a build-up of saliva in the mouth, and “he has developed hoarseness and sounds more nasal than before his illness.”

As an example of Karsai’s very good English, here’s a nearly verbatim text of how, during a Zoom interview in October, he described the first

few months after receiving his ALS diagnosis in August 2021.

“After the death sentence, I needed four months to take my shit together. I’m sorry.

Really, the first four months after I received the diagnosis, 25 August last year, I suffer from depression and anxiety, I mean in a medical sense. And with the help of amazing psychiatrist, and the medicines that were necessary, by the end of December, I find back to the light. And then I could restart to live, not just fighting with this situation.”

Vecsey and Karsai met on Zoom weekly all summer and fall. (He also worked with two other speech and language pathologists in Hungary.) As they worked toward the November hearing, neither Vecsey nor Karsai were particularly worried about his accent. “We Hungarians have a terrible accent, even if we are not ill,” he joked. And, he added, few people who speak before the ECHR are native English speakers. “You hear many accents.

So it’s not strange.”

For Hungarians, difficult sounds to pronounce in English words include the W sound in “what” or the TH sound in “teeth” or “three,” “where you put your tongue between bottom and upper teeth, that’s a lisp in Hungarian, and you get sent to speech therapy.”

This public fight gives me strength because I enjoy it.

I enjoy this because we are discussing an issue which intellectually gives me passion and strength.

Fall 2023

59

And my firm view is that in this situation, flowing from the right to dignity, everybody should have a right to finish their life in a dignified manner.

Appearing on a Hungarian talk show four years ago, looking fit, relaxed, and strong, Karsai spoke in a measured and calm voice with subtle inflections.

Vecsey was tasked with helping him manage pitch, tone, rhythm, and volume. Now, she said, “you can hear that his voice is strained.”

Using her theatrical chops, Vecsey also coached Karsai on his performance. In his legal career, he has appeared before the court several times. “So it’s not alien for me,” he said in October.

“Generally it’s much harder to think and speak at the same time in a foreign language in a high-tension situation. This hearing is really like in the movies: full courtroom, big

DÁNIEL KARSAI

Overcoming an accent is a great challenge, Vecsey said, because an accent is integral to a person’s physiology. Getting rid of one is not the same as putting one on, like Meryl Streep using a Polish accent in Sophie’s Choice.

“Your entire mouth develops around the formation of sounds for your primary language,” Vecsey said. “So when you learn a second language, you will have difficulty.”

Knowing Karsai’s voice before ALS is a key concept, said Vecsey. “The knowledge of a ‘healthy voice’ is very important because you are not trying to teach a person something new, but what they know but are having difficulty doing.”

In 2021, Dániel Karsai receives his brown belt in jiujitsu.

60

Fall 2023

media attention,” including a documentary film team from Hungary that is capturing Karsai’s story. “And so I would say the psychological part is the most difficult one.”

His approach was “practice, practice, practice. My sensei, my master, always said that if you can do something with 130 percent perfection in practice, in real-life situation that will be 80 or 100 percent. So this is what I try to achieve, practice as much as possible, and then I can perform well.”

And he wasn’t worried about mistakes. “Who cares?

So what? I correct myself and go on. So I should not be afraid of making mistakes. Everybody will think that this is the illness, not my weak English, that made the error.”

To which Vecsey, having joined the Zoom interview in October, quickly interjected a friendly jab: “You’re telling me that you’re hiding behind your illness now?!” Indeed, the warmth between the two Hungarians comes through. “Daniel is a genuinely fine human being: charismatic, compassionate, and of great character and integrity,” she said. “And a fantastic sense of humor. We have fun conversations, and I try to evaluate his speaking skills, ask questions about what he feels when he speaks, and give him feedback and suggestions.”

“Fun” might not be anyone’s idea of what Karsai is having these days, but the word comes up more than a few times during our interview. For Karsai, the capacity to still have fun — to do what he loves doing, to have dignity, to feel purposeful — is what it means to have a life still worth living. The capacity to have fun is one measuring stick for being human.

And for Karsai the human rights lawyer, mounting a major legal battle against what he feels is an unjust law is a blast. “This public fight gives me strength because I enjoy it. I enjoy this because we are discussing an issue which intellectually gives me passion and strength,” he said during the interview. “I even feel much less tired than one hour ago.”

PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN

Kati Vecsey leads Bates student actors in voice warmups. In her coaching and teaching, Vecsey seeks to help students and clients use their voice to achieve “spontaneous, truthful, and healthy expression.”

My personal story shows it very well because two years ago I did jiujitsu at a high level; I reached brown belt, which is something, believe me. Now, I can barely go out to the toilet alone, which is five meters from here.”

At the hearing, he began his prepared statement by telling a story about having a dream of living to 80, and dying in his sleep after spending a wonderful evening with family and friends. “Then I woke up and had to face the harsh reality. I am only 46 years old, and I have ALS. The illness takes me closer every day to complete immobility and dependence on others.”

Yet Karsai said his case is also about the many others in similar situations. “It is almost sure that there will be other

Updates on Karsai v. Hungary Scan this QR code for more information on Karsai v. Hungary, including the court’s judgment and Karsai’s statement before the court.

ECHR

The European Court of Human Rights hears cases brought against its 46 member states for alleged human rights violations, and its rulings are binding and are considered to have a significant impact on the interpretation and application of human rights law in Europe.

The case Karsai v. Hungary is not complicated. In Hungary, it is a criminal offense to help someone end their life. (In the U.S., 10 states and the District of Columbia allow assisted death, including Maine.) Karsai is asking the court to consider this a violation of the European Convention on Human Rights, on which the court bases its rulings. (Currently the “right to a death in dignity is not formally recognized” by the convention.)

What is complex is the court’s potential judgment.

“How far the court goes in the very complex issue of end of life decisions, we don’t know,” he said. “We will see, and then the Hungarian state has to execute it somehow.”

At the hearing, much of the case was presented by Karsai’s legal team, but Karsai’s participation was more than ceremonial. As he said before the hearing, “I can give real context to this question. It won’t be a theoretical issue for the court.

It will be a living issue,” he said.

“I always say that this human rights issue concerns eight billion people on the planet.

applicants from Hungary, people who are dying but don’t have the time and energy to go to the court because they can barely go to the bathroom.

“It’s everybody’s problem — everybody will pass away one day, and it can happen. It can be the situation that happens after an undignified phase of life, which can last even for years.

And my firm view is that in this situation, flowing from the right to dignity, everybody should have a right to finish their life in a dignified manner.”

He was clear that he knows where he is now and where he is headed. “For the time being I have a happy life, but with big f—ing difficulties,” he said.

“But I have a happy life.

But it can disappear. Now I can speak. Maybe in a year I won’t be able to speak at all and I won’t be able to go to a football game because I will be stuck to a bed. I can eat now, but maybe in a year I won’t be able to eat, just through a feeding tube.

This is not fun. For the time being, I have a good life and I’m lucky because of that. This is why I say I am not a hero.

I receive strength for this and I’m lucky.” n

Dániel Karsai (right), his legal team, and visitors acknowledge the arrival of the judges at the start of the Nov. 28 chamber hearing at the European Court for Human Rights.

Fall 2023

61

b ate s not e s has succeeded John as class president.

1953

PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN

Reunion 2028, June 9–11

Who, What, Where, When?

Send your Bates news, photos, story ideas, comments, tips, and solutions to magazine@bates.edu.

CORRECTION A Note submitted by Dr. Laike Stewart ’95 and published in the Spring 2023 issue referred to Laike with incorrect pronouns.

It was an editorial error, and we offer him our apologies.

1936 Ed Muskie, U.S. senator from Maine and U.S. secretary of state under President Jimmy Carter, formed a friendship with Carter long before the latter moved into the White House, according to the WCSH-TV evening newsmagazine 207. Muskie served as secretary of state for just eight months, “but it was a memorable time for the Muskie family, including 18-year-old Ned, who was a senior in high school,” News Center Maine’s Don Carrigan reported in April. Ned recalled that the friendship lasted long after the two politicians left office — and Carter came to Bates for the opening of the Edmund S. Muskie Archives. At his father’s funeral, Ned added, Carter referred to Ed Muskie — who ran for the White House in 1972 — as the greatest man who never became president.

1941 Reunion 2026, June 12–14 CLASS PRESIDENT Margaret Hubbard Rand alpegrand@aol.com

1947 Reunion 2027, June 11–13 CLASS SECRETARY/ TREASURER Jean Labagh Kiskaddon jean.kiskaddon@gmail.com CLASS PRESIDENT Vesta Starrett Smith vestasmith@charter.net

62

Fall 2023

1949 Reunion 2024, June 7–9 CLASS SECRETARY Carol Jenkinson Johnson rollincarol@comcast.net CLASS PRESIDENT Bud Horne budhorne@gmail.com CLASS VICE-PRESIDENT Beverly Young Howard

1950 Reunion 2025, June 6–8 The class is saddened by the passing, on Oct. 27, of Wes Bonney, who served Bates in so many important ways, including as a Bates trustee and our longtime class president. Our thoughts go out to Elaine and to the entire Bonney family. His obituary joins others from our class at the magazine’s memorial page, www.bates.edu/memoriam.

1951

CLASS PRESIDENTS Ginnie LaFauci Toner vatoner207@gmail.com Dick Coughlin dcoughlin@maine.rr.com Jean Chapman Neely writes: “Birthday No. 92 was observed with great enthusiasm by my friends at our local Audubon Society chapter” in Shepherdstown, W.V. “Fiftysome folks defied the 90-degree evening to gather under an open-air pavilion for great food and many remembrances.”...

Don Peck was honored in July with the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award, presented by biographical-profile publisher Marquis Who’s Who. Don’s long and distinguished career in education includes positions as director of the Center for Elementary Science at Fairleigh Dickinson Univ., and teaching and administrative roles in public schools, beginning in the 1950s as a teacher of high school chemistry and physics in Litchfield, Conn.

He is also a writer whose work includes numerous textbooks, as well as the reference Mineral Identification: A Practical Guide for the Amateur Mineralogist.

He lives in Geneva, Ill.

1954 Reunion 2024, June 7–9 CLASS SECRETARY/ TREASURER Jonas Klein joklein@maine.rr.com

Reunion 2026, June 12–14

1955

CLASS PRESIDENT Bill Dill

Reunion 2025, June 6–8

CLASS VICE PRESIDENT Wilfred Barbeau whbarbeau@gmail.com Robert Wilson still lives in Santa Fe, N.M., and is working on his third novel. “I hope the book is finished before I am!” His 2021 novel, The Irish Brahmin, is available on Amazon.

1952 Reunion 2027, June 11–13 CLASS SECRETARY Marilyn Coffin Brown mcbrown13@verizon.net CLASS PRESIDENT Webster B. Brockelman Jr. weborjen@aol.com Mason Taber and Marilyn Coffin Brown attended the memorial service for Class President John Myers in March. Webster Brockelman

CLASS PRESIDENT Beverly Hayne Willsey stonepost@cox.net CLASS VICE-PRESIDENT Merton Ricker mertr33@gmail.com

1956 Reunion 2026, June 12–14 CLASS SECRETARY Fred Huber fredna56@comcast.net CLASS PRESIDENTS Alice Brooke Gollnick agollnick725@gmail.com Gail Molander Goddard acgpension@gmail.com Alison Mann Etherton and Bud “feel very lucky to be living in our CCRC in Shelburne, Vermont.

There are many activities, speakers, concerts, and the spirit here is intelligent and warm.”

1957 Reunion 2027, June 11–13 SECRETARY Peg Leask Olney pegolney@verizon.net CLASS PRESIDENT Judy Kent Patkin jpatkin@gmail.com

1958 Reunion 2028, June 9–11 CLASS SECRETARY Marilyn Miller Gildea marilyn@gildea.com CLASS CO-PRESIDENTS Kay Dill Taylor kaytayloronpeaks@gmail.com Peter Post postp74@gmail.com The class is saddened by the passing, on Aug. 29, of Jo Trogler Reynolds, one of the college’s and the Class of 1958’s most active and effective volunteers.

Her obituary joins others from our class at the magazine’s memorial page, www.bates.edu/ memoriam....Patricia Lysaght Fresina passed away on St. Patrick’s Day, succumbing to injuries suffered in a fall at home, John wrote. Her health had been in a decline related to dementia in recent years.

1959 Reunion 2024, June 7–9 CLASS SECRETARIES Jack DeGange jack.degange@comcast.net Mary Ann Houston Hermance donmar23@gmail.com CLASS PRESIDENTS Anita Kastner Hotchkiss ahotchkiss@goldbergsegalla.com Jerry Davis gmdavis@maine.rr.com Thomas Lee reported in August that he and Melva planned to move from Ocala into John Knox Village of Central Florida, a CCRC in Orange City, as soon as their house was sold. “We are both independent,” he wrote, “but it is time to make this move.

We have a deposit on a villa that was gutted and completely rebuilt inside. Everything there looks good for our sunset years.

It will be tough to part from friends here, but there is a nice restaurant about an hour from both locations” where they can continue to get together. “Several of our Bates classmates have made similar life decisions and seem to be happy they did so.” He adds, “We traveled to Michigan for our granddaughter’s graduation from Kettering Univ. in June. It was the first gathering of our entire family in quite some time.”...H. Sawin Millett was profiled by 207, the evening newsmagazine on Portland’s NBC affiliate. Reporter Don

bat e s no t e s

class of

Carrigan’s coverage was driven by, among other things, the length of time Sawin has served Maine government in various roles — some 50 years — and his extraordinary grasp of the state budget. And there’s also his commitment to bipartisanship: He has always sought the “path to agreement, not to just try to butt heads and outmaneuver people,” he told Carrigan. “I say during my campaigns I am going to Augusta to search for solutions to problems.”

1960 Reunion 2025, June 6–8 CLASS SECRETARY Louise Hjelm Davidson lchdavidson011@gmail.com CLASS PRESIDENT Pete Skelley dskelley@satx.rr.com Sandra Folcik Levine was honored at a gala in March held by the Mass Arts Center, in Mansfield, Mass., where she lives. A retired teacher and former member of Mansfield’s Select Board, she’s also a longtime supporter of the arts center and member of its board of directors. At the gala, which marked the center’s 30th anniversary, “I received citations from the Massachusetts Senate, the House of Representatives, and the theater itself. Amidst all the ‘gowns and glitter,’ I felt so very honored! I’m healthy, happy, and thankful that right now life is rosy!”...Stephen Hotchkiss noted the passing in May of Grace Bumbry, who, as an NPR obituary noted, “broke the color barrier as the first Black artist to perform at Germany’s Bayreuth Festival,” in 1961. Two years prior, Steve recalls having heard Bumbry sing in the chapel at Bates. “As an African American with a magnificent voice, she was another champion of breaking racial barriers.”

1961 Reunion 2026, June 12–14 CLASS SECRETARY Gretchen Shorter Davis norxloon@aol.com CLASS PRESIDENTS Mary Morton Cowan mmcowan@gwi.net Dick Watkins rwatkcapt@aol.com Sally Benson is “well, living, and working with my family here in the Sonoran Desert, California.”...

Alan Cate brought family visiting from Colorado to the Everglades in April. “We had a great time walking back trails where we passed coiled snakes and lots of alligators quietly swimming alongside the old railroad paths. Dolphins playing in the wake of our small tour boat were a new and fun experience.

The Everglades are vast and extend from the Gulf Coast to the Atlantic in the most southern area of Florida.” He adds, “Most happy for us, one of our adult sons found a bride who is a wonderful woman getting her Ph.D. in American literature. She is from Turkey. We look forward to having her in our family.”...Carl and Mary Morton Cowan keep busy. Carl sang a solo in the spring concert at OceanView, their retirement community in Falmouth, Maine, and he still sings in his church choir, alongside their son, Tim Cowan ’91. Mary’s latest book was released in February 2023: Trouble in Nathan’s Woods, a historical novel….Babs Oldach Larson and Victor “took a cruise from Boston, and one of our ports was Bar Harbor, where we enjoyed a bus tour of Acadia National Park and a lobster fest.

We were sorry our 60th Reunion was canceled, but look forward to our 65th.”...Nadine Parker writes: “After retirement in October 2022, I finally went forward with a total knee replacement in March. It turned out well; however, it kept me from performing with my orchestra and much else” — she’s a violinist with the Nashua (N.H.) Chamber Orchestra. “I’m finally getting back to living again and plan to start with the orchestra in September. My bridge group is back at full speed, and I’ve just completed a series of classes in mah-jongg, a more visual game than bridge.” Nadine adds that for Christmas, her children subscribed her to the Storyworth memoir publishing service, and she’s now “busy writing my life story. At the end of the year a book will be printed for each of them. Along with this, I will have to sort through the boxes and boxes of family pictures.”...Paul Popish “enjoyed the virtual gathering of classmates in April and seeing that none of us has aged! Much time this summer was spent in our family mountain house in Jonas Ridge, N.C., allowing us to escape the heat in Chapel Hill. Sadly, with the death of Alden Blake I am now the only remaining roommate from our days in Parker Hall. Hope to meet y’all at least virtually again in the near future.”...Marjorie Sanborn Furlong has lived in Virginia for 12 years. “I love it, but am looking for a one-story home in either Virginia or New Hampshire,” she reports. “In the meantime, I will continue working as a substitute teacher in Chesapeake. I have retired numerous times but keep going back. My daughter and her two cats have moved from Australia and are now living with me. My son remains in New Hampshire despite not liking snow and cold weather.”...Jerry and Gretchen Shorter Davis spent a week in London with their children and

takeaway: Nathaniel Boone

PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN

1952

media outlet: Military.com

headline:

Two Black Marines who broke racial barriers during WWII die within days of each other

takeaway: Marine’s legacy lives on long after he served in a segregated military When Nate Boone ’52 died at age 95 on Aug. 20, his legacy as one of the first African Americans to serve in the U.S. Marine Corps was honored on military.com.

Boone served in the 1940s in the segregated Montford Point facility at Camp Lejeune, N.C. “We had difficulty in the town near the base, which was Jacksonville, because the whites didn’t want us there. And the white officers didn’t want us there. So we were sort of fighting the war before we encountered any enemy,” Boone said in a 2013 interview with BatesNews.

Boone earned a law degree from the Boston University School of Law. He then practiced law for 41 years. In 2012, the Montford Point Marines collectively were honored with the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian honor bestowed by the government, by President Barack Obama. Boone told BatesNews, “the ceremony brought me to tears.”

(Cosmas Eaglin Sr., who died on Aug. 15 and who had served in the Korean War and the Vietnam War as well as World War II, was the other Marine mentioned. — Editor)

Fall 2023

63

MUSKIE ARCHIVES AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS LIBRARY

honoring accomplishment

‘Vigor and Joy’ Bates has retired football jersey No. 56, worn by the late Howard Vandersea ’63, one of Bates’ greatest athletes and a major contributor to collegiate football as a coach and advocate.

Classmate Thom Freeman was among several alumni who urged the college to recognize Vandersea, who died Dec. 29, 2022.

Vandersea excelled in two sports at Bates, football and baseball. After graduation, he served in the U.S. Army, then coached football for 37 years, including head coaching stints at Springfield College and Bowdoin College, where he also coached tennis and softball.

Long active in the National Football Foundation, an advocacy organization for amateur football, he founded the organization’s Maine chapter, which now bears his name.

“He was so supportive on the baseball field as well as on the football field,” said Freeman, an All-American pitcher who played alongside Vandersea.

“And his vigor and his joy of the game was equally wonderful and he always was willing to help and guide and be supportive to teammates both on the football field and the baseball field.

Everyone respected Howie.”

64

Fall 2023

two granddaughters. They rented a flat, attended a few plays, and enjoyed the city and its sights.

They’re looking forward to some Road Scholar programs, which they’ve enjoyed so much in the past….Carol Smith went to Isla Mujeres, Mexico, with daughter May Robertson ’94 and two granddaughters. “The highlight was swimming with a dolphin, belly to belly, and holding onto her flippers. It was only a minute or so long but very exciting.”

She also spent time with Sally Marshall Corngold ’62 in California. “Her son Josh married my daughter Kira, so we are co-abuelas to a grandson and granddaughter.” (Carol’s third child is Alexis Robertson ’95.)

Carol and Sally visited Sally Benson in Palm Springs. Carol shared a journal of the trip that the three of them took in 1963, beginning with a Portuguese freighter to Lisbon and ending with babysitting in Beirut. In between came Greece and Egypt — “galloping over the desert on horseback and climbing up inside the Great Pyramid.” Those may have been the days, as the song goes, but “these too are the days, with my family nearby and friends to talk with and laugh!”

1962 Reunion 2027, June 11–13 CLASS PRESIDENT Rachel Harper Garcelon raegarcelon@gmail.com CLASS VICE-PRESIDENT David Boone doboone@peoplepc.com

1963 Reunion 2028, June 9–11 CLASS SECRETARY Natalie Shober Hosford nataliemoir@netflash.net CLASS PRESIDENT Bill Holt wholt@maine.rr.com CLASS HISTORIAN Dottie Stone dottie@stone-stonect.com Writing in August, Robert Hood and Terry were just wrapping up “another wonderful vacation in Cushing, Maine, a full month this time.” They managed to dine at the celebrated Rockland restaurant Primo four times, and “it is still tops!” Bob reports. He adds, “Although we had sailed past Monhegan Island numerous times in the past, this year we took the ferry over from Port Clyde and spent a full day there in perfect weather. We are still enjoying our waterfront home in the Northern Neck of Virginia, and I am still sailing. My newest boat project is a work in process, not ready for long-distance cruising.”

1964 Reunion 2024, June 7–9 CLASS SECRETARY– TREASURER Rhoda Morrill Silverberg rhodaeric@att.net CLASS PRESIDENT Gretchen Ziegler gretchenz958@gmail.com CLASS VICE-PRESIDENTS Joan Spruill Andren Dick Andren dixmont258@gmail.com CLASS HISTORIAN Dot March Harris dotharriswi@gmail.com Writing in August from Nashua, N.H., Kevin Gallagher was looking forward to excursions near and far — one to North Conway for the wedding of a young man who has become a virtual member of the family, and in November a Pacific cruise.

“In the meantime, I continue to sing with the Harvard Radcliffe Chorus, driving down every Wednesday evening.”...John Meyn and Karen have lived in Friendship, Maine, since 2007.

But now, John reports, “the aging process demands that we move closer to the support of our offspring who are settled in California and Texas. So in November we will initiate a move to San Pedro, Calif.”...“To celebrate my 80th birthday,” writes Gretchen Ziegler, “I ran off to join the circus. The Flying Gravity Circus in Wilton, N.H., was in need of a president with considerable nonprofit experience, and I said, ‘I can do that!’ I am having a ball getting to know the circus world, and the wonderful kids and staff who inhabit it.”

1965 Reunion 2025, June 6–8 CLASS SECRETARY Evie Hathaway Horton ehhorton@me.com CLASS PRESIDENT Joyce Mantyla joycemantyla@gmail.com CLASS VICE-PRESIDENTS Newt Clark newtonclark@comcast.net Peter Heyel JPTraveler@gmail.com Emily Blowen Brown had a “summer of reunions,” with participants including “beloved children and grandchildren from Israel, Texas, Montana, Michigan, and siblings from Vermont, Georgia, Florida, and California.

Also old friends we have not seen in many years. We have loved every minute of it!”

1966 Reunion 2026, June 12–14

55th reunion

bat e s no t e s

CLASS PRESIDENT Alex Wood awwood@mit.edu

1967 Reunion 2027, June 11–13

Marty Braman Duckenfield reports that she and Kathy Butler Carlson traveled together again, this time on a Road Scholar trip to St. Augustine, Fla. “We two history majors discovered the fascinating history of our country’s oldest city and its unique culture. We also had a great time!” She adds, “My own family travels included going to Israel for grandson Ben’s graduation from the Walworth Barbour American International School in Tel Aviv; gathering for the annual family reunion with all the kids and grandchildren in Barnstable; and visiting Connecticut to see my daughter’s family and hook up with roommates Carol Becker Olson and Shirley Murphy Mongillo.”...Martin Flashman left Arcata, Calif., once and for all in August after living there for more than four decades.

He’s now a full-time resident of Tucson, Ariz., where he has wintered for several years. He’s “enjoying many musical and athletic activities and looking forward to more.”...Joseph Iacobellis, writing as azure, published his fourth book in August. Dusk picks up where The Setting Sun left off, “offering more poems, insights and observations on life, love, the passing of time, and a handful of things that truly matter. Though not a spiritual read, it does succinctly suggest that it would be hard to imagine the beauty of nature and its many affirmations not having some connection to a higher source.”

NANCY HOHMANN ’68

CLASS PRESIDENTS Keith Harvie kcharvie12@gmail.com Pam Johnson Reynolds preynolds221@gmail.com

Walk, Don’t Run In June, Nancy Hohmann ’68 walked a “marathon to Reunion” from her home in Falmouth, Maine. Covering the 26 miles on foot over two days, she raised more than $5,000 for the Class of 1968’s 55th Reunion Gift.

Toward the end of the walk, seven classmates met Hohman at the John T. Jenkins ’74 Memorial Bridge that crosses the Androscoggin. Together, they walked the last stretch to campus.

Pictured at the bridge: (standing) Dana Axtell Ireland, Maureen Ruskie Bartlett, Jan MacTammany VanGemert, Gretchen Hess Daly, Carla Hoag White; (kneeling) Jill Snyder, Linda Knox Large, and Hohmann (with Percy).

Hohmann walked to show appreciation for her Bates education. A freshman astronomy class taught Hohmann how to appreciate the night sky. She learned how to give a speech and all about Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince and how to deal with problems in Women’s Council. And how to solve life’s small frustrations, like “how to fence when you’re left-handed and all the fencing jackets are right-handed.” (Answer: “You turn the jacket inside out.”)

And, of course, Bates created lifelong friendships. “Bates has influenced my entire journey through life,” she says.

1968 Reunion 2028, June 9–11 CLASS SECRETARY Rick Melpignano rickmel713@gmail.com CLASS PRESIDENT Nancy Hohmann nhohmann@yahoo.com Nancy Withington Bell is the author of Clinch Mountain Girls: 24 Women Grow Veggies, Animals, and a Community, published in October 2022. The book is an Appalachian oral history of back-to-the-landers from 15 states who fled urban consumerism to lead simpler lives in the East Tennessee mountains. This story of two dozen families who stayed, and

their trials and joys as they learned how to homestead and adapt to the local culture, is both hilarious and harrowing.

1969 Reunion 2024, June 7–9 CLASS SECRETARY Deborah Bliss Behler debbehler@aol.com CLASS PRESIDENT George Peters geo47peters@gmail.com

1970 Reunion 2025, June 6–8 CLASS SECRETARIES Stephanie Leonard Bennett slenben@comcast.net Betsey Brown efant127@yahoo.com CLASS PRESIDENT/ TREASURER Steve Andrick steve.andrick15@gmail.com CLASS VICE-PRESIDENT

Barbara Hampel barbaraph@live.com Emmy Award–winning actor and filmmaker John Shea stays busy. His next film, The Junkie Priest, a romantic drama inspired by a true story, is in early preproduction. Distributed by Lionsgate and directed by John, the films Grey Lady and Southie — set, respectively, on Nantucket and in Boston — continue to stream worldwide. As artistic director emeritus for Theatre

Fall 2023

65

PETER BATES ’69

seeing things

Polar Pic Down in Sun City Center, Fla., Peter Bates ’69 had some fun with photo-editing software to create this photo illustration.

Bates is a self-taught photographer who, for the past 50 years, has “never stopped learning,” he says. “I worked as a professional photographer for a while and then got into exhibiting my pictures in Massachusetts and in Florida, where I now live.

He’s been experimenting with new techniques and software. “Modern photographers do not just take pictures, but also use other technologies available to them as well. I’m also starting to learn more about videography. If any of my fellow graduates would like to talk about these topics, feel free to contact me.”

Workshop of Nantucket, John once again directed and played the role of Ahab in Moby Dick — Rehearsed in August, and played the title role in the world premiere of the drama James Gallagher during the fall.

1971 Reunion 2026, June 12–14 CLASS SECRETARY Suzanne Woods Kelley suzannekelley@att.net CLASS PRESIDENT Michael Wiers mwiers@mwiers.com CLASS VICE-PRESIDENT Jan Face Glassman jfaceg1@hotmail.com

1972 Reunion 2027, June 11–13 CLASS SECRETARY Dick Thomas rthomas14@comcast.net CLASS PRESIDENT Erik Bertelsen ecbertelsen@gmail.com

66

Fall 2023

Sue Bates Ahnrud is proud to report that her “over-70 women’s soccer team repeated as national champions again this July.” The Bay State Breakers topped Still Kickin’ of Sacramento in the United States Adult Soccer Assn.’s Soccer Fest in Greensboro, N.C. (NBC’s Today featured the teams soon afterward.) Writing in July, Sue was looking forward to a once-in-a-lifetime trip to New Zealand and Australia in August — “touring and attending six Women’s World Cup matches.”...Erik Bertelsen shared “a bit of this and a bit of that.” While enjoying semiretirement with Abigail in East Boothbay, Maine, “I keep busy doing independent college advising with a friend,” doing business as Bertelsen & Beal.

(Erik was an associate dean of admission at Bates in the early 1970s.) “I also get to campus to catch the basketball team in action. Have had lots of fun organizing the Bates College All-Sports Camp Staff Reunion, a camp I co-founded 40 years ago and directed for 23

summers.” Writing in July, he was looking forward to visiting with John Amols during John’s summer vacation in Maine. “All three of our children live in Maine and I am so proud that they are working in schools.”…

“I’m back!” reports Donn Brous — “to New England, that is. I have returned to my childhood home of Peterborough, N.H. Having lived in the South for nearly four decades, I arrived with a bit of twang. It’s quickly fading while many memories are being rekindled. It’s been wonderful to reconnect with high school and college friends.

I loved a recent visit from Caroline Haworth Wandle, traveled to Vermont to spend time with Linda Oliwa Machalaba, and Sharon Smith lives here in town and has been my ‘welcome wagon.’ I’m looking forward to getting back to campus soon.”...Grim news from Wayne Loosigian in Brentwood, N.H.: “The fall of 2022 brought a very lean harvest at our apple orchard. Erratic weather was the culprit. Spring 2023 promised a

bumper crop with the biggest bloom we had seen in our 12 years of owning Apple Annie.

Mother Nature struck again on May 18 when southern New Hampshire experienced a very hard frost. Our young fruit could not withstand the mid-20s temperature. We lost 98 percent of the crop. For the first time we will not open for business in September. Very disheartening.

Climate change is definitely impacting farming.” Still, he notes, “Life is good. Laurie and I still enjoy our 1750 house in the middle of this pretty little orchard. Having our two young grandsons living across the street makes it even better. If your travels ever take you near Brentwood, please stop by Apple Annie for a visit.”...Steve Mortimer “had a great time in June with a number of crosscountry runners from 1969–73 who came back to campus during Reunion week. It was wonderful to spend quality time catching up, walking, running, and/or biking our old training courses, hiking in the woods, playing darts, visiting local pubs, and lots of memorysharing. Shout-out to Bob Thomas ’69 (with us in spirit), Lloyd Geggatt ’73, Jim Leahy ’71, Steve Fillow ’71, Joe Grube ’73, Joe Bradford ’73, Charlie Maddaus ’73, and John Emerson ’73.”

1973 Reunion 2028, June 9–11 CLASS SECRETARY Kaylee Masury kmasury@yahoo.com CLASS PRESIDENT Tom Carey tcarey@bates.edu For songwriter Joanne Stato, Reunion 2023 — her first, after 50 years — “was a total joy.”

She writes, “The Class of ’73 Jam organized by Sue Peirce Ursprung was a chance to play music with old friends, and it made me feel so lucky. Thanks to everybody who made it possible!” including professional photographer Mitch Grosky, “who took a ton of great pictures and even sang one song”; Sue Ursprung, who belted out a righteous “White Rabbit,” and husband Alex, a bassist; Al Gould, “who blew us away with his violin playing”; Steve Tapper, equipped with a carload of flutes; Ed Glaser, “the repository of Folk Knowledge”; Charlie Maddaus; and Stuart McConnell and his button accordions.” Joanne also thanks the Bates staff who provided a sound system and electric piano.

1974 Reunion 2024, June 7–9 CLASS SECRETARY Tina Psalidas Lamson tinal2@mac.com

As a high school student, Phil Averill helped unearth a historic settlement in Pemaquid, Maine, that eventually became the Colonial Pemaquid State Historic Site. “That sparked an interest in history that continues to this very day,” Averill told the Lincoln County News. His contributions to local history have included leading the compilation of a map of notable sites in Bristol, where he lives, and collaborating with his daughter, Erica, on a book describing local schools.

He’s currently involved in the restoration of the 19th-century Pemaquid Mill….Cindi Byrkit is “happily settling in at my newly purchased home in beautiful Poland, Maine, and very much looking forward to our 50th Reunion!”...Jackie Henrion, a writer, musician, radio personality, and business executive, has been included in the Marquis Who’s Who biographical reference. Since 1995, she has served as the chief financial officer of the EarleHenrion Investment Trust, founded jointly with her husband, Daniel Earle. Benefits offered to clients of the trust include a strategic tracking system, created by Jackie, that enables portfolios to react nimbly to changing circumstances.

Jackie has also thrived in a variety of other creative work — she is the longtime host of a show on the community radio station KRFY-FM 88.5, in Idaho, and as a singer-songwriter has released two albums, Tickle Monster and Mama Loose. She has also published two books, Rerooted and Sandpointed….

Peter and Ellen Brown Hollis had a busy spring and summer, he writes, “with many trips West and East (Utah, Seattle, Las Vegas, New Hampshire) for fishing, visiting relatives, etc.

Ellen is busy here caring for her mom, Millie — now 100!” Peter, meanwhile, crossed an item off his cycling bucket list by completing the RAMROD event — Ride Around Mount Rainier in One Day — in late September.

That involved 147 miles, 8,000 feet of elevation, and 9.25 hours.

“One and done.” They are looking forward to the 50th Reunion….

Carol Prochazka Spencer in July accomplished her goal of visiting all 50 states, albeit ending at the beginning of the alphabet. “‘Mom’s 70th Birthday Extravaganza’ trip to Alaska included my son Kyle, daughter Amy, niece Stephanie and husband Hank Kafel. Fabulous way to complete the list!”...This

1975 Reunion 2025, June 6–8 CLASS SECRETARIES Deborah Bednar Jasak Deborahjasak@gmail.com Faith Minard minardblatt@gmail.com CLASS PRESIDENTS Susie Bourgault Akie susieakie@gmail.com Janet Haines jbh580@aol.com Chuck Radis talked to the public and the news media about his latest book, John Jenkins: The Mayor of Maine, published in the spring. DownEast Magazine asked Chuck how he hoped John Jenkins ’74 would be remembered. “I hope John is remembered for his ability to overcome barriers, someone who was able to achieve a lot of his dreams — and the dreams that he didn’t achieve, he adapted,” Chuck replied. “I hope he’s remembered for his energy and his enthusiasm. And for that high-wattage smile of his.

Anybody who was in a room with him will know what I’m talking about.” Another prominent media opportunity came from 207, the local NBC-TV affiliate’s evening newsmagazine. James Reese, associate dean for international student programs at Bates, joined Chuck in sharing memories of John in that segment.

1976 Reunion 2026, June 12–14 CLASS SECRETARY Jeff Helm bateslax@gmail.com CLASS PRESIDENT Bruce Campbell brucec@maine.rr.com

join your classmates in supporting bates

SOCIAL MEDIA COORDINATORS Karen and Bill Cunningham karenlc67@gmail.com

from Rob Sollmann: “After 38 years at MetLife, followed by almost 10 at Accenture, I finally decided to put the pen down in November 2022 — well, sort of.

I stay involved at Accenture as a senior advisor, albeit part-time.”

In February Rob became an advisory partner at IA Capital Group, which partners with innovative entrepreneurs in venture and growth capital investments across insurance and financial tech. Rob is also secretary on the board of the Wilton (Conn.) Land Trust, which protects more than 800 acres of unique natural, scenic, and historical landscapes. “When not busy with these pursuits, I’m skiing, gardening, on the hunt for our next antique, or having a good laugh with the family. Life is good!”...Writing in August, Dirk Visser was looking forward to the wedding of Nicolas Visser ’18 and Molly McCoole ’21, who, he hoped, might continue the family’s Bates legacy.

bates.edu/give

CLASS PRESIDENT Don McDade mcdadecbb@gmail.com

2024 BATES FUND

bat e s no t e s

ity • community • academics • pride • knowledge • friendships • professors • arts • excellence • athletics • reputation • opportunity • students • value • loyalty • laughter • generosity • community • academics • pride • knowledge • friend ships • professors • arts • excellence • athletic • reputation • opportunity • students • value • loyalty • laughter • generosity • community • academics • pride • knowledge • friendships • p professors • arts • excellence • athletics • repu tation • opportunity • students • value • loyalt • laughter • generosity • community • academic • pride • knowledge • friendships • professors • arts • excellence • athletics • reputation • opp portunity • students • value • loyalty • laughte • generosity • community • academics • pride • knowledge • friendships • professors • arts • ex cellence • athletics • reputation • opportunity students • value • loyalty • laughter • generos ity • community • academics • pride • knowledge • friendships • professors • arts • excellence • athletics • reputation • opportunity • students • value • loyalty • laughter • generosity • community • academics • pride • knowledge • friend ships • professors • arts • excellence • athletic • reputation • opportunity • students • value • loyalty • laughter • generosity • community • academics • pride • knowledge • friendships • p professors • arts • excellence • athletics • repu tation • opportunity • students • value • loyalt • laughter • generosity • community • academic • pride • knowledge • friendships • professors • arts • excellence • athletics • reputation • opp portunity • students • value • loyalty • laughte • generosity • community • academics • pride • knowledge • friendships • professors • arts • ex cellence • athletics • reputation • opportunity students • value • loyalty • laughter • generos ity • community • academics • pride • knowledge • friendships • professors • arts • excellence • athletics • reputation • opportunity • students • value • loyalty • laughter • generosity • community • academics • pride • knowledge • friend ships • professors • arts • excellence • athletic • reputation • opportunity • students • value • loyalty • laughter • generosity • community • academics • pride • knowledge • friendships • pr professors • arts • excellence • athletics • repu tation • opportunity • students • value • loyalt • laughter • generosity • community • academic • pride • knowledge • friendships • professors • arts • excellence • athletics • reputation • opp portunity • students • value • loyalty • laughte • generosity • community • academics • pride • knowledge • friendships • professors • arts • ex cellence • athletics • reputation • opportunity students • value • loyalty • laughter • generos ity • community • academics • pride • knowledge • friendships • professors • arts • excellence • athletics • reputation • opportunity • students • value • loyalty • laughter • generosity • community • academics • pride • knowledge • friend ships • professors • arts • excellence • athletic • reputation • opportunity • students • value • loyalty • laughter • generosity • community • academics • pride • knowledge • friendships • op

CAROLINE WANDLE ’72

show time

A Doggy Dog World Caroline Haworth Wandle ’72 reports that “we’ve returned to the dog show world.” She co-owns and trains Jokuba C-Quest Calm Before The Storm, aka Mei, a Basenji who won best of breed at the Kenilworth Kennel Club of Connecticut show in July. Mei is shown with handler and co-owner Cindy Russell.

“Mei got Best of Breed that day but also achieved her Grand Champion Bronze.

She’s had a few more wins since then,” Wandle reports. “Our other Basenji, Jagger, is a retired champion who comes along to keep Mei company.”

In other news, Wandle continues genealogy research, “focusing now on my husband’s family with several discoveries of the Wandle family in New Jersey in the 1770s. Daily walks and exercise are keeping me healthy after last year’s heart attack.

And keeping in touch with Batesie classmates like Donn Brous, Jocelyn Penn Wilkins-Bowman, and Katherine Mills Meyers is great fun!”

Wendy Ault was reappointed to a second five-year term on the Maine State Board of Education, where she chairs one committee, co-chairs a second, and serves on a third. She was the associate director of admissions at the Univ. of Maine at Farmington for 17 years, concurrently serving four terms in the House of Representatives representing part of Kennebec County.

A resident of Wayne, Wendy is the executive director of the MELMAC Education Foundation.

1977 Reunion 2027, June 11–13 CLASS SECRETARY Steve Hadge schmuddy@yahoo.com

CLASS PRESIDENT Keith Taylor drkeithtaylor@msn.com George Van Hare and Middy Estabrook ’76 have made it back to New England after 35 years of bouncing between California and the Midwest. “We now live in Cambridge, Mass. Middy retired from Washington Univ. in St. Louis in March, and I have started a completely new career as a medical officer at the Food and Drug Administration in the Office of Cardiovascular Devices.

It’s a 100 percent remote work situation, so we were able to move wherever we wanted!

Enjoying the Boston area and New England, along with proximity to our sons and their families.” One of their three sons is Christopher Van Hare ’16.

1978 Reunion 2028, June 9–11 CLASS SECRETARIES Chip Beckwith chipwith@yahoo.com Ron Monroe ronmon74@yahoo.com Dave Scharn dgscharn@gmail.com CLASS PRESIDENT Chuck James cjamesjr99@gmail.com Chip Beckwith retired in March.

“I am still adjusting,” he notes. “I had a career that spanned music to librarianship to project management to advertising and sales operations. My longest and last position was in advertising and billing operations at Trusted Media Brands,” formerly known

as the Reader’s Digest Assn….

Dean Berman moved his Ocean Edge Foods office after 17 years but isn’t thinking about retiring soon, although he is doing more remote work. “Besides that, my older daughter is living my dream out in Jackson Hole, Wyo. For the last three-plus years she has worked remotely in the music tech industry, but she has a room for me and keeps a couple pairs of my skis. My son lives in Venice Beach, Calif., working for an independent production company (that doesn’t suck either) and my younger daughter lives with my wife, our dogs, and me, and teaches sixth grade at a school for the deaf 10 minutes from our house. No grandkids yet, not even a wedding.”...Dori Carlson Reinhalter and Mark “are cruising along. Retirement is soon. Grandparenting is a blast.

We’re trying to slow the ravages of time with lots of hiking, biking, yoga, and travel!”...Doug Evans is still at the Medical College of Wisconsin, running the Department of Surgery and, he writes, “building a team to hopefully conquer the challenge of pancreatic cancer. If anyone has a medical question, there may be an answer on The Word on Medicine” — a radio show that he developed that is broadcast Saturday afternoons on Milwaukee’s WISN-AM. Now numbering more than 145 episodes, podcasts of the show are available….From Danvers, Mass., Dana Forman writes: “When I’m awake, the only thing I think about is golf. When I’m asleep, the only thing I dream about is golf. And the only time golf is not on my mind is when I’m playing.”...Becki Hilfrank Ramsey retired in 2022 after more than 35 years in information technology, mostly with IBM and Centra Health, a healthcare system in central Virginia. “I am loving retirement — traveling, hiking on the Appalachian Trail, pickleball, more time to read, and in general, the freedom to do what I want on my own schedule most of the time.” She settled in Forest, Va., in the early 2000s after years of ping-ponging between South Carolina and Maine. But, she adds, “I’m lucky to have lots of family and friends to visit in Maine, so I still get my Maine fix several times a year. I feel very fortunate to keep in touch with Mary Henderson Pressman, Deni Auclair, Jacki Alpert, Melanie Parsons Paras, Susan Hannan, and Amy Gordon ’79 on a regular basis. It would have been fun to see attendees from our class at Reunion this year,” but she timed her summer visit to Maine, instead, to coincide with her father’s 96th birthday. Becki and Sherman celebrated their 40th in September….Annelisa Johnson Wagner published a novel in June. The Finest Fire is a

bat e s no t e s

class of

loving portrait of hardscrabble northern New England and, says Annelisa, “the ways in which we can build our own family and find our own place, and the tragedies that can happen if we don’t.”

Available in print and as an ebook at Amazon and Barnes & Noble, among others….Richard Johnson is still curator at Boston’s Sports Museum, a job and a vocation that have afforded him “the opportunity to write, co-author, or edit 25 books to date.” Among them are histories of each of Boston’s major pro franchises and of the Yankees, Cubs, and Dodgers; histories of Fenway Park, the Boston Marathon, and Boston Garden; and biographies of Ted Williams, Joe DiMaggio, Jackie Robinson, Harry Agganis, and Johnny Kelley. Richard’s illustrated centennial history of the Boston Bruins was slated to appear this fall. “I count myself as the lucky soul that found my true calling,” he writes, adding, “Our family welcomed our first grandchild, Miriam, in April. Days later we mailed our final mortgage payment.”...Jocelyn Kelley is in her 24th year as a resident of Charlottesville, Va., and is semi-retired from the profession of landscape architecture. She makes regular extended trips to the Northeast to visit family and friends, and traveled to Portugal and Spain in September 2022.

“I managed to avoid COVID until just before Christmas ’22,” she says….Joe Lastowski and Ann have been retired for six-plus years — “best thing ever invented,” he writes. “We have two beautiful grandkids in Denver. Big news after 27 years: Ann and I are still madly in love.”...Linda Mansfield Carroll works at a private preschool in Marblehead, Mass. “My daughter and son are married and live 20 minutes apart in Virginia. My husband, Thomas, is happily retired.”...“When my son reached Little League age, I felt obliged to act like a fan,” Todd Nelson wrote in a Portland Press Herald “Maine Voices” column in March.

Todd dutifully took the boy to a baseball clinic, which proved to reveal more personality than anything else. “We lasted three weeks at Sunday baseball. If it wasn’t helping Spencer to realize any of his talents or desires, it wasn’t useful. I could only say ‘Atta boy’ to his discovery that the play he loved could be disengaged from the competition he neither understood nor enjoyed.”...Paul and Sue Beckwith Oparowski of Grafton, Mass., are still working, but plan to retire in 2024….Third time’s the charm: Mitchell Pearce has retired for the third time from practicing and teaching chiropractic and acupuncture, all of which added up to 41 years in healthcare. He also put in 20 years, part time, in real estate.

“All three professions were very satisfying,” he writes. “I now work only 40 hours per week for USGeocoder LLC, a company my wife and I founded.” Their firm runs a customizable Geographic Information System platform that associates street addresses with latitude and longitude, USPS and US Census databases, legislative and other governmental districts, etc.

Mitchell and Maggie “have one son at the Univ. of Mass. Amherst and the Air Force ROTC, and the other in high school. Both are number one in their classes.”

Mitchell adds, “I got married 26.5 years ago to a Chinese angel. We are still in love, and I still like my mother-in-law. Life is good!”...

Sue Peillet Yule reports that she’s “trying to practice easing into retirement (not easy).” She keeps busy with grant writing (“low-bono” and pro bono) and leadership mentorship with BIPOC nonprofits that seek to change the narrative around economic equity and gun violence. She also enjoys serving on mission-focused boards, and continues to volunteer as a religious ed teacher at her parish….Ann Phillips Hotchkiss retired last year from her full-time position as a psychologist at the Univ. of New Hampshire’s Psychological and Counseling Services. But she happily continues teaching a biweekly seminar for doctoral interns at PACS. Ann also enjoys her greatly increased free time, singing in church choir, getting out into nature with a weekly walking-hiking-biking group, and visiting regularly with her 94-year-old dad. A peak 2022 event was a three-generation bicycle trip on Lake Champlain’s islands with partner Chuck ’76, their two sons and daughters-inlaw, and two grandsons. “The next three-gen trip is in the works!”...Lynn Pittsinger moved to Bellingham, Wash., in 2018 to be closer to family and to work for the local health department.

But, she writes, “after working for the Whatcom County health department throughout the pandemic in charge of testing and vaccination, I moved to Seattle. I work for Seattle Children’s in the Odessa Brown clinics and at the Garfield High School teen clinic providing pediatric and adolescent primary care, as well as mental healthcare. I have enjoyed attending Mariners games (vs. the Red Sox, of course) with my children and grandchildren, and have delighted in swimming, bicycling, kayaking, and hiking.”

Four children and four grandchildren reside in Washington state, and three children and three grandchildren in Massachusetts and Vermont….

Jean Roy retired after 34 years of teaching French and Spanish in Maine public schools, in

takeaway: Jim Nutting

JIM NUTTING

1976

media outlet: Maine Home+Design

headline:

All things bright and beautiful

takeaway: There are great rewards in creating, collecting, and sharing nature and art Maine Art Glass in Lisbon Falls, where Jim Nutting ’76 operates his stained-glass studio and gallery, was featured in Maine Home+Design.

Housed in a former church, Nutting’s business also features his Butterfly and Insect Museum. Here, he poses with some insect friends, Australian walking sticks. “My entire life, I’ve collected anything that has to do with natural history,” he said.

Reporter Katy Kelleher noted that even upon her arrival, she did not “grasp the magnitude of what Nutting has done with Maine Art Glass.

He’s taken what was once a small, Lewistonbased company and turned it into a sprawling, multistory gallery, workshop, library, and museum.

Not everything is for sale, but everything...is certainly worth seeing.”

Nutting is also a teacher, giving lessons on how to create stained-glass artwork. “I love crafting. I love making things. I love collecting things and I enjoy sharing it and teaching it,” he said.

Fall 2023

69

rim shot Chris Tegeler Beneman cbeneman@gmail.com

BOB MULDOON ’81

CLASS PRESIDENT Mary Mihalakos Martuscello mary@martuscellolaw.com

Cats in the Canyon A mile deep during his descent into the Grand Canyon, Bob Muldoon ’81 bumped into Cody Tracey ’15, ascending, on the Bright Angel Trail.

“Some good Bobcat karma gave a faltering Muldoon the energy to stay the course,” says Muldoon, who lives in Boston. Tracey lives in Portland, Ore.

Farmington and later in Lewiston. Meanwhile, “I was active with the Maine Education Assn. as the president of my local chapter for multiple years and on the Board of Directors at the state level for seven years,” she writes. “I also was a representative at the National Education Assn. conferences for 12 years.” Her record as a labor representative and certification chair led the governor’s office to ask that she apply for a six-year term as labor representative at the Maine Unemployment Insurance Commission in 2016.

“During my last two years on the commission, there was a tenfold increase in the number of appeals due to the pandemic, so my term ended with a flurry in September 2022. I am now enjoying my second retirement. I live about a mile up the road from Bates and cheer on the Bobcat athletes running in my neighborhood while I’m out walking.”...Dave Skinner writes that seven years into retirement, “I have been immersed in the music business and am once again on good terms with my saxophones!”

1979

CLASS PRESIDENT Patrick Murphy patrickm@paceengrs.com Allyson Anderson-Sterling wrote in August: “Summer has been filled with great travel with my husband, Rick,” including an RV trip to the Shenandoah Valley and biking through Glacier National Park. “Looking forward to getting together with field hockey ‘Group’ friends on the Cape in September.”...Bill Bogle was looking forward to retiring in the fall after 37 years with the consulting firm NEPC in Boston.

He and Gail have moved to Nantucket full time — “and that means I’ve been able to get back into the radio business. You can hear me on the weekends on 97.7 ACK-FM,” the island’s album-oriented alternative station. “We hope to spend most of next winter in Florida.”...Mary Raftery retired from Pine Point School in Stonington, Conn., on July 30, “after 40 years of teaching and learning and coaching. Working hard to keep track of the days of the week!

Looking forward to seeing everyone next June.”

Reunion 2024, June 7–9

1980

CLASS SECRETARY Mary Raftery mgraftery@gmail.com

Reunion 2025, June 6–8

70

Fall 2023

CLASS SECRETARY

Judith Allen was among the 80 exceptional scientists elected in June as Fellows of the Royal Society, the U.K.’s national academy of sciences and the oldest science academy in continuous existence. Judith is a professor of immunobiology at England’s Univ. of Manchester, where her lab investigates host immune response to parasite infection, particularly the characteristic mammalian response to large multicellular parasites. Judi became professor at Manchester in 2005, and in 2016 joined the Faculty of Life Sciences. She and Jeffrey Cooper ’78 live in Manchester. ...

Emerson Baker, a professor of history at Salem State Univ., was among scholars who spoke with the Sun Journal in April about the name of a prominent natural feature in Maine. Merrymeeting Bay is the confluence of six watercourses, including the Androscoggin River, but historians these days reject the long-held idea that the name arose from the meeting of the waters. The current thinking is that its origins lie instead in gatherings of Native Americans and Europeans for revels of a kind known in the 17th century as “merry meetings.”...

John Elsesser retired as town manager of Coventry, Conn., after 35 years there and a total of 42 years in town manager roles in the state….Lisa Stifler O’Hanlon reported a summer gathering of classmates at Sebasco, on the Maine coast. Kim Donahue, Katy Reid, Gail Cushman Rose, and Lisa “all enjoyed Bates memories and Maine together!”

1981 Reunion 2026, June 12–14 CLASS SECRETARY Cheryl Andrews dr.cheryl.andrews@gmail.com CLASS PRESIDENT Hank Howie hhowie@gmail.com Writing in August, Sue Lovett was proud to announce that the Bates College Store now carries her book Proof or Consequences! A Humorous Look at Typos, Misspellings, Wrong Words, and Misplaced Punctuation. Sue added that she spent a “wonderful, laugh-filled” summer weekend on Lake Sunapee with Betsy Kennedy and Mindy Hanssen ’80 — “not to mention good times at Portland Sea Dogs games with Felicia Garant ’82, and Tom and Lori Norman Campbell, both ’82.” She and Felicia joined still more Bates friends at the annual mini-Reunion luncheon hosted

by Melissa Weisstuch ’82 and husband Josh. Also attending were Patti Lane ’81 and Julia Palmer ’82. And that wasn’t all: Sue planned to have a blast at the extravaganza that Brad Fenn throws every September.

“Now aren’t I just the social butterfly?”...Brian McBride has enjoyed his first year of retirement from Thermo Fisher Scientific, “leaving behind the mad rush of back-to-back conference calls, crowded planes, and quarterly metrics.

Some boredom, but a handful of volunteer gigs has been very rewarding.”

1982 Reunion 2027, June 11–13 CLASS PRESIDENT Neil Jamieson neil@southernmainelaw.com Retired from a career in information technology and living in Highlands Ranch, Colo., Barbara Bielinski spoke to a Guiding Eyes for the Blind newswriter about her second guide dog, a black Lab called Kenneth. “Kenneth is a wonderful and extremely proud guide dog. He has an abundance of energy and always keeps me safe. However, he is still very much a puppy when not working.

My first guide dog, Loretta, also a black Lab, was just 51 pounds.

In contrast, Kenneth is tall and solid, almost the size of a city bus.

Despite his size he still manages to tuck himself at my feet when traveling by plane.”...Ray Campbell reports: “I wrapped up my career in Massachusetts state government in early 2023, and now I am teaching at Harvard’s T. H. Chan School of Public Health, where my work focuses on health data and public policy.”...

In an exclusive interview for Forbes with New York Times bestselling author MeiMei Fox, Jean Joyce Thompson Deloucas sketched out the history of Seattle Chocolate since she became owner and CEO, 21 years ago. And she offered advice to young people looking to align their careers with their sense of purpose, as she has done. “Try lots of jobs and expose yourself to different industries,” she said.

“You will quickly discover what you enjoy doing the most — your genius. Then commit yourself to spending most of your time in that genius zone. Your life purpose will come when it comes; there’s no deadline or right time to learn this.”...At the Tokyo Marathon, in March, Jon Marcus joined the ranks of runners who have finished all six World Marathon Majors: Berlin, Boston, Chicago, London, New York, and Tokyo….Joyce White Vance is a prolific contributor to Substack, the online showcase for great writing. Launched in summer 2022, her site Civil

mini-reunion no. 1

bat e s no t e s

ROBIN WATERMAN ’85

Discourse explores intersections of law, politics, and culture — or, as the description states, the site is your source for “the legal knowledge and analysis you need to be an advocate for democracy, along with a dose of savvy optimism.” As we approached deadline, Civil Discourse had more than 152,000 subscribers.

1983 Reunion 2028, June 9–11 CLASS SECRETARY Leigh Peltier leighp727@gmail.com CLASS PRESIDENTS PJ Dearden tribecapj@yahoo.com Bill Zafirson bzaf@maine.rr.com Class Secretary Leigh Peltier sends her thanks to all the classmates who made it to Reunion. “We had such a great turnout, which helped make it the best Reunion yet. CoPresidents PJ Dearden and Bill Zafirson were instrumental in bringing the fun, and Terry Welch and Nancy Blackburn Sparks worked hard on the gift committee side. It was truly a group effort. Thanks team!

Looking forward to 2028.”...

Andrea Gelfuso Goetz is spending a year in Europe: first in Malta, where “a chance meeting led to being an extra in a Maltese movie,” and now in Cambridge, “where I’m writing my third book. My first, My Modena: A Year of Fear, Laughter, and Exhilaration in Italy is available on Amazon, and my second, Zuri the Zebra and the Seasons of Giving, a funny kids’ book about the excesses of the holidays, will be published in November.” Andrea teaches wind law and energy law in a master’s program at the Texas A&M Univ. School of Law. She adds, “I was sorry to miss Reunion, but was excited to attend my son’s Ph.D. graduation.”...Kevin Raye joined the board of directors of MEMIC, which provides workers’ compensation insurance for Maine and 45 other states, in June. Kevin co-owns and is chairman of Raye’s Mustard Mill, a family business located Down East in Maine that operates North America’s last traditional stone-ground mustard mill. He is also a real estate broker, and served eight years in the Maine Senate….Matt Twomey, former president of the Bates Sailing Club, raced his Concordia yawl Sisyphus in five summer events before cruising to Nantucket to serve as a spectator boat at the Opera House Cup in mid-August.

Amidst competitor vessels he describes as “gorgeous antique maritime beauties,” Matt took part in four Maine races and the Corinthian Classic Yacht Regatta, hosted by the Corinthian Yacht

Aurora Batesiana Robin Waterman ’85 shares appreciation for the chance to stay connected to Bates by having students as Purposeful Work interns at the nonprofit she founded in 2007, the Aurora (Colo.) Community Connection Family Resource Center, which supports access to healthcare and education in Aurora and Denver.

“It was great to get together at the home of Bill Hiss ’66 near campus for a fabulous meal in fall 2022.” Shown from left are Fernando Rojas ’22, Hiss, Elizabeth Gallegos Rodriguez ’26, Martha Reyes ’23, and Waterman.

Last summer, reports Waterman, “Elizabeth coordinated a program for teenagers from immigrant families, working as a one-on-one mentor, equipping them to have the strongest application to college possible. The program was extremely successful: More than 20 teens participated every week, and we had weekly workshops for parents.”

Club in Marblehead, Mass….

Albert Waitt released a mystery novel during the spring. The Ruins of Woodman’s Village is the first in a series featuring the police chief in a tourist destination not unlike Albert’s own town, Kennebunkport, Maine. In March, on the Maine Crime Writers blog, he explained how the book’s origin lay in a story he heard, about a neighboring town, from a couple of regulars while tending bar.

A friend’s mother was a psychic, they said, and “whenever this woman drove through Kennebunk, she became anxious and uneasy on one particular section of road. Even in quiet York County there are unsolved murders, and it turned out that a main suspect in one of them lived at the spot where their friend’s mother never failed to become unsettled. Upon hearing this, my ‘writer’s brain’ kicked into action.”

1984 Reunion 2024, June 7–9

CLASS SECRETARY Heidi Lovett blueoceanheidi@aol.com Julie Jackson Flynn and her family attended the men’s tennis finals at the International Hall of Fame in Newport, R.I., in July….Michael Katz, a physician practicing in Wilmington, Del., was nominated by the Independent Party of Delaware in July as its 2024 candidate for U.S. senator. In an address at the party convention, according to radio station WGMDFM, Michael said that that dysfunction and divisiveness in U.S. governance are due “to the two major political parties who have the core value of winning. As an independent, I have not pledged my allegiance to any political party, but to the core values of the U.S. Constitution, liberty, justice, and equality.”...Ann Kranjec Fortescue was elected president of the Texas Assn. of Museums during the summer. President and executive director of the International Museum of Art

& Science in McAllen, she’ll represent IMAS and south Texas on the association’s board of directors for the 2023–25 term. Ann joined IMAS in 2019 with more than 35 years’ museum experience, most recently as executive director of the Springfield Museum of Art in Ohio. She and Jeff Fortescue live in McAllen….

Brian McGrory, former Boston Globe editor and now chairman of the Boston Univ. journalism department, received the Stephen Hamblett First Amendment Award from the New England First Amendment Coalition in June. In accepting the honor, Brian said that while journalism as an industry faces serious challenges — including “the fact that entire swaths of the nation seem receptive to the ludicrous pitch that we are the enemy of the people” — the profession remains essential during “a time of conspiracy theories and alternative facts and flat-out lies.”...Artemis Susan Preeshl describes her 2023 as “quite engaging.” Her academic presentations included

Fall 2023

71

bates offers professional development at any stage of your career bates.edu/professional-development

YOUR CAREER

y • community • academics • pride • knowledge friendships • professors • arts • excellence • thletics • reputation • opportunity • students value • loyalty • laughter • generosity • comunity • academics • pride • knowledge • friendhips • professors • arts • excellence • athletics reputation • opportunity • students • value • oyalty • laughter • generosity • community • cademics • pride • knowledge • friendships • p rofessors • arts • excellence • athletics • repuation • opportunity • students • value • loyalty laughter • generosity • community • academics pride • knowledge • friendships • professors • rts • excellence • athletics • reputation • opportunity • students • value • loyalty • laughter generosity • community • academics • pride • nowledge • friendships • professors • arts • exellence • athletics • reputation • opportunity • tudents • value • loyalty • laughter • generosy • community • academics • pride • knowledge friendships • professors • arts • excellence • thletics • reputation • opportunity • students value • loyalty • laughter • generosity • comunity • academics • pride • knowledge • friendhips • professors • arts • excellence • athletics reputation • opportunity • students • value • oyalty • laughter • generosity • community • cademics • pride • knowledge • friendships • p rofessors • arts • excellence • athletics • repuation • opportunity • students • value • loyalty laughter • generosity • community • academics pride • knowledge • friendships • professors • rts • excellence • athletics • reputation • opportunity • students • value • loyalty • laughter generosity • community • academics • pride • nowledge • friendships • professors • arts • exellence • athletics • reputation • opportunity • tudents • value • loyalty • laughter • generosy • community • academics • pride • knowledge friendships • professors • arts • excellence • thletics • reputation • opportunity • students value • loyalty • laughter • generosity • comunity • academics • pride • knowledge • friendhips • professors • arts • excellence • athletics reputation • opportunity • students • value • oyalty • laughter • generosity • community • cademics • pride • knowledge • friendships • pro rofessors • arts • excellence • athletics • repuation • opportunity • students • value • loyalty laughter • generosity • community • academics pride • knowledge • friendships • professors • rts • excellence • athletics • reputation • opportunity • students • value • loyalty • laughter generosity • community • academics • pride • nowledge • friendships • professors • arts • exellence • athletics • reputation • opportunity • tudents • value • loyalty • laughter • generosy • community • academics • pride • knowledge friendships • professors • arts • excellence • thletics • reputation • opportunity • students value • loyalty • laughter • generosity • comunity • academics • pride • knowledge • friendhips • professors • arts • excellence • athletics reputation • opportunity • students • value • oyalty • laughter • generosity • community • cademics • pride • knowledge • friendships • opp

“Implied Nasality in the Tilde by Character Gender and Status in Ippolito Salviani’s La Ruffiana” at the Voice and Speech Trainers Assn. conference in La Paz, Mexico, and “I Do — With Strings Attached” at the Renaissance Society of America conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Routledge published both Artemis’ chapter “Undervalued, Underpaid, Underappreciated: Lived Experiences of Adjunct Faculty in Performing Arts” in the book Futures of Performance: The Responsibilities of Performing Arts in Higher Education, and the paperback edition of her book Consent in Shakespeare: What Women Do and Don’t Say and Do in Shakespeare’s Mediterranean Plays and Origin Stories. Artemis’ article “Influence of Climate Change on Accent,” specifically Hoi Toider accents, was published

by The Academic. Finally, the Pilgrim’s Reception Office in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, granted Artemis the Compostela, certifying completion of the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage….

Stephanie Richards moved to Nashville and is recruiting for the biomedical doctoral programs at Vanderbilt Univ. She previously taught biology in Maine, putting in five years each at Bates and Bowdoin. “While I miss teaching,” she reports, “I still get to interact with undergraduates and potential applicants, and I get to travel a fair bit. And no snow-blowing necessary in Nashville!”...Jeff Trombly was promoted to Medicare insurance specialist at Ledyard Financial Advisors, part of a regional firm headquartered in Hanover, N.H. Jeff, who has more than 30 years’ experience in financial services, will continue his duties as senior portfolio manager while developing the new role of Medicare insurance specialist.

He and Judy live in New London, N.H., and have two children.

1985 Reunion 2025, June 6–8 CLASS SECRETARY Elissa Bass bass.elissa@yahoo.com CLASS PRESIDENT Lisa Virello virello@comcast.net Michael Acton, managing director of AEW Capital Management, appeared on the WMRE’s Common Area podcast in June to discuss investment opportunities within the current real estate market. He and host David Bodamer looked at themes including the types of properties — and strategies — that currently drive those opportunities, and what opportunities exist within the disconnect between listed and private real estate….John Kroger left the Maine mountains

for an island when he became medical director of the Islands Community Medical Center on Vinalhaven in February. “It has been a lifelong dream of my wife, Christina Martin Kroger ’84, to live on an island, and she will finally get her dream,” John says.

“I have practiced rural medicine in Rumford for nearly 30 years, despite Bill Scott’s article in The Bates Student when we were seniors decrying the evils of the paper industry — and the article included a large photo of the mill in Rumford.” John gave up obstetrics in the transition, having delivered 544 babies in Maine and 673 altogether. He adds, “Our youngest has started college, so our nine children will have to travel to the island to visit us.”...Michael Aram Wolohojian, the award-winning designer of metalware, home accessories, and fine jewelry who does business as Michael Aram, Inc., has been appointed honorary consul of the Republic of Armenia in Florida. He lives in Palm Beach.

1986 Reunion 2026, June 12–14 CLASS SECRETARY Erica Seifert Plunkett ericasplunkett@gmail.com CLASS PRESIDENTS Bill Walsh messagebill@gmail.com Catherine Lathrop Strahan catstrahan@gmail.com Deborah Hansen marked a standout anniversary during summer 2023 as her restaurant, Taberna de Haro, celebrated 25 years in business. Located on Beacon Street in Brookline, Mass., the taverna accompanies Spanish specialities with a comprehensive Spanish wine selection. Deborah offered “festivities and special tastings of Spanish wines from the reserve cellar to commemorate the quarter-century milestone,” she writes. “Hope to see lots of Bates friends this year — you know where to find me!”...

Loriman Looke shared the sad news that his wife, Lisa Klingler Looke ’87, died in April after being diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer in December 2021. He was very appreciative of the strong contingent of Bates friends that attended her celebration of life held in Blue Hill, Maine, in July: Virginia Berman ’87, Doug Bolton, John Kendall, Nicolas Lindholm, Kimberly Lopes ’87, Michael Meehan, Bette Smith ’87, Steve Sughrue, and Bob Watson….

Writing in Forbes last May, Lumina Foundation President Jamie Merisotis described how certain colleges are bucking declining enrollments by putting students’ needs first.

“My immigrant parents were

bat e s no t e s

determined that my brothers and I would get our degrees even though they had no postsecondary experience of their own. They did know that it opened doors — as it did for me when I graduated from Bates.”

1987 Reunion 2027, June 11–13 CLASS SECRETARY Val Brickates Kennedy brickates@gmail.com CLASS PRESIDENT Erica Rowell ericarowell@mac.com Still in Atlanta, Richard Barnard has retired and is proud to announce that his older son, T. Foster Barnard, graduated summa cum laude from the Univ. of Georgia.

1988 Reunion 2028, June 9–11 EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE Astrid Delfino-Bernard flutistastrid@sbcglobal.net Ruth Garretson Cameron ruth.eg.cameron@gmail.com Mary Capaldi Gonzales mary.capaldi.gonzales@gmail.com Steve Lewis mojofink@gmail.com Julie Sutherland-Platt julielsp@verizon.net Lisa Romeo romeoli66@gmail.com “We had a great Reunion,” says Laura Young. But that’s not all the excitement recent times have brought. “Lots of changes for me,” she reports. “Wedding in August to Scott, new job, kids graduated from college, and we traveled to France with Rene and Mary Capaldi Gonzales for classmate Tracy CamenischSmith’s wedding.”

1989 Reunion 2024, June 7–9 CLASS SECRETARY Sara Hagan Cummings cummings5clan@gmail.com STEERING COMMITTEE Sally Ehrenfried sjehrenfried@gmail.com Deb Schiavi Cote debscote@yahoo.com On the basis of his “stellar careers as a pro tennis player and college coach,” as the Sun Journal wrote, Bates’ longtime tennis coach Paul Gastonguay was inducted into the Maine Tennis Hall of Fame in April.

Among supporters and mentors who helped Paul along the way, he cited his own Bates coach, the late George Wigton, and former tennis pro Buddy Schultz ’81. Of course, there was also his father, Jean, who ran a Lewiston city rec department tennis program.

Paul and brother Mark “would

be with (our dad) all morning during the clinics, and then we would go back and play in the afternoon. (My dad) was a great coach.” Later in the spring, Paul was named the Intercollegiate Tennis Assn.’s Division III Northeast Regional Wilson ITA Coach of the Year for men’s and women’s tennis — the third time he has received the men’s award and his first time earning the women’s.

1990 Reunion 2025, June 6–8 CLASS SECRETARY Joanne Walton joannewalton2003@yahoo.com In August, Tina Brickley Engberg received the 2023 Outstanding Service Award from the International Dyslexia Assn.’s Georgia Branch. Volunteering as state leader for Decoding Dyslexia Georgia, she worked on Georgia’s 2019 law requiring the identification of and support for K–3 students with dyslexia, and followed that law’s implementation. Also in August, Tina began a Master’s in Reading Science program at Mount St. Joseph Univ. She says, “I’ve been studying reading science for 12 years now and am excited about the challenges that going back to school will present.”...

CJ Conrad became senior vice president of operations and innovation at Middlesex Federal, a bank headquartered in Somerville, Mass. Appointed to the post in June, CJ is responsible for advancing the bank’s digital capabilities and evaluating its products, processes, and platforms. CJ is “committed to preserving the personal, human element that our customers expect from their local community bank while improving digital transformation and the overall customer experience,” stated President and CEO John Wiseman….Paul Ippolito, a managing director for JP Morgan Chase in Larchmont, N.Y., was recognized on Forbes’ 2023 list of Best-in-State Wealth Advisors….Anne Jamieson Waehner reports that her firm, Galt and Co., was acquired in 2022 by Alix Partners, where she is now a people business senior manager. She adds, “My older son is a rising sophomore at Fordham Univ. and my younger son is a rising high school junior in Guilford, Conn.”

Anne has enjoyed seeing Beth Golden, CJ Conrad, and Dave Barzelay in recent months….

Dan Swartz became the media and communications coordinator for the U.N. International Organization for Migration office in Budapest, Hungary, in April. “Most of our work these days is assisting refugees from the war in Ukraine with shelter, mental health and protection

services, legal aid, food and non-food items, social inclusion, and assisted voluntary return for third-country nationals,” he writes. “We also work on counter-trafficking and preventing the labor exploitation of migrants.”...Angela Twitchell became program director for the Maine Land Trust Network in September. Angela came to MLTN from the BrunswickTopsham Land Trust, where she spent 15 years as executive director. She grew up not far from campus in Turner, where thanks to her father’s business, Twitchell’s Airport, she enjoyed unusual opportunities to visit remote lakes and ponds. “I knew from a young age that I wanted to go into an environmental field,” she says….Christopher von Jako became chief executive of Polarean Imaging in June.

Based in North Carolina, the firm creates medical imaging technology with a pulmonary focus. Chris previously served as president and CEO of BrainsWay, a global leader in advanced non-invasive neurostimulation treatments, and worked earlier at medical device company Dynatronics and the imaging firm NinePoint Medical.

1991 Reunion 2026, 12–14 CLASS SECRETARY Katie Tibbetts Gates kathryntgates@gmail.com CLASS PRESIDENT John Ducker jducker1@yahoo.com Across the river from campus, Tim Cowan ran for the Ward 2 seat on the Auburn City Council.

Director of community health surveillance and evaluation at MaineHealth, Tim told the Sun Journal that if elected councilor, he would bring a collaborative approach to addressing the city’s needs and goals, while “at the same time considering the impact on Auburn’s natural resources and the effective use of municipal funds.” Tim and Marianne Nolan Cowan ’92, associate director of program design for Bates’ Center for Purposeful Work and a visiting lecturer in the humanities, have two children….Musician Corey Harris was in New England in June, bringing his wide-ranging acoustic blues to the Belleville Congregational Church in Newburyport, Mass., on the 17th.

In advancing the show, the local Daily News mentioned his most recent album, Insurrection Blues, noting that the “songs are full of topical relevance, yet steeped in tradition and informed by his musical explorations over the decades.” Taking place on Juneteenth weekend, the concert concluded the church’s Roots Music Series for the season….

After a stellar career as a coach of women’s basketball, most recently at Dartmouth, Adrienne Shibles returned to Bates in July as associate director of athletics.

A member of the Maine Sports and Maine Basketball halls of fame, she was Bowdoin College’s winningest women’s basketball coach, with a 281-67 record in her 12 seasons there. At Bates, Adrienne provides strategic leadership in advancing studentathlete programs — focusing on leadership development, academic success, health and well-being, and equity and inclusion. “We are absolutely thrilled to welcome Adrienne back to Bates,” said Bates Director of Athletics Jason Fein.

Adrienne and Kirk Daulerio are the parents of Madeline Daulerio and Elsa Daulerio ’26….Martina Todd Richards writes: “Hello Class of 1991! So happy to still be in close contact with classmates and former roommates Jenny Ketterer and Anne Peterson.”

Martina lives in Mumbai and notes that she reconnected briefly with Kankana Das and Jon Custis. She works remotely with U.S. Veterans Affairs and Paul works at the American School of Bombay. Martina adds: “Adrienne Shibles — welcome back to Bates!” Zachariah Richards ’26 “is there with your daughter and arrives early at all the basketball games to get courtside seats. Have a great first season back!”

1992 Reunion 2027, June 11–13 EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE Ami Berger ami_berger@hotmail.com Kristin Bierly Magendantz kmagendantz@comcast.net Kristen Downs Bruno Kris10DBruno@gmail.com Roland Davis roldav92@gmail.com Peter Friedman peter.friedman@alum.dartmouth.org Leyla Morrissey Bader leyla.bader@gmail.com Jeff Mutterperl jeffmutterperl@gmail.com The Rev. Alison Buttrick Patton moved to Maine to take the position of senior pastor at the First Congregational Church–United Church of Christ in South Portland. The move came 11 years after Alison became pastor of the historic Saugatuck Congregational Church in Westport, Conn. It’s an opportune time for the move, Alison told the Westport Journal, with one Patton child beginning senior year in college and the other having graduated from high school in June. Husband Craig ’91 is a writer who focuses on the role played by oceans in the climate crisis….Karen Davis Sims was promoted to

Fall 2023

73

bate s no t e s

chief medical officer at Arbutus Biopharma Corp., a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company based in Warminster, Pa., that develops novel therapeutics for specific viral diseases. Karen joined Arbutus in April 2017 and prior to her promotion served as vice president for clinical development. She has more than 12 years’ industry experience in conducting and overseeing clinical trials. Prior to Arbutus, Karen worked at Bristol-Myers Squibb for seven years….In 2022, Stephen Goodwin writes, he and former roommate Craig D’Ambrosia “had the wonderful opportunity to travel to the Twin Cities to attend the 30th Anniversary Fan Fest of the Minnesota Twins World Series triumph. (We were supposed to attend in 2021 but like everything back then, the pandemic forced its postponement.) Craig and I had a wonderful time catching up with one another but also meeting our hardball heroes of yesteryear including Greg Gagne, Al Newman, and Dan Gladden.

We try to catch a Twins game every year at Fenway together, but this trip took it to another level.”...Bill Guidera moved to Richmond, Va. “Nice town, but if I could, I’d be back on campus playing rugby once more with Tad, Took, Tres” — aka Tad Stewart, John Tooker, and Tres Mahland — “and the boys!”...

Michael Lieber is loving the fact that he’s got a new reason to come back to campus, with daughter Sarah Lieber ’26 beginning her sophomore year....

Erin Lydon is president of Poker Power, which teaches poker skills to women as a path to self-fulfillment and success at the gaming table and beyond.

Along with Poker Power founders Jenny Just and Juliette Hulsizer, Erin spoke with the gaming news site Cardplaying Lifestyle in March. She used her own experience to illustrate the empowerment the game can provide: “I will never forget the feeling of winning my first ‘all-in’ pot of chips. That feeling of adrenaline, confidence, and competence is what we replicate for our community across all of our programs around the globe every day.”...Jeff Mutterperl and Valerie lunched with Lisa Fox Riley during their summer vacation in Camden, Maine. En route back to New York, they met Rob Peterson and Lisa Aubin for lunch in Massachusetts. Jeff and Valerie spent the following weekend in Rhode Island helping Jackson Marvel ’95 celebrate his 50th birthday, joined by Brian Ketchum ’96 and Erin Driscoll ’97….Richard Samuelson is an associate professor of government at the Washington, D.C., campus of Hillsdale College. Richard discussed his perceptions of challenges facing the U.S. with

74

Fall 2023

Hungarian Conservative. Asked what “virtues and attitudes” he believed might restore earlier U.S. values, he replied: “A free and democratic republic without an education that inspires young citizens to love their country and to desire to keep it worth loving on the one hand, and, on the other, raising such citizens without a serious religious education is unlikely to produce anything good or lasting. It is more likely to produce ingrates rather than virtuous citizens.”...

Richard Sautter visited Brunswick, Maine, for Civil War–related programs in July.

An actor, director, and instructor in theater at Gettysburg College, Richard offered a lectureslideshow on American theater during the war (including Abraham Lincoln’s relationship to the theater, and the Booth family of actors), and performed his one-man show Addressing Gettysburg, or Swimming to the High-Water Mark, which explores the experience of living near Gettysburg’s historic and much-visited Cemetery Ridge.

“We had solid turnouts and audience members gave great feedback,” he says. “One of the joys of the experience was reconnecting with Larissa Vigue Picard,” executive director of the Pejepscot Historical Center, which hosted the programs.

1993 Reunion 2028, June 9–11 CLASS PRESIDENTS Lauren Fine laurenkimfine@gmail.com Rebecca Throop rebecca@envhs.com Colleen Donahue McCretton cmccretton@yahoo.com

1994 Reunion 2024, June 7–9 CLASS PRESIDENTS Courtney Landau Fleisher courtney.fleisher@gmail.com Jonathan Lewis jlewjlew@mac.com Gene McCabe, head men’s lacrosse coach at Washington and Lee Univ., was named 2023’s Old Dominion Athletic Conference Coach of the Year — the third time he has received that honor.

Gene led the Generals to a program-record 18 wins during the 2022–23 season. The Blue & White wrapped the regular season ranking ninth in the U.S. Intercollegiate Lacrosse Assn. Division III poll and nabbed the conference title with a 12-11 win over top-seeded Univ. of Lynchburg. Over his 17 seasons as the Generals’ top general, McCabe has led W&L to four ODAC Tournament championships and seven trips to the NCAA Division III Tournament….Sara Rothman

became a senior project manager at CuliNEX, a consultancy specializing in the formulation of plant-based and “clean label” foods, in June. A Seattle resident, she brought more than 15 years’ food product and project management experience to the firm, based in Tukwila, Wash. She serves on the board of Project Feast, a nonprofit that empowers refugee and immigrant cooks by preparing them for culinary careers and food entrepreneurship.

1995 Reunion 2025, June 6–8 CLASS PRESIDENTS Jason Verner jcv@nbgroup.com Deb Verner debverner@gmail.com Lisa Bayless discovered early on that “there is a considerable amount of overlap between real estate, social work, and counseling,” she told the Arizona news organization Explorer last winter. “I began to understand that real estate is as much about people as it is about the commodity itself.…It’s all about understanding what people need, solving problems, and finding clients a place that they can call home, which really isn’t that much different from social work.” Known for her local philanthropy, Bayless is a topselling agent in the Tucson area.

1996 Reunion 2026, June 12–14 CLASS PRESIDENTS Ayesha Farag ayesha.farag@gmail.com Jay Lowe jameslowemaine@yahoo.com Amanda Barney became assistant superintendent for curriculum and assessment at New York state’s Seaford Union Free School District in July.

She came to Seaford from the Syosset district, where she was the K–12 coordinator of English.

A highlight of her career to date, she told the Long Island Media Group, was serving as a Washington Teaching Ambassador Fellow for the U.S. Department of Education Department in 2016–17. Amanda is pursuing a doctorate in transformational leadership from Long Island Univ.…Known as a muralist whose public art projects inspire enthusiastic community participation, Caren Frost Olmsted led the creation of a mural in Newton, N.J., during the summer. The piece, which spells “Newton” with block letters inset with scenes from the town, is among improvements funded by a state Neighborhood Preservation Program grant. Caren launched

Olmstead Mural Group after working as a theatrical set and lighting designer and as an art educator.

1997 Reunion 2027, June 11–13 CLASS SECRETARIES Todd Zinn tmzinn@hotmail.com CLASS PRESIDENT Stuart Abelson sabelson@oraclinical.com Kiersten Scarpati, director of finance at the Westbrook, Maine, digital marketing firm VONT, has completed a doctorate in business administration at Wilmington Univ….Well-known as a writer and illustrator of books for children, Matt Tavares published his first graphic novel in March. Inspired by a true story, Hoops depicts a high school girls basketball team striving for gender equality in mid-1970s Indiana. In April, in a blog published by Teaching Books, Matt offered a sort of how-to guide for aspiring graphic novelists. There he broke the process down into five steps inspired by advice from his father, Manuel J. Tavares: “Figure out a system that works for you, and then: divide and conquer.”...Jeremy Villano, Elida Cruz, and 12-year-old Tavo left N.Y.C. after 25 years, he writes, “and moved — to Chappaqua! At 18 I swore I’d never return to the ’burbs, but the time was right, we all needed a little more space, and the city was killing my sense of humor. We’ve exchanged the best delivery food on the planet, in Brooklyn, for gardening, hammocks, deer, foxes, coyotes and bobcats. And with more space comes another rescue puppy! Rio has joined 6-year-old Ziggy to make this house just a little bit more nuts.”...Alysia Wurst Love joined GoldenTree Asset Management, a global asset management firm in N.Y.C., as chief talent officer and partner in July. Alysia focuses on human capital strategy, encompassing talent acquisition, development, performance coaching, and mentorship.

She came to GoldenTree from the leadership advisory firm Ellery Street, and was previously a senior principal at ghSMART….“It’s been quite a year,” reports Melissa Young Thaxton. “In August 2022, I was diagnosed with an extremely rare cancer and have spent the last year dealing with surgery, aggressive chemo, and a year or so of immunotherapy treatments. After a four-month medical leave from teaching, I returned last March to finish the academic year. The long-term prognosis is good, but there are always minor setbacks along the

CLASS COMMITTEE Doug Beers douglas.beers@gmail.com Liam Clarke ldlc639@gmail.com Rob Curtis robcurtis@eatonvance.com Renee Leduc rleducclarke@gmail.com Tyler Munoz tylermunoz@gmail.com Dean Blackey, managing director at the Massachusetts firm R. W. Holmes Commercial Real Estate (Garry Holmes ’86, president) was interviewed about the shortage of manufacturing space by Boston Real Estate Times for a video published in July. Dean explained that one factor contributing to the scarcity is simply that there are more kinds of business competing for space nowadays.

“You might have a biotech company looking at it. You might have a robotics company looking at it,” he explained, adding, “You can’t discount recreational uses” — he and a manufacturer client learned that the competitor for a site they wanted was hoping to use it for pickleball….A winner in May’s Democratic primary for judicial candidates in Philadelphia, Jessica Brown was on the ballot for positions on the Court of Common Pleas in November.

She was elected and will take office in January. An attorney at Willig, Williams & Davidson since 2018, she handles litigation and similar work in the civil arena. She previously worked in the U.S. Department of Labor’s Solicitor’s Office, and began her career practicing criminal law as a trial attorney at the Defender Assn. of Philadelphia.

She spent her last two years at the Defender Assn. representing children charged as adults and handling other high-profile juvenile matters….Responding to a Washington Post editorial in May advocating a businessforward approach to eradicating

2024 REUNION 6/7–9

1998 Reunion 2028, June 9–11

so-called food deserts, Ken Kolb wrote in a letter to the editor that public funds, instead, should be used “to improve the buying power of community members” through education and public infrastructure. “Invest in customers first, and the businesses will follow.” Professor of sociology and department chair at Furman Univ., Ken was nominated for the James Beard Foundation’s 2023 Media Award for his book Retail Inequality: Reframing the Food Desert Debate….Ben Levy celebrated 10 years as in-house legal counsel to the Bloomberg organization in 2022. Splitting his time between N.Y.C. and his home base in Washington, D.C., Ben spends about half his time representing Mike Bloomberg’s philanthropic efforts to mitigate climate change. He serves as counsel to the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, the international Climate Data Steering Committee, and the Net-Zero Data Public Utility. The NZDPU will be an open, free, centralized data repository affording stakeholders easy access to key climate transition–related data, commitments, and progress. At Bloomberg L.P., Ben runs the team responsible for government contracting, alternative data, and branded entertainment (e.g., HBO’s Succession). Ben and Katie were delighted to spend a summer weekend in Woodstock, Vt., with Ethan Craig, Dave Barish, Kristen Connolly, Elaine Chow ’00, Dan Gavin ’00, and Milena Zuccotti ’00….

Writing in late June, with the shock of the failed mutiny against the Kremlin by combatants of the mercenary Wagner Group still fresh, Christian Raffensperger pondered possible responses by Vladimir Putin. Writing for the website of Wittenberg Univ., where he is professor of history and director of the Ermarth Institute for Public Humanities, Chris explained why there were no obvious good choices for the Russian leader. “(K)nowing history gives one context for understanding events and people, but it does not provide all of the answers (I am sorry to say),” he concluded....In October, the Maryland Supreme Court was scheduled to hear arguments supporting opposing petitions in the decades-old murder proceedings against Adnan Syed: one from Syed and the other from the brother of murder victim Hae Min Lee. Erica Suter talked to HuffPost about the convoluted case, which made national headlines in 2022 when Syed’s 1999 conviction was overturned — the outcome of a joint investigation by both Syed’s defense and the prosecution — and then reinstated last spring through legal action by Lee’s family. Both that family and Syed and his family have

bates.edu/reunion

way. We are so fortunate to live in close proximity to an amazing cancer center at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center, where I am receiving my care, and close enough to Dana-Farber in Boston, where my care is being coordinated from. My spirits are good — a positive mindset and surrounding myself with amazing and supportive friends, family, and colleagues are the key.” Melissa is in her 13th year of teaching high school English, and Jamie continues to work as an elder law and estate-planning attorney for a firm in Lebanon, N.H. They have begun the college search with their daughter, Madeleine, a high school senior.

Son David is a sophomore.

celebrate and reconnect

bat e s no t e s

• fireworks • laughter • friendship • convers • hugs • celebrate • lobster • memories • para • stories • alumni • today • together • gratitu • families • fireworks • laughter • friendship conversation • hugs • celebrate • lobster • m ories • parade • stories • alumni • today • tog er • gratitude • families • fireworks • laught • friendship • conversation • hugs • celebrate lobster • memories • parade • stories • alumn today • together • gratitude • families • fire • laughter • friendship • conversation • hugs celebrate • lobster • memories • parade • stor alumni • today • together • gratitude • famil fireworks • laughter • friendship • conversat • hugs • celebrate • lobster • memories • para stories • alumni • today • together • gratitud families • fireworks • laughter • friendship • versation • hugs • celebrate • lobster • memo parade • stories • alumni • today • together • itude • families • fireworks • laughter • frien ship • conversation • hugs • celebrate • lobst memories • parade • stories • alumni • today • gether • gratitude • families • fireworks • la ter • friendship • conversation • hugs • celeb • lobster • memories • parade • stories • alum today • together • gratitude • families • fire • laughter • friendship • conversation • hugs celebrate • lobster • memories • parade • stor alumni • today • together • gratitude • famil fireworks • laughter • friendship • conversat • hugs • celebrate • lobster • memories • para stories • alumni • today • together • gratitud families • fireworks • laughter • friendship • versation • hugs • celebrate • lobster • memo parade • stories • alumni • today • together • itude • families • fireworks • laughter • frien ship • conversation • hugs • celebrate • lobst memories • parade • stories • alumni • today • gether • gratitude • families • fireworks • la ter • friendship • conversation • hugs • celeb • lobster • memories • parade • stories • alum today • together • gratitude • families • fire • laughter • friendship • conversation • hugs celebrate • lobster • memories • parade • stor alumni • today • together • gratitude • famil fireworks • laughter • friendship • conversat • hugs • celebrate • lobster • memories • para • stories • alumni • today • together • gratitu • families • fireworks • laughter • friendship conversation • hugs • celebrate • lobster • m ories • parade • stories • alumni • today • tog er • gratitude • families • fireworks • laught • friendship • conversation • hugs • celebrate lobster • memories • parade • stories • alumn today • together • gratitude • families • fire • laughter • friendship • conversation • hugs celebrate • lobster • memories • parade • stor alumni • today • together • gratitude • famil fireworks • laughter • friendship • conversat • hugs • celebrate • lobster • memories • para stories • alumni • today • together • gratitud families • fireworks • laughter • friendship • versation • hugs • celebrate • lobster • memo parade • stories • alumni • today • together • itude • families • fireworks • laughter • frien ship • conversation • hugs • celebrate • lobst

DOMINICK PANGALLO ’03

special election

Mr. Mayor Last May, Dominick Pangallo ’03 was elected mayor of the town he grew up in, Salem, Mass., in a special election prompted by former mayor Kim Driscoll’s election as lieutenant governor. Pangallo previously served as Driscoll’s chief of staff. He is Salem’s 52nd mayor since it was incorporated as a city, in 1836 (Salem was founded in the 1600s.)

Here, he poses with his wife, Kristin Claire Pangallo ’02, and their children, Aurelia (age 13) and Lucy (almost 10) following the primary election. Kristin, who is an associate professor of chemistry and physics at Salem State University, also contributes to Salem’s civic life as a member of the public school committee.

suffered “profound harm” in the case, Erica said. “The Supreme Court’s review is not about who is a victim, but how the system redresses injustices caused by prosecutorial misconduct in cases like Adnan’s.”

1999 Reunion 2024, June 7–9 CLASS SECRETARY Jenn Lemkin Bouchard jennifer_bouchard@hotmail.com CLASS PRESIDENT Jamie Ascenzo Trickett jamie.trickett@gmail.com In the world of A’Llyn Ettien, “not much is new.” She still lives in Malden, Mass., with Nathan Meharg ’97 and their two sons, and works at Boston Univ., where she manages interlibrary loan, cataloging, archives, and the website for the university’s medical library. She says, “Still

76

Fall 2023

reading a lot of books and playing a lot of video games. No complaints!”...As reported by the Nerd’s Eye View, a blog produced

by Michael Kitces ’00 for financial advisors, Shirl Penney spoke at the 2023 Technology Tools for Today Advisor Conference, held last spring in Florida. Craig Iskowitz reported that “Penney gave a Harvard Business School–level class” that covered mergers and acquisition strategy, best practices for running a platform for independent financial advisors, and investment approaches employed by Shirl’s own Dynasty Financial Partners — which, Iskowitz noted, “recently passed $72 billion in assets under advisement.”...Abigail Phillips became vice president and chief risk officer at the electrical distribution system FirstEnergy Corp. in July. “Abigail has a proven track record of managing risk across large organizations,

leading operational, technological, environmental, and regulatory risk management activities for a number of electric utilities,” said Jon Taylor, senior vice president and CFO. Abigail joins FirstEnergy from PSEG, where she most recently served as senior director of climate solutions and business integration. FirstEnergy’s 10 distribution companies form one of the nation’s largest investorowned electric systems….Artists, goat farmers, and cheesemakers, Hannah Sessions and Greg Bernhardt added a new title to their jam-packed resumes this year: book publishers. During the spring, they issued a children’s book that Hannah had written and illustrated more than a decade ago. Rosalyn Thought She Was a Goat is based on a true story, of a lamb that grew to identify as a goat after the couple raised her with the goats on their Blue Ledge Farm, in Salisbury, Vt. Hannah and Greg found time to publish the book once their children, Livia Sessions Bernhardt ’24 and Hayden Sessions Bernhardt ’26, headed off to Bates. A theme of the book, Hannah told a local newspaper, is that for individuals, “there is real value and opportunity in being unique, and as a community we need diversity to function.” (You can find the book on Amazon.)...Lauren Todd Stimson was awarded a Rome Prize in landscape architecture by the American Academy in Rome, effective in September.

Partner at the STIMSON design collective in Princeton, Mass., Lauren received one of the highly competitive fellowships in recognition of her project “Seeing Rural: Embracing Art, Craft, and Slowness of the Italian Landscape.” Supporting independent work and research in the arts and humanities, the fellowships include a stipend, workspace, and room and board at the academy’s campus….

Emily White Steinberg is in her 25th year of teaching biology at Lowell (Mass.) High School. “This year I’m teaching a new course on genetics that I’ve been developing, as well as microbiology and a university-level biology course in conjunction with a local college.”

2000 Reunion 2025, June 6–8 CLASS SECRETARY Cynthia Macht Link cynthiafriedalink@gmail.com CLASS PRESIDENTS Jenn Glassman Jacobs jenniferellenjacobs@gmail.com Megan Shelley mhshelley@aol.com Robin Dodson contributed to an American Chemical Society study detailing the

use of toxic chemicals in California. “Consumer products released more than 5,000 tons of chemicals in 2020 inside California homes and workplaces that are known to cause cancer, adversely affect sexual function and fertility in adults, or harm developing fetuses,” the researchers wrote.

“However, gaps in laws that govern ingredient disclosure mean that neither consumers nor workers generally know what is in the products they use.” Robin is an adjunct assistant professor of environmental health at the Boston Univ. School of Public Health and is a visiting scientist at Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health….Dan Gavin and Chloe Lara-Russack ’01 are happily living in Shelburne, Vt. Dan teaches German at Burlington High School — which, he explains, moved temporarily to a former Macy’s store downtown after the discovery of PCB chemicals in the old school. “I now teach in the old Under Armour section, while the cafeteria is located in the Michael Kors section. Kids take escalators to classes and the library uses old menswear shelves to house books.” Dan extends his gratitude to “the brilliant, kind, and compassionate” Bates professor Craig Decker ’78 for inspiring him to become a German teacher.

Craig, who died in 2018, was like a second father to Dan. Chloe is the founder and CEO of The Sparrow Project, which harmonizes the healing power of theater with traditional therapeutic practices to provide a safe space for youth, women, and others to use drama as a cathartic tool. Chloe and Dan have “three amazing kids who are the light of their lives: Rowan, Hazel, and Otis.”...Abigail Goen Helfat and Joshua “were thrilled to host a mini-Reunion at our place in Phippsburg this summer with some Bates ’00 friends and their kids.” Attending were Lawson Rudasill and Elizabeth Merrill, Cynthia Macht Link, Kate Dodson, Adam and Kate Kirstein Kessler, Mark Douthat ’01, and Robin Dodson….Mojeje Omuta and Lauren Lochner Paulhamus, with families in tow, had a Smith South mini-Reunion with Claire Donohue at her place on Skaneateles Lake in New York. “It’s shaping up to be an annual tradition,” Mojeje says. “We spent an excellent few days enjoying the pristine waters, kid-free game nights, an epic ping-pong tournament, and a visit to the world-famous Doug’s Fish Fry. We missed Kara Bristow MacDevitt and her crew on this trip, but look forward to seeing them on the lake next summer.”...Nicole Rom, who joined the Oregon-based Conservation Alliance in 2022, spoke with outdoor industry expert Rick Saez on his podcast

CLASS SECRETARY Noah Petro npetro@gmail.com CLASS PRESIDENTS Jodi Winterton Cobb jodimcobb@gmail.com Kate Hagstrom Lepore khlepore@gmail.com Ken Collins was elected to an open seat on the Board of Selectmen in Raynham, Mass., in April. According to the Taunton Daily Gazette, his goals for the position include improving employee retention for Raynham and making town operations more transparent, including commercial and industrial expansion — which, he said, needs a long-term plan that promotes sustainable growth. Nowadays a senior field representative for National Grid, Ken served 13 years in the Raynham Police Department….

Melissa Wong is co-founder and CEO of Zipline, a firm that helps retailers attain operational excellence through improved communications and data flow. Writing in April for Retail TouchPoints, a publishing network for retail executives, she offered three lessons to help grocers enhance the in-store experience for shoppers: invest in people-first experiences; recruit employees responsibly; and ensure operational ease with communications. She noted, “Now is the time for grocers to embrace changes, learn from specialty retailers, and keep pace with modern trends.”

CLASS SECRETARY Stephanie Eby steph.eby@gmail.com CLASS PRESIDENTS Jay Surdukowski jsurdukowski@sulloway.com Drew Weymouth weymouthd@gmail.com Christopher Mabbett was appointed president and chief operating officer of Mabbett & Associates Inc., an environment consulting firm founded in 1980 and headquartered in Stoneham, Mass. Chris joined the company in 2002 as a field geologist and most recently served as executive vice president and COO. He succeeds Paul Steinberg as president. Chris and Kylie live in North Reading and have a daughter….Jesse Minor and Rebecca Larkin Minor ’03 find themselves back at Bates. She is an assistant in instruction in the earth and climate sciences department, and he is a lecturer in biology. (He taught the 2023 Short Term course “Biological Skills: Invasive Green Crab Inventory and Monitoring.”)

They have two children.

2003 Reunion 2028, June 9–11 CLASS PRESIDENTS Kirstin McCarthy Boehm kirstincboehm@gmail.com Melissa Wilcox Yanagi melissayanagi@gmail.com In February, Katie Burke joined the board of directors of the Red Sox Foundation, which works to improve lives throughout New England in the areas of health, recreation, and education.

She went to work at HubSpot, a developer of software for inbound marketing, sales, and customer service, more than a decade ago and since 2017 has served as chief people officer for the firm, based in Cambridge, Mass. During her time leading people initiatives there, HubSpot has been named a “No. 1 Best Place to Work” by Glassdoor and a “Best Place to Work for Women and Families” by Fortune….

Ariana Margolis Moulton is a poet in Chicago. Her second collection, I’ve Been Meaning To Tell You, is available for preorder and her first, Tracing the Curve, can be found on Amazon. She’s with Atmosphere Press….Patrick Quirk was named vice president for strategy, innovation, and impact at the International Republican Institute in February.

Previously IRI’s senior director for strategy, research, and the IRI Center for Global Impact, Pat in his new role will guide the IRI’s efforts to address global challenges to democracy through innovative and evidence-based

homecoming & family weekend: october 4–5

2001 Reunion 2026, June 12–14

2002 Reunion 2027, June 11–13

bates.edu/backtobates

in April. Topics included her choice of Bates. “You might not know that Bates has the second-oldest outing club” in the nation, said Nicole, an outdoor recreationist since age 3. “They (maintain) several miles of the Appalachian Trail and they’re a Division I ski team. I was a competitive downhill racer in high school and was excited with the opportunity to continue that. Then most of all, I was able to be in the first (Bates) class that could study environmental studies as a major.” The alliance comprises businesses that support conservation grants nationwide….In December 2022, Aditi Vaidya became president of Mertz Gilmore Foundation, a N.Y.C.–based organization whose support for emerging community-driven work has often responded to issues of concern before the wider field of philanthropy recognized their urgency — e.g., acting to support climate change solutions, address the AIDS crisis, and resource LGBT and immigrant rights movements in the 1980s and, more recently, advancing valuesdriven work in terms of justice and equity.

BACK TO BATES 2024

bat e s no t e s

ity • community • academics • pride • knowled • friendships • professors • arts • excellence athletics • reputation • opportunity • studen • value • loyalty • laughter • generosity • com munity • academics • pride • knowledge • frie ships • professors • arts • excellence • athlet • reputation • opportunity • students • value • loyalty • laughter • generosity • communit academics • pride • knowledge • friendships • professors • arts • excellence • athletics • re tation • opportunity • students • value • loya • laughter • generosity • community • academ • pride • knowledge • friendships • professors arts • excellence • athletics • reputation • o portunity • students • value • loyalty • laugh • generosity • community • academics • pride knowledge • friendships • professors • arts • cellence • athletics • reputation • opportuni students • value • loyalty • laughter • gener ity • community • academics • pride • knowled • friendships • professors • arts • excellence athletics • reputation • opportunity • studen • value • loyalty • laughter • generosity • com munity • academics • pride • knowledge • frie ships • professors • arts • excellence • athlet • reputation • opportunity • students • value • loyalty • laughter • generosity • communit academics • pride • knowledge • friendships • professors • arts • excellence • athletics • re tation • opportunity • students • value • loya • laughter • generosity • community • academ • pride • knowledge • friendships • professors arts • excellence • athletics • reputation • o portunity • students • value • loyalty • laugh • generosity • community • academics • pride knowledge • friendships • professors • arts • cellence • athletics • reputation • opportuni students • value • loyalty • laughter • gener ity • community • academics • pride • knowled • friendships • professors • arts • excellence athletics • reputation • opportunity • studen • value • loyalty • laughter • generosity • com munity • academics • pride • knowledge • frie ships • professors • arts • excellence • athlet • reputation • opportunity • students • value • loyalty • laughter • generosity • communit academics • pride • knowledge • friendships • professors • arts • excellence • athletics • re tation • opportunity • students • value • loya • laughter • generosity • community • academ • pride • knowledge • friendships • professors arts • excellence • athletics • reputation • o portunity • students • value • loyalty • laugh • generosity • community • academics • pride knowledge • friendships • professors • arts • cellence • athletics • reputation • opportuni students • value • loyalty • laughter • gener ity • community • academics • pride • knowled • friendships • professors • arts • excellence athletics • reputation • opportunity • studen • value • loyalty • laughter • generosity • com munity • academics • pride • knowledge • frie ships • professors • arts • excellence • athlet • reputation • opportunity • students • value loyalty • laughter • generosity • community academics • pride • knowledge • friendships •

takeaway:

class of

2005

Sarah Sherman-Stokes Rachel Silver means. “With his leadership and intellect, Patrick will be an invaluable asset for our executive leadership team as we work to restore democratic momentum across the globe,” IRI President Daniel Twining said in announcing the promotion.

SARAH SHERMAN STOKES / RACHEL SILVER

2004

media outlet: The Boston Globe

headline:

Titan rescue efforts raise questions about whether migrants’ lives are also worth saving

takeaway: Why should the wealthiest among us be treated better than anyone else?

In an opinion piece for The Boston Globe, classmates Sarah Sherman-Stokes ’05 (left) and Rachel Silver ’05 (right) suggested that the rescue operation mounted in June for the Titan submersible “raises questions about a differential valuation of human life.”

The authors noted that “the political will and resources devoted to trying to save the wealthiest among us far outweigh those directed at trying to rescue the thousands of migrants and asylum seekers who have also been lost at sea in their search for safety.”

Sherman-Stokes is a clinical associate professor of law and associate director of the Immigrants’ Rights and Human Trafficking Program at Boston University School of Law. Silver is an assistant professor at York University’s Faculty of Education and Centre for Refugee Studies in Toronto.

78

Fall 2023

Reunion 2024, June 7–9 CLASS PRESIDENTS Eduardo Crespo eduardo.crespo.r@gmail.com Tanya Schwartz tanya.schwartz@gmail.com Nathan Williford became senior vice president of product growth at Tickets For Less, a Kansas-based marketplace handling tickets for sports, concerts, and other events, in April. “We’re thrilled to add Nathan’s expertise and extensive network in the industry to improve our product roadmaps and optimize the business,” COO Adam Rossbach said in announcing the appointment.

Nathan joins TFL after serving as COO at the startup Lend Some Money, and previously as vice president of business operations at TicketNetwork.

2005 Reunion 2025, June 6–8 CLASS PRESIDENTS Kathryn Duvall duvall.kathryn@gmail.com Melissa Geissler melissa.geissler@gmail.com Joel Anderson was recently granted tenure and promoted to associate professor of history at the Univ. of Maine. His book, Reimagining Christendom: Writing Iceland’s Bishops into the Roman Church, 1200–1350, was published in 2023 by the Univ. of Pennsylvania Press. “It promises to overturn everything you thought you knew about the bishops of medieval Iceland,” he says. Joel, Rachel Kellar Anderson ’06, and 1-year-old Henry live in Bangor.…Craig Saddlemire stayed in Lewiston after graduation and is now cooperative development organizer for the Raise-Op Housing Cooperative. He was a source for a March Sun Journal article describing a bill before the Legislature that would bar landlords from charging prospective tenants a fee to apply for rental units. “Under the application fee system, not only must tenants beg for housing, but they must also pay to beg,” Craig told the newspaper….

Vanessa Williamson joined Wesleyan Univ. as adjunct assistant professor of physical education and head coach of swimming and diving in June.

She went there from Bates, where she had joined the swimming and diving coaching

staff in 2012 and was promoted to associate head coach in 2016.

“Vanessa’s time (coaching) at Bates has corresponded with our best seasons to date, and that is no coincidence,” head coach Peter Casares said in March.

“Always coming up with new ways to get the most out of our athletes, while being a steady and consistent mentor and coach, Vanessa has contributed to the success of her swimmers, our coaching staff, and her colleagues in the athletic department.”

Herself a standout swimmer as a student, Vanessa received the 2023 Jean Freeman Scholarship in March from the College Swimming and Diving Coaches Assn. (Thanks to Andrew Seaton ’15, assistant swimming and diving coach at Villanova, for the tip. — Editor)

2006 Reunion 2026, June 12–14 CLASS PRESIDENTS Chelsea Cook chelsea.m.cook@gmail.com Katie Nolan knolan06@gmail.com Johnny Ritzo johnnyritzo@gmail.com Grace Liu was appointed chief financial officer at Tango, the Seattle rewards and payments company, in March. She served previously as head of finance in North America for financial services company Afterpay, and has held senior finance positions at such companies as JPMorgan, LendingClub, and Standard Chartered Bank. She holds an M.B.A. from the Univ. of Chicago and is the co-founder of the Women’s Investment Club. “Given Tango’s strong track record of innovation and customer focus, I am confident we can achieve great things together,” Grace said in announcing her appointment.

2007 Reunion 2027, June 11–13 CLASS PRESIDENTS Keith Kearney kdkearney@gmail.com Rakhshan Zahid rakhshan.zahid@gmail.com Ann Speers Collier is manager of research and industry strategy for the Smart Electric Power Alliance, a Washington, D.C.– based organization that facilitates the power industry’s transition to clean energy….Chris Theile and Akiko Doi live in Melrose, Mass., with their kids, Emi and Kenji.

Chris is a chemist at Alnylam Pharmaceuticals focusing on advancing the pipeline of central nervous system drugs.

He contributed to a compound that showed promising Phase 1 data for treating Alzheimer’s.

Akiko is a biologist at Ascidian Therapeutics and is developing

bat e s no t e s

class of

2010

2008 Reunion 2028, June 9–11 CLASS PRESIDENTS Liz Murphy elizabeth.jayne.m@gmail.com Alie Schwartz Egelson alisonrose.schwartz@gmail.com Anna Bernhard was honored with a Best Teacher Award from Colorado State Univ., where she is director of the Stanley G. Wold Resource Center and Library. An academic librarian and archivist, Anna researches book arts and in 2021, co-founded the Center for Artists’ Books and Inclusive Narratives at CSU….Meaghan Creedon and her husband, Alex Solodyna, have welcomed their third child. They own and operate The Mindfulness and Change Group, offering specialized, evidence-based psychological treatment in Watertown, Mass....Liz Murphy and Jon Blanchard welcomed their daughter Evelyn Murphy Blanchard in July. Eve is settling in at home in Rockville, Md., with Liz, Jon, and their dog, Oscar….

Mary-Carson Saunders Stiff has been appointed executive director of Wetlands Watch.

Raised in Suffolk, Va., she notes on the nonprofit’s website that she seeks to help her “hometown region navigate the complex issue of sea-level rise.” She’s a graduate of William & Mary Law School, where she was in the first graduating class of the Virginia Coastal Policy Center, and lives in Norfolk with Joshua and their two children….Lauren Tempest became general manager of the streaming service Hulu in July. An eight-year veteran of the Disney-controlled streamer, she took the leadership role after Joe Earley, former Hulu president, became president of direct-to-consumer at Disney Entertainment. Lauren had previously served as Hulu’s senior vice president of content partnerships, overseeing Hulu’s content library and working with third-party partners to acquire such top titles as the hit series Schitt’s Creek.

2009 Reunion 2024, June 7–9 CLASS PRESIDENTS Tim Gay timothy.s.gay@gmail.com Arsalan Suhail arsalansuhail@gmail.com Lydia Finn Jopp and David welcomed their son, Robert Jopp, in December 2022. Robert is the grandson of Patricia Chandler Finn ’83 and Timothy Finn ’82….Lucy Neely is operations manager at Neely

Laura Poppick

Wine in Portola Valley, Calif. A vineyard at the winery is named Leoncita — “little lion” — to honor Rory, son of Lucy and her wife, Devon Quirk….Arsalan Suhail joined Working Solutions, a business-process outsourcer providing multichannel customer experience services, as chief strategy officer last February. He and Rushda Mustafa relocated to Dallas from North Carolina.

2010 Reunion 2025, June 6–8 CLASS PRESIDENTS Brianna Bakow brianna.bakow@gmail.com Tiel Duncan vantielelizabeth.duncan@gmail. com Jacob Cash was featured in the Advertiser Democrat of Norway, Maine, in August as he and a community of friends and family built a post-and-beam house in Harrison. As Jacob and his wife, April, decided to return to Maine after years in N.Y.C., a reconnection with an old friend — now a timber framer — inspired him to undertake the house project, now nearly complete after two years. “It all just evolved,” Cash told the newspaper. “And I am incredibly thankful to those around me.

My father used to encourage a lot of people. And the people he knew that I have worked with and consulted with have been so thankful (to him).”...Focusing on coastal resilience and habitat restoration projects, Alison Frye is the associate director at Salem Sound Coastwatch, a nonprofit environmental advocacy organization. She earned a bachelor’s in biology from Bates and a Master’s in Marine Biology from Northeastern Univ., where she researched nature-based solutions for climate adaptation.

Previously a science teacher, she continues to teach a marine and climate science course to high school seniors at Waring School in Beverly, Mass….Anthony Phillips, who won a special election to fill the Philadelphia City Council’s 9th District seat when its holder resigned to run for mayor, ran in the regular election to retain the seat. Cofounder and former executive director of the Youth Action program, his actions as councilor include introducing bills to protect student pedestrians and to reduce truck parking in Northeast Philly, according to The Philadelphia Citizen.

Re-elected in November, he seeks to improve public safety through community engagement, improve schools through family engagement, and rebuild the district’s commercial corridors. …Lily Sheridan is the farmto-school coordinator and community liaison at Cooking with Kids, a northern New

LAURA POPPICK

drugs to treat diseases including Stargardt disease, which causes blindness.

takeaway:

media outlet: Down East magazine

headline:

A quaint Maine island with a billion-year-old secret

takeaway: Writer who contemplates ancient bedrock is reminded of college biology class Science journalist Laura Poppick ’10, a regular contributor to Down East magazine, tapped into her Bates geology major for a first-person story about what researchers say are Maine’s very oldest rocks found on Penobscot Bay’s 700 Acre Island.

Poppick writes how the rocks on the island “formed more than a billion years ago, when life consisted mostly of microbial goo. The rest of Maine’s bedrock formed much more recently, with most of it dating less than 500 million years old.”

She points out a decade has passed since she studied geology as an undergrad at Bates. Yet she’s continued to maintain an interest in rocks and the “stories stuck within them.”

“I find they offer a salve to the frenetic nature of the present. They can tell us, with a plain sort of wisdom, where we came from eons ago and where we might be going eons from now,” Poppick writes.

Fall 2023

79

class of

2012

takeaway:

Elizabeth Castellano Mexico nonprofit that empowers and educates children and families to make healthy food choices. She has worked in food education for more than a decade and holds a Master’s in Food Culture and Communications with a concentration on food systems and sustainability from the Univ. of Gastronomic Sciences in Pollenzo, Italy.

2011 Reunion 2026, June 12–14

COURTESY OF ELIZABETH CASTELLANO

CLASS PRESIDENTS Theodore Sutherland theodoresutherland89@gmail.com Patrick Williams Patw.williams@gmail.com

media outlet:

Good Morning America

headline:

Save What’s Left by Elizabeth Castellano is our ‘GMA’ Book Club pick

takeaway: Author’s debut novel praised as “wickedly funny” Praised for its wit and satirical humor, the debut novel by Elizabeth Castellano ’12, Save What’s Left, landed on a number of summer 2023 reading lists.

Good Morning America made it the Book Club selection for July, Time named it one of 25 books that “you need to read this summer,” and Oprah Daily included it among 25 of the best books to read on summer vacation, calling it a “wickedly funny debut.”

Castellano, who majored in theater at Bates, draws on her small-town childhood on New York’s Long Island to follow her protagonist, Kathleen Deane, who tries to live an idyllic seaside life by buying a shack on an island oceanfront.

But instead, she finds herself embroiled in the trials that come with living in a beach house — “and the neighbors next to her,” wrote Good Morning America’s Haley Yamada.

80

Fall 2023

Picking up a June BatesNews story, Maine Public covered a business launched during the summer by Hallie Herz and their partner Eva Fury. Based in Portland, Kindling Collective is an outdoor gear library designed to make camping, backpacking, and skiing more accessible to the queer community. Herz told reporter Carol Bousquet that in order to keep membership in Kindling Collective affordable, annual fees are based on income.

“Our model is an economic justice model. We see Kindling Collective as a shared resource that belongs to members.”...

Diane Saunders, research assistant professor in the Division of Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism in the Department of Medicine at Vanderbilt Univ., was honored with a 2023 Innovation Award from the Network of Pancreatic Donors with Diabetes. The award recognizes people who have contributed significantly to Type 1 diabetes research by way of an innovative, experimental approach. Diane’s award was based on her work as co-scientific director of Pancreatlas, a public database of images of the human pancreas, and her research applying new multiplex imaging approaches to studies of that organ.

2012 Reunion 2027, June 11–13 CLASS PRESIDENTS Mikey Pasek mikeypasek@gmail.com Sangita Murali sangitamurali12@gmail.com James Dowling-Healey visited Huntsville, Ala., in June to take part in the Adult Space Academy’s Expedition 37. Highlights of the program included a restored Saturn V space vehicle, kinetic adventures on a multi-axis trainer and onesixth gravity chair, the Summer of Skylab exhibit celebrating the 50th anniversary of the first U.S. space station, simulated space shuttle and Mars missions, breakfast with a rocket scientist, and exclusive tours of the U.S.

Space & Rocket Center. “It was a jam-packed three days, but I also got to visit the nearby Huntsville Botanical Garden and Monte Sano State Park. It was a blast!” he reports. James, who lives in West Hartford, Conn., has also joined the board of directors of the Friends of Dinosaur Park and Arboretum, which advocates for protection of the dinosaur trackway at the park, in Rocky Hill….Monica Rodriguez joined the board of directors of the Boys & Girls Club of Greenwich, Conn., in July. She is the director of diversity, equity, and inclusion for United Rentals, and worked previously as an employment law attorney specializing in immigration and affirmative action compliance….Nicholas Shadowen of Austin, Texas, is a lawyer nationally known for his work on behalf of the Mexican government to curtail the flow of illegal weapons across the border.

Interviewed on the TechBullion site in April, he explained that the dramatic expansion of U.S. gun production after the national assault-weapons ban expired in 2004 has had dire effects in Mexico. From 2007 to 2019, “more than 180,000 homicides were committed with guns in Mexico. This is an international human rights issue, and it needs to be solved in our lifetime.”...

Hope Staneski Garber and Evan welcomed their second daughter, Greta, in May. They recently relocated to the Raleigh area in North Carolina, where Hope is an associate at the law firm Smith Anderson….Caroline Webb Greenberg, Alex, and son Theodore welcomed the household’s second child, Georgina Milly Greenberg, in July.

2013 Reunion 2028, June 9–11 CLASS PRESIDENTS Megan Murphy megan.a.murphy3@gmail.com Ryan Sonberg rsonberg9@gmail.com Bryan Carrillo has received tenure at Saddleback College in Mission Viejo, Calif. He has taught mathematics at Saddleback since earning a doctorate at the Univ. of California, Riverside, in 2019.

Since 2021, he has been the co-principal investigator for Saddleback of the California Learning Lab’s New Mathematics Gateway grant, a partnership among Riverside, Saddleback, and Yuba College. The $1.26 million project’s aim is to reconceptualize how calculus is taught and to open a wide and inclusive STEM gateway for a diverse future generation of engineers and scientists….Kelly Coyne has finished a doctorate in screen cultures and continues to teach English at Georgetown

bat e s no t e s

mini-reunion no. 2

Univ. A writer and a cultural historian of film and media, she has published in The New York Times, The Atlantic, and The Los Angeles Review of Books, and has been featured on NPR and Good Morning America, “Please reach out if you are living in D.C.!” she says….Cara Garcia-Bou and Ted Okamoto were married in Baltimore in May, with many Bobcat friends in attendance.

2014 Reunion 2024, June 7–9

Katie Ailes was named poet in residence for the 2023 Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts.

A resident of Edinburgh and a researcher, performer, and spoken-word event programmer, she told the online culture magazine The Understudy that the role of the poet in residence is to document the festival in poetry. “It’s such a wonderful role because it requires you to open yourself to inspiration, to fully explore what the festival offers and translate those experiences through poetry.”

She read from her work during the festival, which offers music (including Elton John and Lizzo in 2023), theater, conversation, comedy, circus, and more in dozens of venues….Lexie Carter was appointed head coach of field hockey at Thornton Academy, the school in Saco, Maine, whence she graduated in 2010. She was a three-time allSouthwestern Maine Activities Assn. selection in field hockey at Thornton and continued in the game at Bates, where she was defensive-saves leader and was voted team MVP. She co-owns ELX, a travel agency in Biddeford….Mariya Manahova and Jacob Steyn welcomed their daughter, Julia Elena Steyn, in June. “She is sweet, observant, and hungry all the time,” Mariya reports. “We’re all doing well, especially her older brother, William, who is extremely excited about his sister but needs to be reminded (multiple times a day) not to squeeze her head and not to jump on top of her.”...Kate Pagano writes that alums from the classes of ’83, ’86, ’14, and ’16 celebrated their 15th annual Bobcat Weekend on Laurel Lake in Fitzwilliam, N.H., this summer.

“The group has grown to include a few furry friends, who were gifted their own personal Bates dogbones, courtesy of John P. Howard ’86.”

2015 Reunion 2025, June 6–8 CLASS PRESIDENTS James Brissenden

ELIZAH LAURENCEAU ’19

CLASS PRESIDENTS Milly Aroko mildredaroko@gmail.com Hally Bert hallybert@gmail.com

Game On Elizah Laurenceau ’19 joined a Class of 2019 mini-Reunion at Fenway Park for a Mets–Red Sox game on July 22. “From Virginia, Maine, and Massachusetts, we all came together to watch the game and get ready for our fifth Reunion in June 2024!” From left: Katie Allard, Sydney Howard, Reilly Murphy, Elizah, Kylie Martin, and Emily Gibson.

brissendenja@gmail.com Ben Smiley bensmiley32@gmail.com Jenna Armstrong, a member of the Bobcat women’s rowing team that won the NCAA Division III Championships in her senior year, was elected one of four squad presidents of the Cambridge Univ. Boat Club for 2024. Leader of the CUBC’s women’s openweight squad, Jenna came to Cambridge in 2020 to earn a doctorate in physiology. She has rowed in two winning crews for CUBC, Blondie in 2022 and the Blue Boat in 2023….“I have a lot of news!” writes Kathleen Morrill. During the summer, she defended her dissertation on canine genomics and earned a doctorate at the Morningside Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Univ. of Massachusetts Chan Medical School. The cherries topping that particular sundae were, first, receiving the Harold M. Weintraub Graduate Student Award for the dissertation, and second, her selection by peers to give the class address at the school’s 50th commencement.

Kathleen has since been

appointed as a senior scientist at Colossal Laboratories and Biosciences, a firm developing gene-editing technology to resurrect extinct species (notably the wooly mammoth) — and she married David Pirovich in June, with many Bates friends in attendance….Graham Safford, assistant men’s basketball coach at Bates, captained the Rock, one of the teams competing in the 22nd annual Mountain Valley Basketball Tournament last spring.

2016 Reunion 2026, June 12–14 CLASS PRESIDENTS Andre Brittis-Tannenbaum andrebt44@gmail.com Sally Ryerson sallyryerson@gmail.com Jesse Butler was a source for a Portland Press Herald article in July about the growing mania for pickleball among teenagers and young adults. Jesse, who played tennis at Bates during his first year, “has seen pickleball’s more athletic side emerge in his job at Foreside Fitness and

Tennis in Falmouth,” the paper reported. The game is “just as athletic (as tennis) and takes just as much energy if you’re doing it well,” Jesse said. “You have more rallies, you play longer points, and you get to do it with a bunch of your friends, and obviously it’s a little more accessible than other sports, too.”...Phillip Dube has moved to Toronto and is working at the clean-energy firm Intersect Power….Joaquin Espinosa Alarcón graduated in June from the Univ. of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy. A double major in economics and political science at Bates, he earned a Master’s in Global Affairs at the Munk School. According to the university’s news office, Joaquin’s interest in 2SLGBTQIA+ rights and gender identity informed his time in the MGA program, where he was the director of Spectrum, a student-led initiative that supports the professional and career development of LGBTQ+ students and allies.…

Eve Maxson Ohrstrom and Gustav Ohrstrom ’19 were married in June at Cunningham Farm in New Gloucester. “During our time at Bates we fell in love

Fall 2023

81

class of

2019

takeaway: Michael Somkuti

MICHAEL SOMKUTI

with Maine,” she writes, “and we wanted to get married in the state where it all began.”

2017 Reunion 2027, June 11–13 CLASS PRESIDENTS Jessie Garson jgarson4@gmail.com Matthew Baker mattdbaker13@gmail.com

media outlet:

Philadelphia Gay News

headline:

Michael Somkuti: Creating gaming communities IRL

takeaway: Gamer seeks safe gaming space for LGBTQIA+ community Michael Somkuti ’19, an avid gamer and co-founder of the Philadelphia-based LFG Philly, a social group connecting queer gamers, spoke with Suzi Nash of Philadelphia Gay News about the importance of holding gaming spaces for the queer community.

After helping found the Bates Video Game Club and Esports, Somkuti co-founded LFG, or “Looking For Group,” a gaming term for when someone is searching for a gaming community to join.

LFG’s first meeting was held during Pride Month, and drew a good crowd, Somkuti told Nash. Beyond holding a space welcoming gamers, Somkuti wanted to build that safe space to combat harassment often experienced by LGBTQIA+ gamers online and in real life.

“I’ve experienced it trying out for teams. As a player, you never really know who’s going to be on the other side and what they’re going to say to you,” they said. “Personally, I’ve been called every slur in the book. It can be intimidating.”

82

Fall 2023

The Rev. Tara Humphries, minister at the Allen Avenue Unitarian Universalist Church in Maine’s largest city, wrote to the Portland Press Herald in March decrying the national flood of proposed state legislation assailing trans rights — legislation “attacking gender-affirming medical care for people of all ages, as well as name changes, pronoun use, drag performance, and more.” Tara concluded, “Trans people have always been here. In Maine. In Portland. In the church. And we will always be here. Let us create a state in which all people of all genders can thrive.”...Jessica Vocaturo joined Boston-based GLBTQ Legal Advocates and Defenders as legal research and operations manager in May. Previously she was senior manager of paralegal programs for the Univ. of Miami School of Law Health Rights Clinic, a medical-legal partnership with the Miller School of Medicine at that university; and prior to that position, managed high school programs at Achieve Miami, an education nonprofit that provides college readiness and service opportunities to students at Title I schools across South Florida.

2018 Reunion 2028, June 9–11 CLASS PRESIDENTS John Thayer john.robert.thayer@gmail.com Jake Shapiro shapirojacob6@gmail.com Opening for Irish singersongwriter Hozier at the Paradise in Boston, Alisa Amador won a rave review from the Imprint entertainment site last May. To reviewer Sam Hwang, the “most memorable song of her set was ‘Alone,’ which she noted was formatted like a feminist thesis defense. Some members of the audience chuckled at the comparison but Amador, who had been a gender studies major at Bates College, quickly doubled down, pointing out which parts of the song would correspond to those in a defense between breaths as she sang, an excellent demonstration of her crowd work and sense of humor.”...Colby Galliher is a senior research analyst and project manager in the Governance Studies program at The Brookings Institution —

but he also writes erudite news stories about natural phenomena.

For instance, the Gazette in Hardwick, Vt., in August published his piece examining the spicebush swallowtail butterfly, with especially close attention to defense mechanisms that include, in the early larval stages, resemblances to bird droppings, and later on, to frogs or snakes….Annie Kandel started a new job at Dartmouth during the summer. Working in the lab of earth sciences professor Mukul Sharma, she’s a research assistant and project manager for an investigation into potential strategies for sequestering atmospheric carbon dioxide. Previously she was a lab supervisor at Boston Univ.

2019 Reunion 2024, June 7–9 Harry Meadows harry.meadows4@gmail.com Cara Starnbach cara@carastarnbach.com Katie Barker, a medical student in the class of 2025 at the Univ. of Vermont’s Larner College of Medicine, was the lead author of a 2023 paper describing a unique source of physical distress. A 39-year-old patient suffered a sudden onset of debilitating headaches and chest pain. With constricted blood vessels causing the pain in both regions, Katie and her colleagues determined the likely source to be pheochromocytoma — a neuroendocrine tumor in the adrenal medulla that released hormones provoking the constriction and pain in both areas simultaneously.

The case was the first in which distress in both the head and the heart were seen with this type of tumor. “Once the tumor was removed, the levels of these hormones decreased significantly, and the episodes of concurrent severe headache and chest pain completely resolved,” Katie reports….

Lauren Brough became the first full-time women’s volleyball head coach at Saint Michael’s College in May. She was chosen through a national search, and after three years as an assistant coach for the Purple Knights.

Prior to Saint Michael’s, she was an assistant coach at Saint Anselm and worked as an associate regional director for Zero Gravity Basketball of Wilmington, Mass. Lauren played volleyball throughout her Bates career, totaling 106 kills, 328 digs, and 45 aces in 59 career matches. She is pursuing a Master’s in Communication Sciences and Disorders at the Univ. of Vermont….“There is no established playbook for the U.S. government if Congress fails to raise or suspend the debt limit — it would be an unprecedented

2022

CI

ETY

B

Anna Landgren aslandgren@gmail.com Rachel Retana rachel7600@gmail.com Ognyan Simeonov ognyan99@gmail.com Sean Vaz savyvaz@gmail.com

O

Reunion 2027, June 11–13

✦

Christian Beal joined the player development department of the Toronto Blue Jays in September. He played some baseball at Bates — limited, of course, by the pandemic — and has been an outfielder at the Univ. of Richmond, where he expected to receive an MBA in August, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch. He wanted to pursue the MBA to deepen his understanding of the business world “because I think it’s so important,” Beal told the newspaper. Continuing “to be challenged academically while I’m playing baseball, that was ideal for me.”...Jeremy Bennett began graduate studies in the Biological and Biomedical Sciences Program at Harvard Medical School this fall. He went to Harvard from the biochemistry and cell biology lab of Haili Aydin at the Univ. of Colorado, in Boulder, where he had been a research assistant….An Innovation Fellow at Young Voices, an organization that helps young writers develop their brands

✦

Imani Boggan imaniboggan@gmail.com Julia Maluf jmaluf120@gmail.com Jade Zhang jadezhang9843@gmail.com

E

2021 Reunion 2026, June 12–14

E P H

Lily Meier joined The Messenger, a Florida-based startup dedicated to unbiased journalism, as a business reporter. She previously was an investigator for the Mintz Group, and also worked for the Boston Health Care for the Homeless program.

PHILLIPS SOCIETY

Priscila Guillen priscila.guillen65197@gmail.com Maya Seshan mayaseshan55@gmail.com

make your plan to support what you love at bates

2020 Reunion 2025, June 6–8

and expertise, Roy Mathews’ interest in space science has surfaced in his bylines this year.

Writing in March for the media aggregator Real Clear Science, he advocated for the commercial possibilities in asteroid mining.

While considerable technical obstacles remain, the “falling costs of (space) launches and the multiple missions to identify particular minerals on Earth’s moon, Mars, and nearby asteroids deserve real-world consideration.” In May, in the magazine The National Interest, he argued for the accelerated development of technology enabling the rapid replacement of U.S. satellites in the face of growing threats to the orbiting fleet from adversaries. “The U.S. military should be prioritizing this technology to back up its satellite fleet,” he noted….

Vanessa Paolella, whose senior thesis in geology focused on changes in Androscoggin River water quality over nine decades, presented that research in May at the annual Androscoggin Watershed Conference. Vanessa “discussed remediation strategies for the river beginning in the 1940s,” she says, and tapped her thesis work to indicate what worked — including the Clean Water Act and wastewater treatment facilities — and what had little effect. She was joined

by Muskie Archives director Pat Webber, whose detailed overview of the river’s history began with the Ice Age. “The conference overall was a joyful gathering of conservationminded people,” adds Vanessa, a former Bates Student editorin-chief who has been a reporter for the Sun Journal since 2021. “At one point, we had a table nearly filled with people from the Bates community.”...

As she prepared to leave the position she’d had for two years working as a FoodCorps service member at a Lewiston school, Ellie Vance spoke to the Sun Journal in June about the corps’ mission and her own plans. Partnering with teachers at Montello Elementary, Ellie gave lessons on topics such as cooking, sustainability, and gardening, and tended the school’s own gardens. She’s now doing graduate work in school at Tufts in agriculture, food, and environmental studies — but told the newspaper that “Lewiston definitely feels like my home now.”

Learn about estate planning by calling Susan Dunning at 207-786-6246

economic event with significant domestic and global implications,” economic policy analyst Arianna Fano told Forbes India during the height of the debt-ceiling faceoff in May. An analyst for the Washington, D.C.–based Bipartisan Policy Center, Arianna added that the “growing national debt poses a threat to private investment, labor market productivity, and public spending on critical government programs.”...Trevor Fry finished his first year at Boston College Law School, was named to the law review, and became president of the school’s chapter of the American Constitution Society. He also completed an internship with Justice William D. Cohen of the Vermont Supreme Court.

TH

bat e s no t e s

on • build • create • hope • opportunity • instit tion • trust • promise • generosity • endowment tomorrow • future • legacy • aspiration • belie loyalty • build • create • hope • opportunity nity • institution • trust • promise • generosit sity •endowment • tomorrow • future • legacy acy • aspiration • belief • loyalty • build • creat • hope • opportunity • institution • trust • pro t • promise • generosity • endowment • tomorro future • legacy • aspiration • belief • loyalty on • build • create • hope • opportunity • instit tion • trust • promise • generosity • endowment tomorrow • future • legacy • aspiration • belie loyalty • build • create • hope • opportunity nity • institution • trust • promise • generosit • endowment • tomorrow • future • legacy • as acy • aspiration • belief • loyalty • build • creat • hope • opportunity • institution • trust • pro promise • generosity • endowment • tomorro • future • legacy • aspiration • belief • loyalty on • build • create • hope • opportunity • instit tion • trust • promise • generosity • endowment tomorrow • future • legacy • aspiration • belie • loyalty • build • create • hope • opportunity nity • institution • trust • promise • generosity endowment • tomorrow • future • legacy • as ration • belief • loyalty • build • create • hope opportunity • institution • trust • promise • gen erosity • endowment • tomorrow • future • lega cy • aspiration • belief • loyalty • build • create hope • opportunity • institution • trust • promis • generosity • endowment • tomorrow • future legacy • aspiration • belief • loyalty • on • buil • create • hope • opportunity • institution • t tion • trust • promise • generosity • endowment tomorrow • future • legacy • aspiration • belie • loyalty • build • create • hope • opportunity institution • trust • promise • generosity • e endowment • tomorrow • future • legacy • as ration • belief • loyalty • build • create • hope opportunity • institution • trust • promise • gen erosity • endowment • tomorrow • future • lega cy • aspiration • belief • loyalty • build • create hope • opportunity • institution • trust • promis • generosity • endowment • tomorrow • future legacy • aspiration • belief • loyalty • legacy ty • build • create • hope • opportunity • instit tion • trust • promise • generosity • endowment tomorrow • future • legacy • aspiration • belie • loyalty • build • create • hope • opportunity institution • trust • promise • generosity • e dowment • tomorrow • future • legacy • aspir tion • belief • loyalty • build • create • hope hope • opportunity • institution • trust • promis • generosity • endowment • tomorrow • futur I P loyalty S • legacy • aspiration • belief • build S LL • I create • hope • opportunity • institution • trus • promise • generosity • endowment • tomorrow future • legacy • aspiration • belief • loyalty • t • build • create • hope • opportunity • instituti tion • trust • promise • generosity • endowmen A T • aspiration • belie • tomorrow • future • legacy EG ES C O L L • hope • oppo • belief• loyalty • build • create tunity • institution • trust • promise • gener sity • endowment • tomorrow • future • legac • aspiration • belief • loyalty • build • create

RENE ROY

reunion awards

From left: Kevin Moore ’93, president of the Alumni Association; Dr. Douglas Evans ’78; in her last weeks as Bates president, Clayton Spencer; Nate Walton ’08; Lisa Romeo ’88; Jeffrey Roy ’83; Ainsley Jamieson ’18.

Strong Association At Reunion, five alumni received Alumni Association awards for their contributions to Bates and to the wider world.

Dr. Douglas Evans ’78, who is chair of the Department of Surgery at the Medical College of Wisconsin, was awarded the Benjamin E. Mays Medal, the college’s highest alumni award, for his contributions to cancer research, specifically pancreatic cancer and inherited endocrine syndromes.

Jeffrey Roy ’83 was awarded the Alumni Professional Recognition Award for his public service as a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives.

Lisa Romeo ’88 was awarded the Papaioanou Distinguished Alumni Service Award for her decades of service to Bates, including serving as president of the Alumni Association and the College Key. Nate Walton ’08 received the Stangle Award for Distinguished Service to the Bates Community for offering mentorship and real-world experience to Bates student interns through the Bates Center for Purposeful Work.

Ainsley Jamieson ’18 was awarded the Distinguished Young Alumni Award for exceptional volunteer work for Bates, including service on the Class of 2018’s Reunion Gift and Social committees.

Jackson Donahue completed his first year of teaching middleschool mathematics in Guinea as a member of the Peace Corps in October….Ashka Jhaveri is a researcher with the Middle East Security Studies Program at the Institute for the Study of War, based in Washington, D.C. She earned a B.A. in politics at Bates with a concentration in security, conflict, and cooperation, and interned during her senior year on the Iranian Axis of Resistance portfolio at the I.S.W. Her research focuses on irregular warfare, state building, and proxy networks in the Middle East….Tamsin Stringer’s senior thesis in economics figured in a

84

Fall 2023

Central Maine Morning Sentinel op-ed in May. Writing about dam removal on the Kennebec River and the subsequent recovery of its fisheries, the executive director of the nonprofit Maine Rivers cited Tamsin’s work showing that residential property values benefit from proximity to the free-flowing parts of the river, but are depressed along the constrained portions. Tamsin’s advisor, professor Lynne Lewis, shared the findings with Maine Rivers’ Landis Hudson.

2023 Reunion 2028, June 9–11

Chloe Arons chloe.arons123@gmail.com Liv Demerath lividem543@gmail.com Chris Euston christopher.euston@gmail.com Jared O’Hare jaredkohare@gmail.com Jenna Berens was one of a handful of new recruits to the LA Maples, Lewiston’s Women’s American Basketball Assn. team, introduced by the Sun Journal in July. “The 6-foot Berens, who played for the NESCAC champion Bobcats in 2021–22 and was named to the NESCAC Winter All-Sportsmanship Team this winter, should present a

strong presence in the post as a forward,” noted reporter Tony Blasi. “I am meeting a lot of great new people,” Berens herself told the paper. “It has been really good so far.”...

Nathan Berry of Augusta, Maine, received the Division III Commissioners Assn. Men’s Sport Student-Athlete of the Year award from NESCAC in August. The award recognizes graduating student-athletes who have distinguished themselves through academic achievement, athletics excellence, service, and leadership. Nathan earned Academic All-America honors and was twice a NESCAC All-Academic honoree. He was named the Bates Male Athlete of the Year in 2021–22, garnered the team’s sportsmanship award in 2020–21, and established meet records in the 100 backstroke and 50 backstroke events at the 2023 NESCAC Championships….

Elizabeth LaCroix spoke to a hometown newspaper about her plans for the Watson Fellowship.

Continuing a practice of advocating for young women that she began as a high school senior in Rhode Island, she will collect stories from patients, doctors, and researchers in six countries as she develops a global perspective on the subject of menstrual pain. “I believe the menstrual pain field is missing the human connection, and the stories of all involved can heal the gaping wounds of miscommunication,” she told The Westerly Sun. She plans to pursue a doctorate in chemistry and a career in medicinal chemistry….A news site in Bucks County, Pa., excerpted the 2023 Commencement address by senior speaker Rishi Madnani.

“The biochemistry major, whose goal is to become a physician and scientist, said that he was ‘academically locked in’ by his sophomore year,” BucksCo. Today reported. “(I was) really forced to confront the important questions...What calls me? Do I want to go into acting? Do I want to go into politics? What do I want to do? And then biochemistry called my name.

And I just got swept away.”...

Abby Segal has published Shelly Shazam! (Amazon).

An interactive book for ages 3 through 9, it’s the story of a girl who learns from a magician how to make a coin disappear and wants to share the secret of the trick with her friends.

A professional magician based in Chicago and a psychology major at Bates, Abby first wrote and illustrated the book for an independent study….Ellie Wolfe is a correspondent for The Boston Globe. A history major, she served as editor-in-chief of The Bates Student and worked as an investigative reporting intern for The Maine Monitor and as a metro reporting intern at the Sun Journal.

Please email your high-resolution Bates group wedding photo to magazine@bates.edu. Please identify all people and their class years, and include the wedding date, location, and any other news. Wedding photos are published in the order received.

Wilson ’17 & Correia ’17 Jess Wilson ’17 and Tiago Correia ’17, Sept. 2, 2023, Stamford, Vt. All Class of 2017 except as noted. Back, from left: Elliot Grace, Andrew Lachance, Alex Andonian, Connor Gray ’18, Ayden Eickhoff ’19, Will Sheehan, Alex Gogliettino, J.D. Chow. Front, from left: Logan Greenblatt ’14, Kallie Nixon ’14, Elena Jay ’15, Sadie James, Tiago and Jess, Tara Humphries, Gabe Whitehead, Ashley Pollack, Alyssa Dole.

Morrill ’15 & Pirovich Kathleen Morrill ’15 and David Pirovich, June 17, 2023, Hudson, Mass. All Class of 2015 except as noted. From left: Juwon Song, Sarah Monge Miller, Kate Paladin, Julianne Hopkins, Korbin Houston ’18, Amit Dubey, Kathleen, Samuel Hersh ’18, Rosie Snyder ’16, Kathryn Cleary ’18, Tyler Jones, Regan Radulski. (Groom not shown.)

Sprague ’10 & White Emma Sprague ’10 and Matthew White, June 10, 2023, Gloucester, Mass. All Class of 2010 except the groom. From left: Sammy Rothkopf, Rachel Kurzius, Lily Sullivan, Emma, Matt, Shawn Sendar, Ali Howard, Amy Keneally.

Lembeck & Polak ’11 Sophie Lembeck and Sam Polak ’11, June 25, 2023, Westchester, N.Y. All Class of 2011 except the bride. Back, from left: Luke Nichols, Dan Naparstek, Aron Bodwitch, Alex Streim, Jon Rubin. Front, from left: Tracy Glazier, Laura Traverse, Sam, Sophie. Not pictured but present in spirit: Keegan Runnals, who couldn’t attend because of the imminent birth of his family’s second child.

Kirwin ’15 & Reznicek Katie Kirwin ’15 and Nick Reznicek, July 30, 2022, Wells, Vt. All Class of 2015 except the groom. From left: Sean McKenna, Maria Kim, Katie and Nick, Keenan Taft Henriques, Fuller Henriques.

White ’19 & Rickett ’16 Aliza White ’19 and Karl Rickett ’16, May 20, 2023, The Bowery Hotel, New York City. All Class of 2019 except as noted. Back, from left: Peter McIntyre, Sam Huebschmann, Ryan Corley, Collin Richardson ’18, McLeod Abbot, Max Hummel, Stefano Stadlinger ’16, Charlie Gravina ’17, Annie Horstmeyer ’16, Charlie Hildebrand ’16, Eli Cooper.

Middle, from left: Will Currie, Dean Paolucci ’16, Emma Patterson, William Cleaves ’16, Audrey Puleio ’17, Anika Becker, Olivia Amdur, Jojo Schafer, Lilly Carey, Jessie Moriarty. Front, from left: Sophie Jensen, Adah Lindquist, Maggie Carey ’14, Taylor Lough, Aliza and Karl, Catherine DiPietro ’16, Colby Spehler ’16.

Fall 2023

85

Krasnow ’18 & Albanese ’16 Claudia Krasnow ’18 and John Albanese ’16, Nov. 26, 2022, Loeb Boathouse, Central Park, New York City. All Class of 2016 except as noted. Back, from left: Ellie Toll, Jordana Gluckow, Ben Wilentz, Gibbs Lilly, John, Fiona Frick, Billy Dudine, Emily Baumgarten, Zach Antonio, Connor Cahill ’18, Belle Hutchins ’18. Front, from left: Astrid Boedtker ’18, Tucker Trimble, Claudia, Soojin Kim ’18, Charlotte Jeffrey ’18.

Kulesza ’18 & Laughlin ’18 Ashley “AK” Kulesza ’18 and James “Jesse” Laughlin ’18, Aug. 20, 2022, Freeport, Maine. All Class of 2018 except as noted. From left: Brie Peters, Adelae Durand ’19, Sarah Stanley ’16, Nick Peckham, Jackson “Dallas” Gray, Jackson Backer, Jesse, AK, Nina Davenport, Maggie Paulich ’17, Elise Emil ’17.

Jarrett & Frye ’16 Bayly Jarrett and Jack Frye ’16, July 14, 2023, Owings Mills, Md. Among the Bates alumni in the wedding party were, starting second from left, Jack Edmiston and Mark Cunningham, groomsmen; Jack; Connor Colombo, Rob DiFranco, and (at far right) Evan Czopek, all groomsmen and Class of 2016. Attending but not shown: Alex Tritell.

Nitz & Takai ’04 Sam Nitz and Benjamin Takai ’04, April 2022, District Winery, Washington, D.C. All Class of 2004 except Sam. Back, from left: John “Boo Boo” Butos, Katherine Kopeikina, Sally Steinbach, Lauren Jacobs, Julia Judson-Rea. Front, from left: Ben and Sam. Ferguson ’16 & Cox Isabel Ferguson ’16 and Tyler Cox, July 22, 2023, Bainbridge Island, Wash. From left: Ali McKay ’16, Grace Kenney ’16, Teika Carlson ’15, Katie Courtney ’16, Jack Kiely ’18, Addie Cullenberg ’16, Isabelle Unger ’16, Ben Tonelli ’18, Isabel, and Tyler. And on the Bowdoin side: Jack Mitchell, Ryan Barrett, Thomas King, Matt Jacobson, Bridger Tomlin, Julia O’Rourke, Connor Phillips.

86

Jarczyk ’17 & Eaton ’17 Emma Jarczyk ’17 and Alex Eaton ’17, Oct. 1, 2022, Boston Public Library. All Class of 2017 except as noted. From left: Annalise Kingston, Julia Szeto, Jacob Pantazis, Olivia Eaton ’23, Catherine Mullen ’19, Karen Daigler, Marisa Sittheeamorn ’18, Jack Chapman ’18, Emma, Adam Rintell, Sarah Bouchard Michaud ’15, Alex, Chase Lis, Will Bolduc, Kristen Barry ’15, Kasey Wood Matabele ’18, Chris Lee ’18, Nicholas Eaton ’20.

Maxson ’16 & Ohrstrom ’19 Eve Maxson ’16 and Gustav Ohrstrom ’19, June 3, 2023, Cunningham Farm, New Gloucester, Maine. All Class of 2016 except as noted.

Back, from left: Billy Dudine, Gibbs Lilly, Ian Wax ’19, Paul Bosco, Leo Foglizzo, Becky Dobbin, Matt Bullard, Camille Cushman, Hugh Kenny ’19, Niamh Micklewhite ’19, Kat Schell ’19, Skye Cameron ’19, Sarah Sachs ’18, Chris Dsida ’18. Front, from left: Will Sartorius, Ellie Toll, Alexis Dickinson, Mackenzie MacRae, Eve, Gustav, Fiona Frick, Carolyn Benner.

Garcia-Bou ’13 & Okamoto ’13 Cara Garcia-Bou ’13 and Ted Okamoto ’13, May 27, 2023, Baltimore. All Class of 2013 except as noted. Back, from left to right: Frank White Jr. ’11, Nate Rickler, Mike Kelen ’11, Kevin McGregor, Blaine Brown, Nick Clark, Paul Troiano, Ted, Ben Spanos, SooHee Yoon ’14, Eric Hollingsworth, Christopher Barr. Middle, from left: Ke’ala Brosseau ’20, Rebecca Bernhard, Abritee Dhal ’11, Cara, Eve Boyce-Ratliff, Eleanor Cahalane, Johnny Sowles, Laura Barr, Tasnia Huque ’12, Sam Triebwasser.

Front, from left: Gemma Nagle, Liza Padellaro, Andrew Garcia-Bou ’20, Perrin Bernard, Robert Coppersmith, Samantha Rothberg, Rachel Lee. Young ’88 & Donohue Laura Young ’88 and Scott Donohue, Aug. 12, 2023, Bubba’s Sulky Lounge, Portland, Maine. All Class of 1988 except the groom and others as noted. From left: Maddie Murphy ’20, Nancy McAllister Tabb, Paul Murphy, Barbara Ginley, Scott, Laura, Rachel Young ’62 (Laura’s mother),

Fall 2023

Mary Capaldi Gonzales, Barb Leahy Sullivan, Tracy Camenisch-Smith Fuchs, Joel Young ’63 (Laura’s father).

Also present but not shown: Christina Kilgallen.

Martin ’13 & Welds ’15 Cristal Martin ’13 & Graeme Welds ’15, March 26, 2022, Negril, Jamaica. From left: Rodney Galvao ’14, Julian Hackney ’15, David Longdon ’14, Phathutshedzo Rambau ’17, Akshay Kumar, Taylor Sorillo-Longdon, Sugeiry Betances ’15, Zachary Brown, Graeme and Cristal, Lee Sandquist ’15, Sylvia Leiva ’13, Mashya Abbassi, Michelle Pham ’15, Samreen Fatima ’16, Daniel Oyolu ’15, Priscilla Porter, Gabrielle Fourgous Perrin, Paul Fourgous ’15, Felix Xie ’15, Sebastian Martinez-Miranda ’15, Kim Sullivan ’13, Rakey Drammeh ’14.

Hinkle ’14 & Smachlo ’15 Carly Hinkle ’14 and Alex Smachlo ’15, June 10, 2023, Belvedere Hotel, Baltimore.

All Class of 2015 except as noted. Back, from left: Mollie Corcoran ’14, Amanda Moore ’14, Will Patton, Matt Hillsberg, Oie Coleman ’13, Larry Hinkle ’09, Chris Lee ’18, Julia Smachlo ’17, Sarah Burkey, Cian Noone. Front, from left: Kristen Barry, Ray Taylersen ’14, Lyndsay Mouchantat ’14, Elle Sergi ’14, Carly and Alex, Hannah Kogan, Andrew Seaton.

Fall 2023

87

in me mor ia m

PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN

This issue’s In Memoriam extends through Nov. 15, 2023.

See bates.edu/memoriam, or scan this QR code, for more information about alumni who have passed away.

1945

1952

Frances Margaret Burns June 27, 2023

Peter Laurence Ault Aug. 10, 2023

Carleton Kendrick Finch Aug. 20, 2023

Fay Johnson Boardman July 22, 2023

1957

1962

Alice Clough Brower Aug. 8, 2023

Barbara Bonney Akerman Oct. 14, 2023

Joyce Yacker Freundlich July 31, 2023

Leroy James Chute Oct. 31, 2023

Elaine Johnson Tammi July 2, 2023

Barbara Morris Deutsch July 14, 2023

Robert Lawrence Williams Sept. 4, 2023

Cynthia Kalber Nordstrom Aug. 18, 2023

1958

Richard Dennett Wilson Sr. July 20, 2023

Harry Wightman Bennert Jr. July 18, 2023

1965

William Patrick Dillon Oct. 21, 2023

Wesley Louis Fiore Dec. 10, 2022

1953

Arthur John Karszes July 24, 2023

Sandra Root Gemmel Aug. 24, 2023

Carolyn Day Chase Nov. 2, 2023

Sheila Tulk Payne Sept. 27, 2023

Carol Blaisdell Slauenwhite Sept. 14, 2023

Barbara Bartlett Hammond July 1, 2023

Kathleen Kirschbaum Harvie Sept. 8, 2023

Jo Trogler Reynolds Aug. 29, 2023

William Ronald Vance Sept. 30, 2023

Ruth Moulton Ragan July 6, 2023

Dorothy Wikoff Reed July 20, 2023

Thomas Buzzell Vail Jr. Sept. 24, 2023

Nathaniel Aaron Boone Aug. 20, 2023

1946 Barbara Hall Coffin Aug. 3, 2023

1947

Robert Perry Russell July 31, 2023

1948 Jean Leavitt Jordan Aug. 23, 2023

1959

1968 Lawrence Michael Lindblom July 8, 2023 Jeffrey Denis Morelli 2020

1954

David Bartram Harper Aug. 10, 2023

Charlotte Wilcox Weiler July 21, 2023

Barbara Sharpe Hoyt Aug. 21, 2023

1969

Arthur Badger Bradbury Aug. 4, 2023

1955

David Henry Paige Sept. 30, 2023

Candace Cameron Alden July 20, 2023

June Zimmerman Gillespie Oct. 17, 2023

Dorothy Arlene Boyce Oct. 24, 2023

Howard Charles Kunreuther Aug. 1, 2023

Ann Wheeler Bishop Oct. 14, 2023

1949

Peter Franklin Davis June 16, 2023

1950 Weston Leonard Bonney Oct. 27, 2023 John Burrill Jenkins Aug. 26, 2023 Ralph Lewis Sylvester Nov. 5, 2023 Ella Loud Wilmot July 21, 2023

Ellen DeSantis Smith May 28, 2023

1956

Jean McLeod Dill Aug. 4, 2023

Fall 2023

Eleanor Brill de Ridder Sept. 9, 2023 Nancy Mills Mallett July 11, 2023

John Shepard Holt July 8, 2023

John Dexter Flemings Sept. 28, 2023

1971

Harold Philip Larson Nov. 8, 2023

William Joseph Dufresne Oct. 20, 2023

Priscilla Hatch Stred Sept. 26, 2023

Richard Herrick Condon Aug. 28, 2023

1951

88

Donald Brainard Smith August 2023

1960

1961

1973

Gerard Edward Duguay July 9, 2023

Philip Chapin Ingerman Aug. 26, 2023

Richard B. Larson Oct. 14, 2023

1974

Elizabeth Horan Spaulding June 19, 2023

Barbara Amols Lewis Oct. 29, 2023 Ralph John Ryan Jr. Sept. 30, 2023

1975 Russell Leonard Anderson July 16, 2008 Thomas Edward Davis May 15, 2010 Kimber Dana Erno May 9, 2022 Nicholas Guy Richards June 28, 2023 Nicholas Harold Yudin Dec. 17, 2013

1976 John Pirie Nugent Nov. 3, 2023

1977 Mark Walter Sabia Oct. 15, 2023

1987 John Patrick Fitzgerald Sept. 22, 2023

S TA F F

Vincent J. LePage June 11, 2023

FA C U L T Y E M E R I T I

Fall 2023

89

PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN

Dana Melvin Mulholland Sept. 22, 2023

h i st o ry l e s s o n

HOWARD UNIVERSITY

In this circa 1980 photograph, Jimmy Carter and Benjamin Mays greet one another warmly. During Carter’s visit to Bates in 1985, he thanked Bates for its part in educating the future civil rights leader who became known as the “Schoolmaster of the Movement.”

‘The Greatness of America’s Character’ When Jimmy Carter visited Bates in 1985 to honor his good friend, Edmund Muskie ’36, he also took time to praise the legacy of another Bates alumnus, Benjamin Mays, Class of 1920 by jay bu rns THIRTY-EIGHT YEARS AGO, EVEN A HURRICANE

couldn’t stay Jimmy Carter from a self-appointed duty: coming to Bates to dedicate a new archive in honor of his good friend, Edmund Muskie ’36.

As Hurricane Gloria roared up the East Coast in late September 1985, threatening to thwart the former president’s trip to Maine, Carter’s reaction was, basically, “bring it on.”

“Nothing short of an absolute national catastrophe...could have prevented my coming to Bates College,” Carter told an audience of more than 2,700 in Merrill Gymnasium on Sept.

28 during a convocation to dedicate the official repository of Muskie’s papers, now known as

90

Fall 2023

the Edmund S. Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library.

Such was the display of mettle and devotion that the world came to revere about Carter, the 39th U.S. president, in recent months.

In May 1980, the final year of Carter’s presidency, Muskie had left the Senate to serve as Carter’s secretary of state. Muskie represented “in a superb way the greatness of America’s character,” said Carter, “a man who had a strong and beneficial impact on my own life and on that of the nation.”

While Carter’s praise for Muskie was intrinsic to the occasion, his audience might have been

“At a time when Negroes went to the back door [of a ] white house...

Jimmy Carter’s Black friends went in and out of the Carter house through the front door.”

BILL FITZPATRICK/THE WHITE HOUSE

surprised to learn that the former president was equally proud of another Bates friend, civil rights leader Benjamin E. Mays, Class of 1920, who had died just four years earlier.

“For myself and all those who have shared the beneficial influence of this man, I want to thank this college for making it possible for Dr. Benjamin Mays to overcome the handicaps of white supremacy and racism to take his place among the prominent leaders of our nation and our world,” said Carter.

In Merrill Gym, the speakers’ platform was chock-full of dignitaries. Maine Gov. Joseph Brennan was there, as was the entire Maine congressional delegation: representatives Olympia Snowe and John McKernan, and senators William Cohen and George Mitchell. Also on the platform was Frank Coffin ’40, who, as a federal judge, had sworn Muskie in as Carter’s new secretary of state.

As if a visit to Bates by a former president didn’t create enough hullabaloo and hubbub, there was Hurricane Gloria. To skirt the East Coast– hugging storm, Carter first flew to Syracuse, N.Y., where the local newspaper photographed him walking through a hotel lobby in jogging shorts after a seven-mile run around Onondaga Lake.

Carter arrived on campus to the sounds of chainsaws. From early morning, Bates community members, including students, took to the campus to clear fallen limbs before the big weekend’s events, which included traditional Back to Bates festivities. Then-treasurer Bernie Carpenter wielded one of the saws and later wrote a thankyou letter to The Bates Student. “Without that

extra help [from students] our campus could not have looked as great as it did on Back to Bates Weekend for our alumni and honored guests.”

During the convocation, Carter received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree, and later had a tête-à-tête with then-Dean of the Faculty Carl Straub about Straub’s degree citation. The two met up, by chance, at the foot of the driveway to the President’s House as they arrived from different directions to attend a lunch hosted by Bates President Hedley Reynolds.

As Straub and Carter turned to walk up the steep driveway, Carter suddenly took the dean’s arm “and stopped my walk,” recalled Straub, who died in 2019. “He said he wanted to talk.”

Straub, a religion professor who would return to the Bates classroom as the college’s first Griffith Professor of Environmental Studies, had piqued Carter’s interest by invoking the environment twice in his citation for Carter.

First, he noted that “there is more than the Appalachian Trail which binds Maine to Georgia,” such as a “common heritage which rises from the simple decency of our people: We share a sense of what is good and just and beautiful.” Second, the citation praised Carter for, among other achievements as the 39th U.S. president, the “foresight to protect our natural environments, to preserve American wilderness.”

Carter, recalled Straub, wanted to talk about the Appalachian Trail. Not surprising: In 1978, Carter signed a law giving the federal government more power to protect, expand, and improve the trail.

Straub said he took a moment to thank Carter

President Jimmy Carter looks on as Edmund Muskie is sworn in as secretary of state on May 8, 1980, by Frank Coffin ’40, a friend and federal judge in Maine. From left: Carter; Muskie’s daughter, Ellen Muskie Allen; his wife, Jane Muskie; and Coffin.

Fall 2023

91

FRANK SITEMAN FOR BATES COLLEGE

Former President Jimmy Carter embraces his friend and former secretary of state, Edmund S. Muskie ’36, during the Sept. 28, 1985, dedication of the Muskie Archives. Carter received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree during the event.

At left and right are Bates trustees Vincent McKusick ’44 and Bill Trafton.

92

Fall 2023

MUSKIE ARCHIVES AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS LIBRARY

for his leadership in establishing Denali National Park. (In 1978, Carter used executive authority to designate 56 million acres of Alaska wilderness as federally protected national monuments and in 1980, signed a law bringing the former McKinley National Park into a larger protected area named Denali National Park and Preserve.)

It was a proud if surreal moment for Straub, having a 10-minute private audience with a former president — “while dignitaries waited at the top of the driveway to welcome [Carter].”

Carter’s friendship with and admiration for Ed Muskie is well-chronicled in the public record, thanks in large part to the Muskie Archives. It shines through in the famous photo of the 5-foot10 Carter hugging the 6-foot-4 Muskie during the archives dedication.

And it comes through in quieter ways, like the April 1981 photo showing Carter, decked out in fly-fishing gear and smiling that famous Carter grin, holding a big brown trout. On the back of the photo, which Carter sent to Muskie, he wrote, “On the opening day of the season, with my new Ed Muskie self-casting rod, I caught a lot of smaller ones, plus three over 18 inches. Thanks again. I’m sure the Maine fishing will be even better. Jimmy.”

While less well-known, the late president’s relationship with Mays was no less vital or authentic. For one, it reflected a shared Southern upbringing, wrote Damian Dominguez in a March 2023 story about the Mays-Carter friendship for the Greenwood (S.C.) Index-Journal.

“The two shared a common sensibility: Carter grew up a rural, Southern, Baptist farmer; Mays was the son of freed slaves who became sharecroppers and grew up a Baptist in rural Epworth,” Dominguez reported.

Carter and Mays probably got to know one another around 1970, Dominguez suggested. At the time, Mays, who had retired as president of Morehouse College in 1967, was presiding over the Atlanta Board of Education — just as the federal courts ordered the desegregation of Georgia public schools — and Carter was ramping up his successful campaign for governor.

Within a few years, Mays, who had been advising U.S. presidents on racial issues since the 1950s, starting with Harry Truman, would announce his support of Carter for president, a decision that Mays explained during a talk at Bates in February 1977 during Black Arts Week.

Then age 82, Mays spoke in the Chapel (and was introduced by Marcus Bruce ’77, then a Bates senior and now the Charles A. Dana Professor of Religious Studies).

Mays explained that he had been getting letters asking why he had supported Carter’s run for president in 1976, so he took a moment to explain his reasons. Mays pointed to Carter’s inaugural address as Georgia’s governor in 1971, when Carter said that “the time for racial discrimination is over.”

From that moment, Mays took time to “study his record, read what he said and what his mother said about Jimmy’s early years. At a time when Negroes went to the back door [of a] white house...

On President Carter’s last day in office, Jan. 20, 1980, he meets with, from left, Secretary of State Edmund Muskie, national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, and Secretary of Defense Harold Brown as they receive confirmation that the airplane carrying American embassy personnel held hostage in Iran had departed that country.

Jimmy Carter’s Black friends went in and out of the Carter house through the front door.”

When Carter served in the Navy, Mays told his Chapel audience, his voice sounding still strong on an old cassette tape recording, “one of his friends was Black, and when he visited Jimmy Carter’s home, he was treated as a man and was a guest in the Carter home. So when he made his statement about racism in his inaugural address [as] governor, I had reasons to believe.”

Mays went on to recount the various actions Carter took as governor, including integrating the powerful Board of Regents, which controls policy for Georgia’s public university system. “He meant what he said,” Mays concluded.

Mays, known as the “Schoolmaster of the Movement” for mentoring Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders, told the Chapel audience that in supporting Carter he was also supporting his own life’s work, to help lead the South’s emergence from its Jim Crow past.

Mays spoke of growing up when “lynching was respected by the state and condoned by the church. ...I knew segregation and denigration.”

After Mays’ death, on March 28, 1984, Carter praised him as “my personal friend, my constructive critic, and my close adviser.” Offering one of the eulogies at his funeral, held at Morehouse, Carter described Mays as a “monumental figure in the field of education and social justice. He inspired all who knew him.”

At Mays’ funeral, when a speaker asked all the “Morehouse men” to stand, Carter stood with the many other Morehouse degree-holders: He had received an honorary degree from the college in 1972.

“I was proud to stand as one of the Morehouse men,” Carter said in his remarks. “Dr. Mays told me that he was proud a Morehouse man was finally in the White House. He told me, ‘You may be the first, but you won’t be the last.’” n Fall 2023

93

a r ch iv es from the edmund s. muskie archives and elsewhere OnGive Keya Ring

Each Thisnew silver Bates Bates president cigar-band receives a set of keys, ringsymbolizing belonged tothe theauthority late Jane of the office, atLibby their installation ’56, a noted ceremony. editor of The current setarchaeological was created for publications. the inauguration of Elaine Tuttle She co-edited Hansen, on theOct. scholarly 26, 2002. Clayton Spencer book Pendejo received Cave them (2003) on Oct. 26, 2012, and Garry withW. legendary Jenkins archaeologist will receive them at his installation R.S. “Scotty” ceremony.

MacNeish, which suggested a much earlier human inhabitation of North America than scholars previously thought.

Hair Raising

Gomes’ Good Life

This silver chalice by Shreve and Co. belonged to the late Rev. Peter Gomes ’65. Friends purchased it at his estate auction in 2012 and donated it to Bates to honor the naming of the Bates chapel in memory of the beloved preacher, author, and Bates alumnus. It is inscribed “Good Life December 2002” (the title and publication date of Gomes’ book about moral traditions) and monogrammed “PJG.” The chapel is known for its stained glass, designed by Charles Connick, whose Gothic Revival–style work is found worldwide.

94

Fall 2023 2019

The Edwardian hairstyle for women was the pompadour, a style worn by Gladys Burgess Spear for her Class of 1906 yearbook portrait. In that era, women wore their hair down only in private, as in the accompanying photo of Bates women having a “midnight party” in Rand Hall in 1908. (While it looks like they’re smoking cigarettes, they’re having a midnight snack, probably Welsh rarebit.)

o u t ta k e One day, Associate Professor of Hispanic Studies Stpehanie Pridgeon stopped by with her newborn son, Archer.

I had wanted to photograph them together, but had not had the chance. My photographer’s mind had imagined a cherubic, happy infant filling the frame and his mother’s arms. Archer had other ideas, soon communicating his displeasure. In this photo, he’s not even in focus, yet clearly the center of everyone’s attention.

And his mother appreciates the moment, screaming and all.

— Phyllis Graber Jensen

Bates Magazine Fall 2023

President of Bates Garry W. Jenkins

Editor H. Jay Burns

Contact Us Bates Communications and Marketing 2 Andrews Rd. Lewiston ME 04240

Designer Jin Kwon Production Assistant Kirsten Burns Director of Photography Phyllis Graber Jensen Photographer Theophil Syslo Class Notes Editor Doug Hubley Contributing Editors Mary Pols Deirdre Stires

magazine@bates.edu 207-786-6330

Production Bates Magazine is printed twice annually at familyowned Penmor Lithographers, just a few minutes from campus. We use paper created with 100 percent postconsumer fiber and print with inks that are 99.5 percent free of volatile compounds.

Nondiscrimination Bates College prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, national or ethnic origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression, age, disability, genetic information or veteran status and other legally protected statuses On the Cover in the recruitment and As mourners arrived at admission of its students, Gomes Chapel for a Vigil in the administration of for Grief and Remembrance, its education policies a week after the Lewiston and programs, or in the shootings, each received recruitment of its faculty an unlit candle. During and staff. The college the vigil, Bates multifaith adheres to all applicable chaplain Brittany Longsdorf state and federal equal brought a flame from opportunity laws and candles of remembrance regulations. Full policy: on the altar to the first row. bates.edu/nondiscrimiFrom there, community nation members lit one another’s candles, passing the flame back, the light growing quickly, person to person, heart to heart. Photograph

by Phyllis Graber Jensen.

Fall 2023

95

4 1 6

3 5

2

96

Fall 2023

7

FROM A DISTANCE

In the Gray Athletic Building, November’s Trashion Show highlighted recycling efforts by showcasing outfits made from campus trash and modeled by students, faculty, and staff.

1

Built in 1926, Gray got nicknamed the Cage for cage-like netting that protected windows from flying baseballs.

9

2

8

300 people attended the show, including TV reporters from Portland’s NBC affiliate.

3

Izzie Sandoz ’26 models a dress of old transit, gift, and laundry cards.

4

When lowered, this divider creates separate spaces for multiple sports.

5

Judges included Alison Montgomery, head women’s basketball coach.

6

MCs were Student Government co-presidents Dhruv Chandra ’25 and Rebecca Anderson ’24.

7

Baffles hanging from the ceiling improve acoustics.

8

Models lining up include French professor Kirk Read in a Scottish outfit whose breastplate features 100-plus name tags.

THEOPHIL SYSLO

9

Girders at each corner supported the old elevated track.

Bates Bates College Lewiston, Maine 04240

TAKING

FLIGHT

THEOPHIL SYSLO

The annual Trashion Show, providing some campus joy during tough times, included this stunner, modeled by Adelle Welch ’25 and designed by Grace Acton ’24, who used her thesis research on historic dresses — and a lot of plastic bags — to create an homage to the famed Swan ball gown.