33 minute read
Bates in Brief
BATES IN BRIEF SPRING 202I
PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN
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Spring 2021
Centering body and mind in the prayer posture, Amelia Keleher ’21 of Brunswick, Maine, joined a physically distanced yoga session on Lake Andrews in early March. Katia Ryan ’23 of Amsterdam, N.Y., led the morning gathering. “Yoga on ice is quite wacky, which matches the wackiness of this past year,” said Ryan, who did her part to keep Bobcats healthy by finding safe spaces for yoga during the 2020–21 pandemic year.
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Magical Opportunity
On and off campus, Abby Segal ’23 of Chelmsford, Mass., brings a little magic wherever she goes.
An accomplished magician, she appeared on the TV show Penn & Teller : Fool Us in February.
On campus, she’s found ways to integrate magic into her academics. In an animation course, she created a flipbook magic trick And in a cognitive psychology course, she explored how magic catches an audience off guard, prompting an unconscious response.
Watch Segal on Penn & Teller bates.edu/segal-magic What Didn’t Get Canceled
In his first three years at Bates, theater and English major Deon Custard ’21 of Chicago gained experience and knowledge, including a summer 2019 Purposeful Work internship at the vaunted Steppenwolf Theatre Co. to work on sound design and production.
Then came the pandemic.
He’d been funded to do summer 2020 thesis research in London and Cambridge through a Bates Phillips Fellowship. “That was canceled,” he said.
He received another, smaller grant to fund a trip to the Folger Shakespeare Library, in Washington, D.C., last fall. “That was canceled.”
But what wasn’t canceled was his winter-semester thesis production of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night.
Custard knew to expect all sorts of logistical challenges. “But I’m surrounded by an incredibly flexible production team,” he said prior to the show. “They’re taking even the most abstract ideas and turning them into concrete pieces of art to share with the entire community.”
Custard set his production of Twelfth Night around New Year’s Eve 1969. Well-versed in theater history, he notes that from the “vantage point of today, it’s clear how history continues to repeat itself — over and over. Stories of revolutionary love and social resistance will always be worth telling.”
THEOPHIL SYSLO
OK Now
If you remember the 1960s, you may remember the famous self-help book, I’m OK — You’re OK.
As Bates students navigated 2020–21 within COVID-19 protocols, another saying came to the fore: “It’s OK not to be OK.”
That’s how Kenza Nadifi ’21 of Bethesda, Md., approached the most difficult year in college history: Be kind to yourself. Equally important, she said, is “being extra careful with people.”
The protocols stripped away many favorite campus pursuits. There was no sit-down dining in Commons and no competitive sports, and few in-person activities for clubs and organizations. But there was mandatory physical distancing and masking nearly all the time.
The presidential election and its disturbing aftermath added yet another layer of stress to everyone’s life.
“I started to feel almost frantic,” said Nadifi, as she tried to balance and reconcile the pressures of the pandemic, academics, internship work, the political divide, and the environmental crisis.
The fate of the journal, misplaced amidst dust bunnies behind a bed, is a metaphor for what’s happening to a lot of people now, Nafidi says.
That’s why, she said, “it’s so important to be open about the challenges you are facing, if you feel comfortable doing so. If I can help someone feel less alone simply by communicating my own struggles, then it is 100 percent worth it, to reach a mutual understanding that things are tough.
ED
It wasn’t COVID but a bit of cabin fever — brought on by pandemic protocols that constrained everyone’s movements around campus — that prompted Ed Zuis ’24 of Monmouth, Maine, to start a new routine of early-morning runs. His first was after a light snowfall in late February.
PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN Spring 2021
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PAYETTE
Peekin’ at the Beacon
Seen in an early architectural rendering (above) and as it looked on a winter night (right), the glass curtain wall dubbed “the Beacon” is a signature feature of the Bonney Science Center, now nearing completion across the street from Carnegie Science Hall.
Chapel Honors
Recently completed after two decades of planning and execution, Bates’ exterior restoration of the Peter J. Gomes Chapel was recognized by a major statewide historic preservation organization, Maine Preservation, with a 2020 Honor Award.
The restoration addressed numerous issues, including failing and bulging masonry; shifting and weakening stained-glass windows; and deterioration of the building’s slate and copper roofs, which led to water damage to the building’s timber framing.
Timeless and resplendent, the Gomes Chapel wears a mantle of snow in February.
PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN
A stainless steel cuboid, seen with a light topping of December snow and frost, marks the entrance to Veterans Plaza. Its inscription invites “reflection on the impact of war on the lives of everyone it touches.”
PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN
Sign, Symbol, Celebration
New on campus last fall, Veterans Plaza makes both an offering and a request.
The plaza’s design, featuring benches, a central stone focal object, and a screen of trees, offers a tranquil place to reflect on the impact of war on our lives.
Its request, meanwhile, is that we recognize and honor the contributions and sacrifices of Bates veterans
This contemplative power makes the plaza “part and parcel of our mission to educate and transform lives,” said President Clayton Spencer at the Oct. 9, 2020, dedication. It is “sign, symbol, and celebration of the service and sacrifice of those who have preceded us.
The event’s keynote speaker was Navy Capt. J.J. Cummings ’89, joining the gathering from the flight deck of the world’s largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, of which he recently concluded service as commanding office.
He expressed hope that Bates students appreciate the connection between military service and a democratic nation.
Nick Gonzalez ’24 of Chappaqua, N.Y., visits Veterans Plaza last October. The inscription on the plaza’s granite focal object says, “This space honors the service and sacrifice of Bates veterans.” “I hope they understand that every service member volunteers to raise their right hand to recite an oath to support and defend — not one man, a king, a queen or a tyrant or political party — but the Constitution of the United States.”
Janell Sato ’22 of Honolulu, the scion of a family with a long military service history, spoke on behalf of students. “When you sit on the benches and hear the rustling leaves and feel the slight breeze blowing softly on your skin, you are able to take a moment in, and honor all those who have served.”
The dedication also featured remarks from U.S. Rep. Jared Golden ’11 of Maine, a Marine Corps combat veteran of Afghanistan and Iraq; Jane Costlow, Clark A. Griffith Professor of Environmental Studies and a scholar of Russian literature; and retired Facility Services staff member Danny Sands, a Vietnam combat veteran and member of the committee that developed the project.
The Rev. Brittany Longsdorf, the college’s multifaith chaplain, offered the concluding benediction, including these words:
May those whose bodies still carry the terror and wounds of war find healing here.
May those whose minds still feel haunted by violence and hardship find calm here.
May those whose hearts still ache with grief, loss, and woe for a beloved lost in warfare find remembrance here
May those whose souls have felt heavy with the burden of duty and service find peace here.
May this space invoke in all of us an awe for freedom, liberation, and justice, and inspire us to honor all those who have served and strived to amplify these ideals.
Veterans Plaza at dusk.
Professor of Earth and Climate Sciences Beverly Johnson holds a water-quality sonde as she works with environmental geochemistry students collecting and analyzing water samples at Lake Andrews last fall.
True Blue
Maine has tens of thousands of acres of coastal salt marshes and eelgrass meadows that are photogenic, great for kayaking, and teaming with wildlife.
Equally important, “they also serve a vital function in mitigating climate change,” explained Professor of Earth and Climate Sciences Beverly Johnson in a recent op-ed in the Portland Press Herald. (Formerly “geology,” Johnson’s department is now named “earth and climate sciences,” befitting the scope of its work.)
Coastal marshland helps to remove carbon dioxide — known as “blue carbon” when it’s coastal — from the atmosphere, much like forests do. “They are absolute powerhouses of carbon absorption and storage,” Johnson wrote. “On a per-acre basis, healthy blue carbon coastal ecosystems are up to 10 times more efficient at capturing and storing carbon than forests. But they rarely get the recognition they deserve.”
Johnson and others are changing that. She’s a member of the International Blue Carbon Scientific orking Group and recently had a hand in developing the state’s new climate action plan, Maine Won’t Wait, which recommends protecting and restoring the state’s blue carbon ecosystems.
The marshes where Johnson does much of her research, in and around the Bates–Morse Mountain Conservation Area in Phippsburg, endured degradation in the 19th and 20th centuries, primarily as a result of grass cutting to feed livestock and ditch digging to reduce mosquito habitats. “But fortunately, they are now conserved,” she wrote.
Other Maine marshes and eelgrass beds haven’t been so lucky. For example, antiquated or poorly designed road crossings and dams that cut salt marshes off from tides can lead to the release of methane, “a greenhouse gas 30 times more potent than carbon dioxide.”
On a federal level, Congress has introduced the Ocean-Based Climate Solutions Act of 2020, which would protect and restore 1.5 million acres of blue carbon ecosystems nationwide over the next 10 years.
State and federal blue-carbon efforts, she said, “are just one of a variety of strategies for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions while creating jobs as we transition to a clean-energy economy.”
Brett Huggett works with students during Short Term 2016 at Maine’s Saco Heath Preserve.
PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN
What It Means
Five faculty received promotions, including tenure, in 2020–21.
Brett Huggett of the Department of Biology and Geneviève Robert of the Department of Earth and Climate Sciences were promoted from assistant to associate professor with tenure.
Promoted from associate to full professor were Meredith Greer of the Department of Mathematics, Therí Pickens of the Department of English, and Sonja Pieck of the Program in Environmental Studies.
We asked each a deceptively simple question: “What does being a Bates professor mean to you?”
Huggett: “From my early years as a jazz musician, to a naturalist for Massachusetts Audubon Society, and now as a Bates professor, I have always found immense joy in teaching and inspiring curiosity in others. Working closely with talented students, Bates is an incredible place to incorporate my passion for plant biology into teaching and research.”
Robert: “It’s about empowering students to view themselves as scientists. It’s about learning from my colleagues. And it’s about working toward a common goal. I love that
students come to class with an open mind, ready for a challenge.”
Greer: “It has always been about the people. I chose to work at Bates because of the people I met when interviewing here — every single one was friendly, intellectually curious, helpful, and excited about what we could learn together. That has stayed true throughout.”
Pickens: “My scholarly work — centering the theories, ideas, and creative endeavors of Black people, Arab Americans, disabled people — presses me and others to think more explicitly about how to make a just world. In doing so, I’ve become even more convinced that the study of literature, and the humanities writ large, is vitally necessary to our world.”
Pieck: “I love drawing connections between different perspectives, theories, scales, places, interests, groups, and species. I believe environmental problems at their core derive from uneven power relations — among humans, but also between human and non-human communities — and we need multifaceted and synergistic approaches to understand them and develop effective solutions.”
THIS JUST IN
A sampling of recent faculty-authored articles.
Predicting the Effects of Climate Change on Freshwater Cyanobacterial Blooms Requires Consideration of the Complete Cyanobacterial Life Cycle Publication: Journal of Plankton Research • Authors: Holly Ewing (environmental studies), Meredith Greer (mathematics), and coauthors • What It Explains: Toxin-producing cyanobacteria are responsible for increasingly common “algal” blooms on ponds and lakes. To predict future bloom dynamics, scientists need to know more about the complete life cycle of these organisms, both the benthic stage near the sediment at the bottom of a body of water (of which little is known) and their activities when in the pelagic environment near the surface.
Cultivating Inclusive Instructional and Research Environments in Ecology and Evolutionary Science Publication: Ecology & Evolution • Author: Carrie Diaz Eaton (digital and computational studies) and coauthors • What It Explains: How ecologists, evolutionary scientists, and science educators can better cultivate an inclusive environment in their classrooms, research laboratories, and fieldwork through empath, flexibilit, and a growth mindset. It also provides references for further readings on best practices and strategies.
The Bose-Einstein Condensate and Cold Atom Laboratory Publication: EPJ Quantum Technology • Author: Nathan Lundblad (physics and astronomy) and coauthors • What It Explains: How a planned new ultracold laboratory on the International Space Station, a German/American joint venture and successor to the current NASA Cold Atom Laboratory, will allow scientists, including Lundblad, to do experiments on a state of matter known as the Bose-Einstein Condensate. The microgravity environment of orbit is key to such experiments.
Discrimination and Social Exclusion in the Outbreak of COVID-19 Publication: International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health • Author: Leshui He (economics) and coauthors • What It Explains: How Chinese people, and people of Chinese or Asian descent worldwide, have faced discrimination during the pandemic. In response, governments and the media must foster understanding and provide support.
Metro riders wear masks in Qingdao, China, in November 2020.
Right This Way
Two professors, Jennifer Koviach-Côté and April Hill, joined fellow Bates faculty and staff members in February to greet and guide students as they arrived at the college’s Testing Center upon their return to campus for winter semester. Koviach-Côté is an associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry; Hill is the Wagener Family Professor of Equity and Inclusion in STEM.
Here, Koviach-Côté and Hill guide a student to a waiting area in Merrill Gymnasium, where students awaited results of their rapid-antigen test taken next door in Underhill Arena.
With the start of the winter semester in mid-February — a later start than usual, to avoid bringing students back during the worst of the mid-winter pandemic surge — Bates doubled down to fight the virus, adding rapid-antigen screening to students’ testing routines.
Antigen screening, while not the gold standard for confirming COVID-19, nevertheless offers near-instant results, compared to the one-day results from the customary PCR test. Quick results mean that an infected person can enter isolation protocols immediately.
2020 • 2021 F ULBRIGHT PROGRAM
TOP PRODUCER STUDENT PROGRAM
Ten Years Running
For the 10th straight year, Bates was named a Top Producer of Fulbright Student awards among U.S. liberal arts colleges. Bates was awarded 10 Fulbright Student awards for 2020–21.
This is the 75th anniversary year of the Fulbright Program, the U.S. government’s flagship international educational exchange program.
Toot Toot
Horn-tooting is always sweeter when someone else does it for you. The Bates Center for Purposeful Work experienced just that with Ron Lieber’s new book The Price You Pay For College.
Lieber, a New York Times columnist, described the Bates Center for Purposeful Work as one of the “genuinely reinvented career counseling offices.
He added, “The officewasn’t just some acronym. The name was designed to convey not just a message but a mission, a standing order, really.”
Great Rate
The college’s belt-and-suspenders approach to achieving an in-person academic year — through testing, masking, physical distancing — did the trick, with an overall positivity rate of 0.14 percent through early spring among students, who were required to test twice weekly, and employees, who had the option to test once a week. Note: Total tests through April 27.
Student and Employee Tests I06,009
Total Positive Tests I47
Positivity Rate .I4%
Golden Advice
The college’s Communications and Admission teams got golden news in 2020 when their joint project, a web series called Ask the College Experts, won a Grand Gold award from the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education.
The series features Bates faculty and staff addressing topics that often bedevil prospective students — such as the financialaid process and writing an effective admission essay — while providing a helpful resource for secondary school guidance professionals.
Bates recently premiered Season 2, which promises to illuminate more about admission and the college experience itself.
Scan to watch Ask the College Experts
(See page 22 for tips from Associate Dean and Director for Global Education Darren Gallant about getting the most out of study abroad.)
$65M To Go!
$95M Given!
Endowment Progress Donors have given $95 million toward The Bates Campaign’s goal of $160 million in endowment gifts. The ultimate aim: greater financial sustainability for the institution.
After picking up packages at Post & Print, Sydney Childs ’24 of Cohasset, Mass., called her mom, who had sent her a few items.
SHIP SHAPE
photography by phyllis graber jensen
Whether contact lenses or
a new gaming computer, packages shipped from families (or from elsewhere) are like those letters from home
of bygone times, providing a bit of care and connection
for Bates students during a disconnected time.
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Being A Part, Not Apart
Growing up in Plymouth, N.H., Jevan Sandhu ’21 saw the difference between her brown, Indian skin and the whiteness of her community, friends, classmates, and softball teammates.
But she didn’t know what it meant.
At Bates, through coursework in psychology, gender studies, and education, “I was able to put some of those feelings that I was having when I was younger into models and theories,” she said. “[I was] reading about other people that also have these experiences, and realizing that I’m not the only one who has these feelings.”
Education about issues of race and equity took place on her softball team too, with Sandhu as a teacher.
Last spring, she and teammate Dulce Alcantara ’21 worked with the staff of Bates Athletics to offer a workshop on racial equity for the team. “We did scenarios and broke down different definitions of things like white privilege and white fragility,” she said. “It was very powerful.”
In addition to being an athlete, Sandhu is a member of the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, the newly formed Bates Athletics Agents of Change, and the South Asian Students Association.
Sandhu’s senior thesis in psychology looks at the racial experiences of students of color who come to Bates from both predominantly white and racially diverse places. It’s often the case, she says, that Bates students of color feel “ostracized or separated from other students, unfortunately.”
In February, she presented her research at Columbia Univer- sity’s Winter Roundtable Conference, “A Pandemic of Racism.”
She hopes to attend graduate school, with an eye on eventu- ally working in higher education to support students of color — “so they can feel like they are a part of a college campus.”
ERICA
Erika Parker ’23 of San Salvador, El Salvador, remembers a teaching moment with her father after a crisis of confidence as a young squash player, when match losses became harder and harder for her to deal with. “He asked me if I didn’t enjoy every training session, and if representing my country was not worth it. He also asked me if the time we spent together as a family, playing and talking about squash, was a waste.” With that, she was able to recover a love for her sport.
BREWSTER BURNS
AARON MORSE
Noah Jankowski ‘24 of Methuen, Mass., awaits a pitch during a fall baseball practice. Due to COVID, NESCAC permitted for the first time traditional spring sports to have full practices, with coaches, in the fall.
Tools to Succeed
What a way to start a college athletic career. For the 238 students in the Class of 2024 who plan to play varsity sports, their first year was like no other, as the fall and winter intercollegiate athletic seasons were canceled.
How, then, does a first-year find their place on a team? Get creative. Some of the innovations — as well as tried and true approaches — have included:
’Cats, CAPS, and conversations Weekly meetings with the college’s Counseling and Psychological Services helped student-athletes navigate an unprecedented year. Mentoring Many teams have longstanding mentorship programs, where each first-year regularly meets with a returning student to talk about any number of topics, such as academics, organization and time management, or navigating campus life.
Take Advantage of New Rules Last fall, NESCAC allowed spring sports, like baseball, softball, and lacrosse, to hold fall practices with their coaching staffs present.
“I am not sure what could be more productive and beneficial for our firstyear students and their teammates and coaches than spending time together, outside on Garcelon Field, doing one of the things that is most important to their happiness and sense of self-worth,” said head men’s lacrosse coach Peter Lasagna.
Rethink practices Despite canceled seasons, sports held physically distanced practices so athletes could maintain their skills and build community.
Zoom welcome panels Returning Bates athletes and Bates Athletics staff helped welcome firstyears virtually.
Get with the group COVID-19 protocols restrict large gatherings, so “we meet in smaller groups, set up times to lift together, play wall ball together, and get to know them more personally,” said men’s lacrosse player Peyton Weatherbie ’21 of Cape Elizabeth, Maine.
Keep it simple Tennis player Salma Alsikafi ’24 of Lake Buff, Ill., recalls how, back in August, her new teammates instantly helped her feel settled simply by introducing themselves while she ate dinner outside with a few other first-years from her dorm.
Why I Coach
Tyler Sheikh Head Coach, Men’s Soccer
Partly borne out of his own unsatisfying undergraduate athletic experience, Tyler Sheikh’s coaching philosophy focuses on giving students control of their experience, when possible.
So rather than creating a cult-ofcoach program, he wants players’ guidance. “The more the merrier,” he says. “I want their opinions, I want their feedback. It’s their experience. How can I help it be more memorable?”
And it’s worth it, he says. “It’s absolutely a joy. Bates kids are pretty darn special.”
Feel the Earth
As the projected Zoom image of guest artist Kendra J. Ross loomed like a benevolent Oz, Claire Kaminski ’24 (center) of Montclair, N.J., and fellow dancers rehearsed an unusual dance piece during a very unusual time.
The course was “Dance Repertory,” a staple of the dance program in which students work closely with professional guest choreographers as well as faculty.
In the course’s fall 2020 iteration, seven students worked on two pieces, both informed by the pandemic.
One was Ross’ How the Wind Blows, which explores the energy of Oya, a female warrior deity of African origin who controls wind and lives at the gates of cemeteries. It asks the viewer to ponder “our relationship to death and rebirth during COVID,” said Ross.
To ensure physical distancing, students performed within 10-foot squares in the Plavin Studio. That created safety, but meant giving up the skin-on-skin physicality that often defines dance
So Ross decided to dish the dirt, adding bags of soil to each dancer’s square, making possible a “more visceral and tactile excavation” of the dance’s themes. In turn, the dancers used their bodies to create “phrases in the dirt to discover what that unearthed,” said Ross, who joined the class remotely from her home in Brooklyn.
Assistant Professor of Dance Brian Evans contributed Seven at Stake to the course, in which 10-foot poles splayed on the ground in various patterns or held like yokes guided the dancers in evocative sequences, all while keeping them safe and physically distant. (The course spanned both modules of the fall semester, with Evans teaching the second module and Professor of Dance Carol Dilley the first.
The course’s seven students came into the course with trepidation, but left feeling triumphant. “Unlike what a lot of people think, during a pandemic performance is possible,” said Kaminski. “We just have to completely change the definition of what that means and what it consists of. Its something we are all proud of.”
In the end, Kaminski and her fellow students learned the art of the possible.
Mirror Image
The Bates Photography Club, dedicated to sharing advice and techniques, organizing photo trips, and highlighting student photographers, shared this image by George Natsis ’24 of Wayland, Mass., on the student club’s Instagram feed.
The image is a composite, in which two or more photographs are melded together to create a surprising effect — in this case as if we’re looking right through a student sitting on a Quad walkway. “It was a cool way to capture the beautiful foliage of the fall season in Maine while adding my own twist,” Natsis says.
Bates Photo Cats on Instagram instagram.com/batesphotocats
PETER RALSTON/ PETER RALSTON GALLERY
The Art of Advice
The virtual opening of the Bates Museum of Art’s exhibition Let’s Celebrate Ashley Bryan! featured a loving discussion between Bryan (above left), a Maine artist, author, and illustrator, and poet Nikki Giovanni (above right).
The longtime friends and collaborators, with a combined 174 years of wisdom between them, offered six joyful lessons about creativity and life.
1. Any poem can be yours “I tell children to work to find you voice in the printed word of the poem. Then the poem is yours,” said Bryan.
2. First, write for yourself “People forget you’re writing for yourself,” Giovanni said. “I say that all the time to my students: ‘You are your firs reader.’ As you read it, it has to please you. It has to make you smile.”
COURTESY NIKKI- GIOVANNI.COM
3. When all else is gone, your voice is what matters “You have nothing that’s more important than your prophetic voice,” said Bryan.
4. You can find inspiration anywhere “There is always magic and mystery in every moment,” said Bryan. Try looking at one little thing in your life — a word that sounds different from the way it looks — and asking, “What can it do? What is it saying to me?”
5. Work at it The work doesn’t stop when a painting is on a wall. “You are the one who has to bring this alive,” Bryan said. “You have to make it work.”
6. Stay hopeful (because what else is there?) “Go forward with hope for human beings,” Giovanni said. “If you don’t hope, what else do you have? What else are you going to try to do?”
Sharing the Love
Second-grade teacher Kayla Grier reads Beautiful Blackbird by Ashley Bryan to her class at Sherwood Heights Elementary School in Auburn.
In January, Bates Museum of Art Education Curator Anthony Shostak visited Sherwood Heights and other Lewiston-Auburn elementary schools to deliver Beautiful Blackbird and other education materials about Bryan, a Maine artist and author whose work was exhibited by the museum through March.
Aspire Higher Boldly illuminated against dark storm clouds, the Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul — and its familiar eight spires — stands tall.
Dedicated in 1938, the basilica is clad in Mainesourced granite from the town of Jay. In fact, you can view the quarry. Just head to North Jay White Granite Park, 14 Woodman Hill Road in Jay, where a one-mile hiking trail leads to a view.
ANDREE KEHN/ LEWISTON SUN JOURNAL
Bruce Campbell ’76 (right), pharmacy director at Central Maine Medical Center, places COVID-19 vaccines into an ultra-cold freezer loaned by Bates as St. Mary’s pharmacy director Vahid Rohani opens the door.
Cold Comfort
With COVID-19 vaccines set to arrive in Maine early last winter, local hospitals needed more than just space to store the incoming vials. They needed wicked cold space — cold as in minus 112 degrees Fahrenheit.
After hearing a Maine Centers for Disease Control briefin that outlined the acute need, Associate Professor of Biology Brett Huggett emailed Geoff Swift, vice president for finance and administration.
“Basically I said, ‘Geoff, there’s a need for [ultra-cold] freezers within the state of Maine and I have one that could be freed up completely,’” recalled Huggett, a dendrologist who uses ultra-cold freezers to store tree-tissue samples before chemical analysis.
Swift took that idea and reached out to other members of the Bates natural science faculty and staff. After assessing what was available, he invited representatives from nearby Central Maine Medical Center and St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center to come see what Bates could share — five freezers in all
At CMMC, pharmacy director Bruce Campbell ’76 had thought he’d have to make do with his single, tiny freezer, as demand for new units had outstripped supply. “If we couldn’t prove that we had the storage ability, then the vaccine would, appropriately, go elsewhere,” he said.
Ultimately Campbell asked for and received two Bates units, a 19-cubic-foot upright from the chemistry department and a 5-cubic-foot chest-style freezer from biology.
Said Huggett, “Many of us on the Bates faculty and staff have been constantly thinking about how we can help out through this pandemic. This really seemed like an obvious way in which Bates could help.”
What’s in a Name: Sabattus
It’s the name of a street in Lewiston, a neighboring town, and other places.
Sounds Like... Not related to the word “Sabbath,” the name “Sabattus” is an alternative pronunciation of “Jean Baptist,” a common Christian name given to Native Americans by French missionaries. Other spelling variations are “Sabattis,” “Sebattis,” and “Sabatis.”
Crossing Sabattus If you’ve been to the Goose or Luiggi’s, you’ve crossed Sabattus Street, which begins at the intersection with Main Street and extends to the town of Sabattus.
Sabattus Cabin In the mid-1920s, the Bates Outing Club built a cabin on the southern slope of Sabattus Mountain in nearby Wales. (“Sabattus” is also the name of a nearby pond and river.) By 1974, the cabin had been damaged by vandals. That October, in the spirit of leaving no trace, an Outing Club work group dismantled the cabin, removing all shingles, bricks, and other material from the site. According to Webster A town adjacent to Lewiston was renamed Sabattus in 1971 to honor an 18th-century Native American tribal leader who, it’s said, guided Benedict Arnold as he ascended the Kennebec River to attack the British in Québec in 1775, during the Revolutionary War. The town was originally named Webster, after the orator and statesman.
The Sabattus town seal depicts a Native American leader wearing a feathered war bonnet, but such war bonnets were worn by tribes of the Great Plains, not the Northeast.
Name That Band “Sabattis” was the name of a circa 1970 hard rock band that never quite made it. Their demo album, Warning in the Sky, is on YouTube.
Circa 1934, Burt Dunfield ’34 and Ted Lynch ’36 pose outside the Bates Outing Club cabin on Sabattus Mountain, in Wales.
The Bigger Picture
Newly appointed to the Bates faculty this year, Assistant Professor of Economics Nivedhitha Subramanian delves into development economics, focusing on economic and social conditions in developing nations.
Why development economics?
What she’s asking: For her dissertation, Subramanian looked at how gender norms affect women job seekers in Pakistan. She looked into questions like, “How do we hire people? What are the constraints that people, particularly women, might face in the labor market?”
To gather data, she used Job Asaan, a Lahore-based platform for female job seekers created by a team of development economists at Duke, including Subramanian. What she’s learned: In one experiment, some female job seekers were given extra information about job postings, such as the supervisor’s gender. Among those job seekers, application rates doubled. In addition, job seekers with that information were more likely to apply to a job with a female supervisor.
In another experiment, some job seekers were asked if they had discussed their job search with their family. Among this cohort, applications dropped by 30 percent. “This is consistent with women knowing that their families might not be supportive of their job search,” Subramanian says.
At the same time, women who got the family reminder were more likely to apply to jobs when also given information about the gender of coworkers. “They believe their families care whether they will be working with men or women,” explains Subramanian.
PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN
The Experts Weigh In
In Season 2 of the college’s hit web series Ask the College Experts, Associate Dean and Director for Global Education Darren Gallant offers tips for students looking to get the most out of study abroad.
Tip 1. Study abroad is a means to an end: learning about a place. “It’s not a vacation or trip or travel opportunity,” Gallant says.
Tip 2. While you will have lots of support as you plan your studies, you’re in the driver’s seat. “You’re the one who makes the decision of when you go, how you go, and where you go.”
Tip 3. Expect an academically different semester, “steeped in learning a new culture, society, and way of life.”
Tip 4. Expect to learn things about yourself that you’d never thought you’d learn.
Tip 6. And finally: “Pack less! ou don’t need as much as you think you need when you study abroad.”
More from the Experts bit.ly/CollegeExperts
Created to support Bates admission goals, Ask the College Experts won a Grand Gold award last year from the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education, the preeminent
organization for higher education communications and advancement professionals.
MUSKAN
Reflecting on life as an international student during a global pandemic, Muskan Verma ’21 of Shimla, India, spoke about the death of a close family member in the fall semester. She acknowledged that in a “normal” year she probably would not have chosen to return home for services, but the fact that she didn’t have that choice was espe- cially painful.
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