Bates Magazine, Spring 2023

41 In words

“Everything about Bates resonates with me.” Page 27

Spring 2023

12 Straight from Skowhegan, seven megawatts of Bates solar power.

34 It’s Wyeth on Wyeth when students trek to an artist’s home.

and dance, a Ukrainian student tells stories of war and hope.

OPENING THOUGHT: KIRK READ PROFESSOR OF FRENCH AND FRANCOPHONE STUDIES

Source: An interview conducted with Read and others for a video story about the leadership of Bates’ eighth president, Clayton Spencer, whose tenure concluded on June 30.

Clayton is game, just like Bates students. In French we say partante: She’s ready to go, she’s all in. Clayton is curious, good-natured, and goodhumored — and gets the job done. That feels, and has always felt, very Bates to me: to have a lot of gumption and goodwill.

Clayton Spencer

To learn more about the Bates presidency of Clayton Spencer through text, photographs, and video, scan this QR code with your smartphone camera or app, or visit bates.edu/clayton-spencer

‘A Beautiful Language’

I enjoyed reading this article because of my own experience as a Franco American (“An honors thesis creates a French connection between Martha Coleman ’23 and shuttle driver Herb Saucier,” BatesNews, May 19, 2023).

I was born in 1946 at St. Mary’s in Lewiston. Two years later we moved to Fort Kent, where it was predominantly a French-speaking community. My parents both spoke French in the home, and when I started kindergarten all my peers also spoke French. However, we were not allowed to speak it at school. They thought it would hamper our chances of learning English, which was thought to be the language of success.

I loved my maternal language and ended up teaching it in a small school in northern Maine in the early ’70s. Most of my students spoke French at that time. However, when I retired in 2000, very

few students could speak French. There were too many English influences in their daily lives. It’s really sad, because French is such a beautiful language Christine Dumond Scott P’92 Fort Kent, Maine

On the Lookout

Seeing the photograph of Billy Jeter ’76 and Mike Edwards ’76 in the fall Bates Magazine brought back fond memories of working in Bates Admission in the 1970s and meeting prospective students like Billy and Mike at receptions hosted by Ted Beal ’64 in his living room on the Jersey Shore.

Before marketing and rankings played such a central role in admission, colleges depended heavily on alumni to recruit students. Ted, who is my brother-in-law, was a teacher, coach, and athletic director at Neptune High School — and always on the lookout for prospective Bates students.

He and his Bates roommate, David Boone ’62, who also lived in the Tri-State Area, played a big role in the matriculation of many students, including a number of Black students. A referral from David or Ted to Dean of Admission Milt Lindholm ’35 meant that the student would be a community contributor and a person that Bates would be proud to have represent the college. While Ted’s health is now compromised, I know he would be pleased and proud to see Mike and Billy’s picture and know they are both doing well.

Erik Bertelsen ’72 East Boothbay, Maine

Goodbye, Sweet Lew

Lew Turlish was my most favorite professor at Bates, my thesis advisor, and my mentor (“Professor Emeritus of English Lewis A. Turlish dies at age 80,” BatesNews, Jan. 13, 2023).

I took every class he taught. He literally changed the way I thought about fiction. He introduced me to W.H. Auden and John Dos Passos. He helped me navigate Faulkner. He didn’t mind when I cried in his office over the stress my thesis was causing me and he smiled when I expressed my deep annoyance over the fact he gave me an A-.

I was the only student he allowed to write a paper about Ethan Frome because he hated that book. But I knew Edith Wharton had based it on a real-life tragedy that happened in Lenox, Mass., next door to Richmond, where I grew up, and he was so excited by the idea of primary sources for that novel that he let me do it. And I got an A.

I loved him so much that in my last semester I took a senior seminar on Joyce’s Ulysses that met from 7 to 10 p.m.. Now that’s love. Lew Turlish loved his job and he loved literature and poetry

Martha Coleman ’23, a major in French and francophone studies from Seattle, and Herb Saucier, a Bates shuttle driver, celebrate the completion of her senior thesis on April 17. A recent BatesNews story, which prompted one of this issue’s comments, told how they became friends this year when she took the shuttle, with Saucier at the wheel, to Lewiston High School where she taught French. Chatting in English and in French, they would discuss her thesis, which explores the evolving significance of French in Maine.

PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN

and he made me a smarter person and a better writer. Rest in peace, sir.

Elissa Bass ’85 Stonington, Conn.

Lew Turlish was one of my absolute favorite professors/ people. I vividly remember him stomping in his L.L.Bean hunting boots in front of the class, while making an impassioned point about something. I have very little left from my years at Bates, but I have all the books we read in his classes and every paper I wrote for him. I still reference points he made in his lectures often. Thank you, Professor Turlish.

Jim Pasquill ’82 Altamont, N.Y

I took an independent study with Professor Turlish and I credit him with really pushing me to learn how to think. He challenged me to practice both analysis and good writing. I often remember him in my everyday life as a high school English teacher and I am grateful for his influence.

Caroline Wood Richards ’95 Ho Ho Kus, N.J.

I took a number of courses from Professor Turlish and enjoyed all of them. He was a wonderful teacher and transmitted his joy of literature to every class. I remember taking extra pens with me on exam day because I wrote more in two hours than one pen could stand!

Sandra Shea ’75 Carbondale, Ill.

I took his American literature classes and remember him passionately telling us about a book by Thomas Pynchon. I was so excited to read it, but as I was reading it, it made no sense. It wasn’t at all like the story he told us, and I was very confused. Apparently, I missed that he was telling us about The Crying of Lot 49 and we were assigned V, a book that is confusing enough as it is without waiting for a reference to a secret postal service!

Janet Haines ’75 Needham Heights, Mass.

During an interview with Martha Coleman ’23 about her thesis (see opposite page), she shared a Bates story that made me think about those vivid, “I’ll always remember where I was when blank happened” type of memories.

Psychologists call them “flashbulb memories” (a term coined back in 1977 when flashbulbs were a thing.)

Coleman’s memory, from her first year at Bates, when everything feels sharp and new, has that coruscating clarity. On Thursday, March 12, 2019, as she and a friend lunched in Commons, a news alert hit her phone. Flash: The first COVID case had hit Maine, right in Lewiston.

“Up until then, everyone was like, ‘Are we going home? Are we not going home?’” Coleman recalls. But when that alert hit, “we knew we were going home,” a realization that was cemented the next day with the college’s announcement of a pivot to remote learning.

Thus began a pandemic odyssey for the Class of 2023, to whom we said a fond goodbye the other day at Commencement. Their experience was perhaps most sidelined by COVID: Sent home just as they were getting their sea legs, they spent sophomore year in the bubbliest of Bates bubbles.

After getting the alert, Coleman and her friend looked at each other, and a bulb went off. “We had to go back to the school to say goodbye, or they wouldn’t let us go back.”

The school was Farwell Elementary, about a mile from campus. Coleman didn’t have a driver’s license, and her friend didn’t have a car, but no problem. “We hopped on the shuttle and went over to Farwell.” (The Bobcat Express shuttle helps students make tracks to various downtown schools and nonprofits, like Tree Street Youth.)

On the way back, the enormity of what was unfolding hit them. Bates as they knew it — or as they were just getting to know it — was about to hit full stop. Recall learning to ride a bike, and how it would’ve felt if, just as you got wobble-free, that the soaring sensation was snatched away. Oof.

That afternoon’s shuttle driver was Ernie Ashton. He’s been with Bates a better part of 20 years, which means has a clue about Bates students and when something is off kilter, like the world in this case.

“He looked at us and our friend Emma, who had been over at Connors Elementary, and said, ‘You guys look sad. You guys look like you could use some ice cream.’ And so he pulled into Dairy Joy. And he bought us ice cream.”

A true flashbulb memory is associated with surprise and high emotion, like when Coleman got that news alert in Commons. As for the memory of ice cream from Ernie at Dairy Joy with friends, that memory is a sweet shadow in the flash, speaking to her heart and soul.

“You’re feeling such deep grief happening right now, and we don’t know what’s happening and everything’s really scary in the world, but then there’s this man who cares enough, who sees us, and tries to do what he can to make it better for us.”

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

SPRING 2023

Cat’s Eyes

Ella Maher ’26 of Newton, Mass., watches a pitch miss high during a 13–1 win over Bowdoin at Lafayette Street Field in April. “I got a sense of community as soon as I stepped foot on campus,” she says of her decision to attend Bates.

They’ve Got You Covered

Playing around with some albums in the WRBC studio are Sydney Schuster ’25 of Simsbury, Conn., and Julia Neumann ’25 of Park City, Utah.

Schuster is behind a Kate Bush compilation album, The Whole Story. And Neumann is behind an album featuring the opera La Navarraise, whose cover art depicts the painting Orphan Girl at the Cemetery by Eugène Delacroix.

The pair co-host the WRBC show Dried Cauliflower as DJ “Loohoo” (Schuster) and DJ “Juju” (Neumann), spinning a mixed bag of music but especially enjoying, they say, “playing what their parents listened to in college.”

Kicks and Tricks

Breaking barriers and providing access to higher education — that’s how two Bates students will use their $6,000 first-place prizes from this year’s student pitch competition, Bobcat Ventures, which is run by students with support from the Center for Purposeful Work.

A professional magician, Abby Segal ’23 of Chelmsford, Mass., will use her winnings to launch her one-woman magic act, hoping to inspire and encourage women to break into the male-dominated world of professional magic.

“Magic is a boys-only club, deeply rooted in sexism that I’ve experienced firsthand,” said Segal, who appeared on the magic show Penn and Teller: Fool Us in 2021. “Magic is joyful. It’s inspiring, it’s interactive, it’s intimate, and it’s memorable. And I want to be part of the solution to making magic more mainstream, young, and inclusive.”

Jacob Iwowo ’23 of Beckenham, England, will use his winnings to boost his startup, Up Next Academy, which connects young soccer players around the world with opportunities to play soccer at U.S. colleges through scholarship support.

Iwowo’s experience as an international student who came to Bates to study and play soccer spurred him to start his business to “provide access to the

only further-education system in the world that allows students to effectively combine highlevel academia and high-level athletics.”

This year’s judges were Bates trustee Emma Sprague ’10, Pranav Ghai ’93, and Ben Schippers ’04, who are among some 20 Bates alumni, parents, and friends who support Bobcat Ventures as mentors and guest speakers.

Abby Segal ’23 (left) and Jacob Iwowo ’23 pose with their Bobcat Ventures prize check on April 1. (While the check’s amount says $4,000 each, the prize was later bumped up to $6,000 each.)

KEN WILLIAMS ’23

Super Scholars

It’s a Bates spring ritual: seniors bind a ceremonial hard copy of their thesis, joined by friends, professors, and staff (and some champagne). And it gets happily wackier and more festive each year. Here’s a celebration from April 13. From left:

• Tyler Shambaugh ’23 of Chevy Chase, Md., is Superman.

• Serena Sen ’23 of New York City is in a Swix ski suit.

• Elliott Vahey ’23 of Shaker Heights, Ohio, is Catwoman.

Joining them, at right, was thesis adviser Rebecca Herzig, professor of gender and sexuality studies. “Their theses would have been terrific in any year,” said Herzig. “But what they and their classmates achieved, having gone through COVID, is phenomenal.”

The bound copies, presumably champagne-soaked, are mostly ceremonial because official copies are uploaded digitally, rather than hand-delivered.

Getting a Leg Up

Wil Dewey ’24 of Ithaca, N.Y., holds one of the frogs that he helped cross a busy road near campus as part of the statewide amphibian monitoring program known as Maine Big Night Maine Big Night takes place on the first warm and wet night of early spring, as volunteers head out onto Maine roadways to monitor the annual migration of frogs and salamanders from winter shelter to breeding pools and ponds.

The volunteers collect data on where these amphibians cross

roads (and where crossings are particularly deadly) and they help the creatures cross the roadways, saving many from being struck by vehicles. The project continues through early spring and takes place at more than 300 locations statewide.

Dewey was joined by photographer Huck Triggs ‘24 of Malibu, Calif., Nash Holley ‘24 of Freeport, Maine, and George Peck ’24 of Philadelphia. “It’s amazing how much the roads come alive during these nights,” Triggs said, “not only with amphibians but owls, raccoons, foxes, and other animals that are actively hunting.”

The online portal for Bates housing selection is called “HouseCat.”

74% of sophomores said eating in Commons helps their sense of belonging.

The most common first name among Bates students is Emma (22 students).

PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN

HUCK TRIGGS ‘24

Night Light

The lights of Garcelon Field cast a blue glow on the cloudy and raw early evening of April 17 — 44 degrees with an east wind and a bit of drizzle.

A passerby walks though the Class of 1910 Gate, given to Bates by that class in 1932. With college football having come of age in the 1920s, an era dubbed “the Golden Age of Sports,” the new gate was a proud addition to the campus, capable of swinging “wide enough to admit the crowds attending football games.”

Within Commons, a few students are seen lingering over their supper. (On the menu that night were, among other items: teriyaki chicken stir fry, country-fried beef steak, barbecue tempeh with veggies, chorizo potato tortilla, and squash and crab bisque.)

For years to come, those students are sure to remember the savory sweetness of long meals with Bates friends.

Mouthpiece Facelift

A new Class of 1927 Mouthpiece, hand-built by the Bates carpentry shop, gets a push and a shove into place on May 15. From left are carpenters Thomas Winslow, Jason Therrien (below), Matthew Capone (top), and Dave Weiss.

Winslow did the carpentry and finish work, creating a doublesided bulletin board that is nearly identical to the old one, which succumbed to rot. With that in mind, the new Mouthpiece has a frame made from rot-resistant cedar, and an exterior shell crafted from AZEK, a brand of PVC lumber that will never rot.

The pediment, the triangular roof atop the original Mouthpiece, was in “perfect” condition, said Winslow, and so he removed it just to clean it and freshen up the paint, before installing it on the new Mouthpiece.

There are 3 Bobcat brand skid-steer loaders in use on campus.

The longest shore-to-shore distance at Lake Andrews is 420 feet.

PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN

Student workers help the grounds crew prepare the campus for Commencement.

With Chase closed for renovations, the Den moved to the Benjamin Mays Center as the “Den at Ben’s.”

Future Focused

Using a wooden wedge to hold the stone in place, Bates mason Ron Tardif installs the Class of 2023 ivy stone on May 17.

Ivy stones have been placed on campus buildings since 1879 as a rite of graduation for the senior class.

This year’s stone, designed by Abby Segal ’23 of Chelmsford, Mass., reflects the determined forward progress of the Class of 2023 during COVID.

At the bottom of the stone, the numerals “2023” are shaded and unshaded, representing the halting nature of college

Dining Services has 13 ovens in Commons.

life during COVID: restrictions, eased restrictions, lockdowns, and back again.

Hathorn Hall’s bell tower is crowned with a Bobcat weathervane, rendered as an arrow pointing to the future. The arrow’s nock and fletching suggest a play/pause button — the pause that COVID placed on the seniors’ academic and social lives.

The arrow’s point suggests play, the way the class got on with their college life. At the top, an on/off button ties it together, “reflecting the technological era” that defines the world that the class will graduate into, said Segal.

What Goes Up Must Come Down

If you’ve ever struggled just to level the brick pavers leading to your front door, you’ll appreciate one element of the Chase Hall renovation: a completely rebuilt main entrance off Campus Avenue that moves the entrance down nearly one full level.

Since Chase opened in 1917, entering the building meant walking up a flight of exterior stairs, known as a perron. After the renovation, you’ll enter Chase by walking down a decline, below sidewalk level, onto a new landing that invites entry deeper into the building — thanks to new sightlines and new stairs. After its yearlong renovation, Chase will reopen by the start of the school year as a hub for various student-facing offices and services, while adding comfortable, technologically enabled multipurpose spaces.

Chase Hall’s walk-up entrance off Campus Avenue circa 1917 (above), and the walk-down version on May 9 (below).

PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN

PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN

MUSKIE ARCHIVES AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS LIBRARY

JAY BURNS

ACADEMICS

Bates uses the Merit Pages service to publicize student achievements.

In the Catalog, courses noted as “W1,” “W2,” and “W3” attend to writing.

Head Strong

Professor of Sociology Emily Kane shares a moment with senior thesis advisee Ilana Zeilinger ’23 of Washington, D.C., outside the Gray Athletic Building during the annual Senior-Faculty Reception on May 22.

Zeilinger’s thesis, “Mothering in the Mama Sphere: Intensive Mothering in Contemporary Mommy Blogs,” won the sociology department’s thesis award, the Myhrman-Swett Award.

Out of This World Honors

Research achievements by Professor of Physics Nathan Lundblad, seen posing in his Carnegie Science lab with student researchers Elias Veilleux ’23 (left) of Orono, Maine, and Kona Lindsey ’23 of Colorado Springs, Colo., have earned major recognition by NASA.

The space administration awarded Lundblad a $1.89 million grant extension and its Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal, a prestigious honor given to scientists who have made significant contributions to their field.

Lundblad’s successful, groundbreaking experiments in the Cold Atom Laboratory aboard the International Space Station involve creating bubbles

of ultracold atoms, research that advances scientific understanding of quantum mechanics and atomic behavior.

PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN

PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN

All professors have profiles on the “Faculty Expertise” site, bates.edu/faculty-expertise.

The briefest 2023 honors thesis title is “Gardens of Oppression: In Search of Her Delight.”

Watson and Truman

Two seniors and a junior will use their important postgraduate honors to focus on healing and justice around the world.

Elizabeth LaCroix ’23 of Richmond, R.I., and Adilene Sandoval ’23 of Mattawa, Wash., earned Watson Fellowships, while Aaliyah Moore, a junior from Phoenix, has received a Truman Scholarship.

A double major in English and chemistry, LaCroix will travel to Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Ecuador, China, and India for her project, “The Global Story of Menstrual Pain.” Drawing from personal experience, she will collect stories on the subject of menstrual pain from patients, doctors, and researchers to create a global perspective on the issue.

A double major in sociology and environmental studies, Sandoval will draw on her MexicanIndigenous heritage for her project, “Weaving Together Activism and Healing.” She will travel to Australia, Italy, Ethiopia, El Salvador, Colombia, and Guatemala to explore approaches that create healing and well-being for communities damaged by colonization.

Moore will use her Truman to pursue graduate studies in law and African American studies. “My upbringing as an African American woman living in subsidized housing and foster care shaped my determination to use advocacy, scholarship, and education” to tackle systematic disparities within the U.S. legal and foster-care systems.

Awarded to juniors with demonstrated leadership potential and a commitment to public service, Truman Scholarships are considered among the most important U.S. graduate fellowships.

Tip from a newly retired Bates professor: “Allow yourself to wander.”

THIS JUST IN

A sampling of recent faculty-authored articles

Who Persists and Who Desists? A Prospective Study of Prescription Stimulant Misuse in College Graduates

Publication: Journal of Drug Issues • Author: Su Langdon (psychology) and coauthors • What It Explains: How, though misuse of prescribed psychostimulants (e.g., Adderall) by college grads does appear to decline after graduation, further reduction might occur by improving skills in college to resist use and to correct misperceptions of others’ use.

Pirate and chill: The Effect of Netflix on Illegal Streaming

Publication: Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization • Author: Austin Smith (economics) and coauthors

• What It Explains: How, when certain movies were removed from Netflix, piracy intent for remaining movies increased by 20%, indicating a substitution between legal streaming and piracy, which has implications for content owners in choosing the platform for their movies.

Evidence in Default: Rejecting Default Models of Animal Minds

Publication: The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science • Author: Mike Dacey (philosophy) • What It Explains: How, in psychology experiments, when scientists compare different theories, they often prefer simple explanations as their default choice, which can ignore the role of evidence and make it harder to evaluate ideas without bias.

Generalized Quasi-linear Approximation and Non-normality in Taylor-Couette Spiral Turbulence

Publication: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences • Author: Jeffrey Oishi (physics) and Morgan Baxter ’20

• What It Explains: How a special method in fluid dynamics to help understand a type of flow called Taylor-Couette, where a fluid is confined in a gap between an inner and outer rotating cylinder, works well when the flow is fast but not as well when slower.

Elizabeth LaCroix ’23

Adilene Sandoval ’23

Aaliyah Moore ’24

ALEX DODD

THE COLLEGE

Hoots and Holler

This library FAQ has 772 views: “Does the library have a paper cutter?” (Yes.)

The Board of Trustees votes to grant degrees to seniors at its May meeting.

The college’s new photovoltaic array in the Maine town of Skowhegan, about 60 miles northeast of campus, is nearing completion, and when it’s up and running, nearly 18,500 panels will feed into the regional grid 7.131 megawatts of direct current, which will be converted to alternating current for use by businesses and residences.

That’s about three-quarters of the college’s electrical usage, says Tom Twist, Bates’ sustainability manager. The college partnered with ReVision Energy, a leading solar facilities provider in Maine, on the array, the largest ReVision has built to date.

To be clear, Bates has met its electrical needs with renewable power since 2005, when the college began sourcing its juice in the form of Renewable Energy Certificates, which affirm that a certain amount of power has been generated sustainably. The college will continue to buy RECs for the roughly 25 percent of its electrical usage not produced by the solar array.

What the Skowhegan project will change is that Bates, in partnership with ReVision, will take direct responsibility for creating its own green electricity.

The array is located on more than 20 acres of Skowhegan countryside leased by landowner Jim Henshaw, a farmer. The staff land developer for ReVision who helped put the lease arrangement together is Holly Noyes ’10, who is also a farmer.

Bates students had a hand in the project’s development. While at Bates, Kyung Phil “KP” Ko ’22 was one of several EcoReps involved with creating a workable model for Bates’ involvement in a solar farm.

“We dug into the proposals sent over by a few parties, ReVision being one of them, to really understand what the benefits to Bates would be,” explains Ko, who now analyzes U.S. utilities and power issues for Scotiabank. “To be exact, the arrangement was a financial power purchase agreement, where Bates could hedge against the volatility of electricity bills thereby bringing us cost savings and monetizable renewable energy credits.”

“I can’t tell you how happy I am that the project has reached the construction stage,” Ko adds. “Working in the renewable energy investment banking space, I can tell you that the industry has faced incredible uphill battles over the past year with supply chain issues, inflation, bloated interconnection queues, and what almost was the end of solar investment tax credits.

Shown during construction in January with more than half the solar modules in place, the college’s new solar array sits on 20 acres of leased rural land in Skowhegan, Maine.

Shown in his Bates dorm room in 2020, Kyung Phil Ko ’22 was one of the Bates EcoReps who helped the college prepare for its solar-electricity partnership with ReVision Energy.

PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN

“Reaching construction is a humongous milestone worthy of hoots and holler.”

The work of Ko, his classmate Tamsin Stringer ’22, and other students was invaluable to the project. “To figure out the costs, figure out the net value of solar electricity several years into the future — all those things were complicated, and the students did a really nice job,” says Twist. “Really professional-level.”

New Bates Trustees

Five new members join the Bates Board of Trustees on July 1, 2023: @ Bates Trustees bates.edu/trustees

Amáez Joins Bates

Previously the global leader for diversity, equity, and inclusion at Simply Business, a Boston-based insurance provider, Amáez has held positions at the Maine Department of Health and Human Services, where she guided senior leaders in their understanding and application of best practices in DEI; Pine Tree Legal Assistance, where she directed pro bono services for the nonprofit legal advocacy group; and Bowdoin College, where she spent eight years as associate dean of students for diversity and inclusion.

Amáez earned a bachelor’s degree in Latin American studies from Wesleyan University and a law degree from Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law.

Jeremy Chase ’91, a healthcare investment professional Pranav Ghai ’93, analytics professional and financial-data platform co-founder

Marc Jaffe P’25, attorney specializing in corporate finance and corporate law

Jason Ryan ’96, life-sciences industry executive and board director

Bates employs one locksmith.

The Events Office rents easels for $2. If you don’t return it, the charge is $15.

Whole milk, 1 percent, and skim are in the Commons milk dispensers.

Shannon Griffin ’16, analyst for communitydriven real estate development

Leana E. Amáez joined Bates in February as vice president for equity and inclusion.

JEFFREY MORRIS/PIERCE STUDIO

Having a bunch of fun at the Puddle Jump are, from left, first-year students Evan Migdole of Westbrook, Conn., Justin Burkett of Brooklyn, N.Y., and Jack Perkin of Wenham, Mass.

TOP BANANAS

photography by phyllis graber jensen

A Bates tradition since 1975, this year’s Puddle Jump, on Feb. 10, was among the balmiest in memory (52 degrees), easing the way for these students to pause and pose on the precipice of their jump into Lake Andrews.

A Game of Centimeters

A football running back falls short of a first down by a few links of the chains. “It’s a game of inches!” they say on TV.

But how about a game of centimeters? That sport would be track, at least for sprinter Colby Stakun-Pickering ’23, a math and physics double major.

Last winter, Stakun-Pickering got to thinking about the “minute scale” of his sport after he and a teammate took turns lowering the Bates record in the 60 meters.

Stakun-Pickering went first, sprinting the 60 meters in a record 7:05 seconds on Jan. 13, just one-hundredth of a second faster than the previous record holder, Isaiah Spofford ’15.

Stakun-Pickering did some ciphering, figuring that had they run head to head, he would’ve edged his elder by just 10 centimeters, or half the width of this printed page.

The following week, classmate Derek Shen of Bellevue, Wash., took over the record, running the race three-hundredths of a second faster for a time of 7:02. (But Shen ultimately kept the record, lowering his mark to 6.92 seconds by season’s end.)

Growing up in Wellesley, Mass., Stakun-Pickering didn’t need a stopwatch to tell him he was fast. In fact, he was something of a playground legend.

“We’d be playing tag, and kids get upset

when you’re ‘It’ and you can just track them right down.”

In middle school, he got serious about sprinting when the stakes got higher.

“My friend bet me that he was faster. The bet was over some really good pancakes that his grandmother makes.” He signed up for the team, showed up to a practice, and bettered his friend.

“But I never ended up getting my pancakes!”

Besides holding a Bates track record, however briefly, Stakun-Pickering has finished a thesis in physics and a capstone project in math.

His thesis project, with Associate Professor of Physics Aleksandar Diamond-Stanic, looks at surprising recent research showing that fewer stars are forming than scientists originally thought. “It’s a lot less,” says Stakun-Pickering.

Stakun-Pickering’s capstone mathematics course, with Professor of Mathematics Peter Wong, involves integrals, which is a way of assigning numbers to functions to describe area

89 Class of 2023 studentathletes earned Senior Scholar Awards this year.

The FieldTurf on Garcelon Field will be replaced this summer.

Colby Stakun-Pickering was No. 1 in the Bates record book after setting the 60-meter dash record on Jan. 14, 2023.

Meghan Graff ’23 (No. 14) celebrates with teammates after Bates defeated No. 12 nationally ranked Trinity in February.

CURTIS JOHNSON

The annual Friends of Bates Athletics Giving Challenge raised a record $636,368.

In May, Jillian Richardson ran the second-fastest women’s outdoor 5K: 16:52.53.

Fall sports kick off at 5 p.m. Sept. 5 with women’s soccer at Bowdoin.

Great Graff

Meghan Graff ’23 of South Portland, Maine, concluded her Bates career as the top scorer in women’s basketball history and one of the program’s most-honored players. Named the Maine Women’s Basketball Coaches Association’s Player of the Year for 2023, Graff received three All-America honors in her career — two from D3hoops.com and one from the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association — matching Meg Coffin ’08 for the most All-America honors in program history. Her 1,645 career points rank fourth in NESCAC history.

TOP TEN

The top 10 career point scorers for women’s basketball got a new No. 1 this year: Meghan Graff ’23.

and other properties. “Pretty fun!” he says.

For an athlete, thinking about time and distance and numbers “can help and hurt you,” says Stakun-Pickering. That’s because great athletes need to achieve a kind of mindless flow as they compete. “You can go into paralysis by analysis, where you can think about it so much that now you’re starting to get in your own head.”

But in a positive sense, most athletes know that visualization is a powerful tool. A sprinter who can visualize what they need to do to get faster can use that to their advantage. “I mean, my phone is just 15 centimeters tall,” says Stakun-Pickering — and visualizing that tiny distance could win a race.

“If I put together a good quality race, anything can happen.”

And perhaps that helped him break another longstanding indoor dash record a few weeks later, in the 200 meters, with a time of 22.19 seconds, beating the previous mark of 22.39 seconds, held for more than two decades by Erik Zwick ’01.

— Lily D’Addario ’23 of Locust Valley, N.Y., asking Curtis Johnson what his track specialty was, not realizing that the youthful-looking Johnson was a Bates track coach, not a fellow student. At the time, D’Addario was a sophomore rehabbing her knee after a ski injury; Johnson invited her to try track (she’d come to Bates to play soccer), and since then she became a top sprinter.

BREWSTER BURNS

“What do you run?”

The first Art Walk LA of 2023 featured works by students in “Art and Social Practice.”

The Museum of Art exhibit WhoAreThey?/WhoAmI? features portraits from the collection.

Chekhov Takes the Cake

Though Anton Chekhov never won a Nobel Prize, he now has an Edible Books prize to his credit. After reading The Cherry Orchard, an advanced Russian class paid tribute to the author by creating a chocolate cake with sour cherry compote, decorated with chocolate trees, winning the top prize for artistry at this year’s Edible Books Festival, held in April in Ladd Library. The festival’s recipe is simple: entrants need only create something edible, sweet or savory, that’s inspired by a book, fiction or nonfiction, to be judged in two categories, artistry and flavor.

Christine Murray, a social-science librarian, took inspiration from Karl Ove Knausgård’s six-volume autobiography, My Struggle, to create My Strudel, which won one of two top prizes for flavor. She admits that she did not struggle with her recipe. “I just followed a recipe that said ‘easy strudel,’ so it might not be a canonical interpretation.”

Library Assistant Perrin Lumbert evoked Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray with The Picture of Durian Gray, bringing to mind paintings by Italian artist Giuseppe Arcimboldo. The dish made quite the pungent impression — durian is a divisively popular fruit from Southeast Asia, known for its spiky outer shell and rich odor.

Caitlin Lampman, reference and outreach archivist at Muskie Archives, won a top prize last year for gingerbread men and mice (inspired by Of Mice and Men). This year, she offered a sly entry: cheap store-bought sugar cookies, invoking the book The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck

Top: Inspired by The Picture of Dorian Gray, this durian-infused fruit-and-cake portrait by Library Assistant Perrin Lumbert brought to mind paintings by Italian artist Giuseppe Arcimboldo.

Left: Topped with glittery chocolate trees and a cookie house, this cake was inspired by The Cherry Orchard, and made by Lecturer in Russian Cheryl Stephenson and her advanced Russian class.

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The building is spelled Schaeffer “Theatre.” The academic department is “Theater.”

In a Moment

Studio art major Jordan Wilson ’23 of Medfield, Mass., gazes intently at an image on her computer as she paints a portrait in her Olin Arts Center studio in March.

To create her portraits, which were exhibited at this year’s Senior Thesis Exhibition at the Bates Museum of Art, Wilson worked from snapshots of friends and family members taken on her smartphone, “casual pictures that are not meant to be metaphorical, symbolic, or allegorical,” she explains.

She sought small details, like the fold of a sleeve, or the curve of an eyebrow — a sort of “stillness” that is simultaneously unsettling and comforting. It represents a moment that will never come again, but “without impermanence, time and space and life wouldn’t exist in the first place,” she says.

“I like how pens and pencils feel as they glide across paper and how thick oil paint coats my metal knife when I drag it across glass to mix pigments until

Pursuing honors in music performance requires a 30-minute juried audition.

Hat in Hand

Adelle Welch ’25 of Livingston, Mont., models a fishing hat, festooned with mock fishing lures and flies, that she created in the Bates costume shop for the college production of Much Ado About Nothing, which hit the Schaeffer Theatre stage in March.

True, a bucket hat isn’t a typical costume prop for a Shakespearean play. But this wasn’t a typical production of Much Ado, set as it was in Bar Harbor, Maine, in 1945. The hat was worn by a hat-wearing, touristy character dubbed the “Sport,” part of the play’s Watch, a comedic group including constable Dogberry and a few other Maine archetypes: a hunter, farmer, and lobsterman.

Among the 1,800 or so students at Bates, Welch might be the very best person to create a fishing hat. Livingston, the small Montana city along the Yellowstone River where she grew up, is home to the International Fly Fishing Federation museum.

As a child, she learned to tie flies from her grandfather. “I spent a lot of time with him in the summer on the river,” says Welch, recalling his fly-tying setup and “all the fun feathers and stuff. They looked so cool.”

All that experience helped her bring authentic details to the faux flies, such as adding “little eyes to mimic nymph flies, which are the ones that live at the bottom of the river,” she says. Meanwhile, dry flies, which float, are more decorative, made with “feathers and stuff.”

Welch used a range of crafting supplies to create her flies, such as safety pins, string, colored fuzzy pipe cleaners, and ribbons — believable enough from a distance to catch an audience, hook, line, and sinker.

they’re just right,” says Wilson. She enjoys returning to the same image “over and over again. In this way, my thesis is also the material byproduct of my time spent looking and thinking about these passing moments and what made them what they were.”

In 2020, The Bates Student shifted to a digital-first publishing model.

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The famed downtown bar The Cage closed, then reopened after an outpouring of support.

The downtown Lewiston Farmers’ Market opened May 14.

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‘Inspired and Intrigued’

As they do each year, the Bates women’s varsity teams opened their arms to youngsters from Lewiston-Auburn to celebrate National Girls and Women in Sports Day, this year on Feb. 11.

In various clinics in the Gray Athletic Building, the youngsters got a chance to learn a little something about many of the 16 women’s varsity sports that Bates offers, including rowing.

Many children often learn sports like soccer or softball at a young age. But rowing? Not so much, said Casey Winter ’23 of Malvern, Pa., a biochemistry major and a captain of the rowing team. Winter and her teammates taught youngsters how to use a rowing machine, also known as an erg, short for “ergometer.” “It was great to watch as many of them became inspired and intrigued,” she said.

What’s in a Name: Pierce

Once famed for its Wednesday night parties and now a theme house, the student residence located at 24 Frye St. is named for a 20th-century Bates College trustee. But the National Park Service has another name for Pierce House altogether.

The House

The Colonial Revival house was built in 1893. It was designed by prolific Lewiston architect George M. Coombs, who designed 14 of the 37 houses in the Frye Street area as well as Hedge Hall and a number of buildings downtown, including the Kora Temple.

Its Other Name

Pierce House sits within the Main Street–Frye Street Historic District of the National Register of Historic Places, administered by the National Park Service. The official district name of the house is the Lyman G. Jordan House, named for its first owner.

The First Owner

Jordan was an 1870 Bates graduate who achieved legendary status as a Bates chemistry professor nicknamed “Foxy.” Jordan was among the Freewill Baptists who founded Ocean Park, the seaside summer Chautauqua community near Old Orchard Beach, in 1881.

Pierce and Pierce

In 1917, Jordan sold the house to Dr. Edwin F. Pierce, Bates Class of 1894, a physician in Lewiston until his death in 1945. Bates acquired the property in 1970 and named it for Carrell Kingsbury Pierce (no apparent relation), a Portland investment banker and longtime Bates trustee.

Pierce Present

Today, Pierce House is one of several theme houses, this year focusing on intercultural diversity.

Pierce House has one name at Bates and another name in the National Register of Historic Places.

The newest downtown restaurant is Bon Vivant, at 133 Lisbon Street.

Students speak an estimated 34 languages at Lewiston High School.

For Maine Arbor Week, Lewiston planted a disease–resistant Homestead elm.

BATES COMMUNICATIONS

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THE WORLD

In April,

a special

Bates hosted

iftar, the sunset meal during Ramadan, in the Mays Center.

The Global Education lounge in Roger Williams hosted World Cup watch parties.

Holi and Hathorn

Student photographer Huck Triggs ’24 of Malibu, Calif., captured the spring exuberance of Bates students as they swarmed the walks in front of Hathorn Hall on May 7, with lots of colorful gulal powder in hand, to celebrate Holi, a Hindu festival of colors symbolizing the beginning of spring and the triumph of good over evil. For the South Asian student community, the event “celebrated togetherness and strengthened a sense of belonging,“ says Amisha Kalra ’23 of Short Hills, N.J., co-president of the South Asian Student Association.

Everyone was invited to join the fun, says Kalra, “to get an opportunity to learn and experience cultural traditions.”

This year’s popular International Dinner took place in April in the Gray Athletic Building.

38 nations are represented among this year’s graduates.

44 percent of 2023 graduates studied abroad, reduced by COVID from about 60 percent.

HUCK TRIGGS

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

BOOKS

The Smallest Lights in the Universe: A

Memoir by Sara Seager

Suggested by Dennis Grafflin, Professor Emeritus : Another fascinating memoir by a brilliant scientist on the autism spectrum, as well as a look into her search for planets — and life — outside our solar system.

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

Suggested by Anne Thompson, Professor Emerita : A young man lives alone in a strange house of vast size, spending his days tracking tides that could flood it. The writing and vivid descriptions keep you anticipating each page turn.

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

Suggested by Dan Girling, Mail and Materials Handling Clerk : Told from the perspective of Klara, a robotic assistant caring for a sick girl. Klara struggles to understand the human world yet at times has unique insights others miss.

The Age of Wood

Roland Ennos

Suggested by Sawyer Sylvester, Professor Emeritus : A history of wood, an essential presence in human history: from the trees from which humanity descended, to the first shelters, to our coffins, the fires that warm us, and the books we read.

Items recently seen in Ladd Library’s Lost & Found included:

Pink lipstick from NARS Cosmetics’ “Orgasm” collection

• No. 2 Dixon Ticonderoga pencil (unsharpened)

• FC Barcelona, Futbol Club Barcelona, baseball cap •

• Colgate toothpaste in a newly developed recyclable tube

Hoyee Eyes blue-light blocking glasses with rainbow glitter frames

• Felt wool fedora (large) from New York Hat Co.

• Refillable Scotch-brand tape dispenser (empty)

• Lip balm in a case wrapped in washi tape showing stars and planets on the bottom

•

Yeti Rambler water bottle with stickers and logos, including Bates Peer Health Educators; ‘Iolani School Raiders of Honolulu; and “Chillin’ since ’93,” a slogan of Brandy Melville, the European fashion brand

• Futuro knee support

• Ivory formal bow tie by Billy London with an elastic band extending it past 18 inches

• Book, Our Class, a play by Polish playwright Tadeusz Słobodzianek that follows one-time school classmates from 1925 to present times

• Bag with assorted teas, including a tin of hojicha from Harney & Sons

LOST & FOUND

BATES.EDU/STORE

BATES HISTORY

QUIZ 19 63

Sixty years ago, a cranky Lewiston alderman demanded that the city stop providing this freebie to Bates. What was Bates getting for free?

Answer : For years, about a dozen outdoor campus lights were powered by a municipal transformer. In 1963, the Lewiston newspaper reported that an alderman wanted the free power stopped, but the record doesn’t say if he was successful.

Something

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

Bobcat Cribbage Board $49.99

MALLOW YALLOW

This is the Dinosaur Hal squishmallow, and his home is the volleyball team’s locker room. “He’s like a team squishmallow,” says Ellie Asada ’26 of Honolulu, Hawaii.

I’ll Be Back Again

Snow, pine needles, a twig laden with berries, and a pine cone brought this snowman to life in December, though he was long gone by January. The sun got warm and, well, you know the rest of the story.

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BREWSTER BURNS

President-elect

Garry W. Jenkins takes a look around the Historic Quad on March 6 during his first official visit to campus.

‘

He Just Gets B ates ’

Announced on March 1 as the next Bates president, Garry W. Jenkins quickly made tracks to campus to meet his new community

BY JAY BURNS

In 2007, Melissa Baker Linville graduated from Bates with a sociology degree and a clear idea of what she most valued about her Bates education: professors like Emily Kane, Heidi Taylor, and Francesco Duina, who pushed her, supported her, and expanded the way she thought about the world.

Planning to pursue public interest law, she headed to Ohio State for law school, where she discovered a professor who reminded her of her prized Bates teachers.

That law professor was Garry W. Jenkins, currently dean of the University of Minnesota Law School but set to become Bates’ ninth president this summer.

Linville, who is now director of development for the Ohio State Legal Services Association, recalls Jenkins’ influence, imparted through a program that he co-founded and directed to help law students think more creatively and expansively about their opportunities as lawyers and leaders.

“He was always keyed into helping us think on a broad and holistic scale, to critically and thoughtfully look at our education, our experiences, our internships — the whole experience of being a law student,” she said — like her Bates professors, who “push your mindset so much.”

Asked to describe Jenkins in one word, Linville paused. “I’m trying to think of a word that’s good enough,” she said with a laugh.

Linville had a head start on understanding what Garry Jenkins can bring to Bates as president, but the rest of the

Bates community quickly got up to speed on March 7 during a meet-and-greet in Alumni Gymnasium for faculty, staff, and students. The latter group detoured to buffet tables of snacks, courtesy of Dining Services, before quickly filling the bleachers.

Heads were on the swivel, seeking to spy the main attraction. Among the crowd were members of the men’s basketball team, repping the team nicely in their Bobcat sweatshirts. We asked them to describe the vibein one word. The first couple of words dribbled out, the rest came like a fast break:

“Optimism.”

“Excitement.”

“Support.”

“Community.”

“Opportunity.”

And finally: “Spirit.”

Their words set the stage, or the court as it were, for a historic Bates moment. A few minutes later came the first smattering of applause as Jenkins walked into the gym. Then more and more applause, and then a standing ovation,

everyone fully aware that the college’s next president was in the house.

The program kicked off with remarks by Bates Board of Trustees Chair John Gillespie ’80 and by fellow trustee Andrea Bueschel ’90, who co-chaired the Presidential Search Committee with trustee Greg Ehret ’91. Their words included giving thanks to the search committee and to President Clayton Spencer, who will complete her presidency on June 30, 2023.

Gillespie noted that while the day appropriately celebrated a coming chapter in Bates history, “it should not go unsaid that our current chapter — the one that began with a similar announcement, at a similar event, in late 2011 — has been one of stunning achievement, innovation, and growth for Bates. All under the inspired leadership of President Clayton Spencer. Clayton, you have our most profound and heartfelt thanks.”

Bueschel offered a ringing endorsement of the work of the 17-member search committee

Jenkins receives a standing ovation from the Bates audience as he steps to the lectern in Alumni Gymnasium on March 7.

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from her professional perspective as a senior vice president and chief of staff to the president at Rutgers University. “This committee worked amazingly well together over the course of five months — as well as, or better than, any I’ve ever experienced,” she said.

“Every single one of our committee members did a brilliant job of representing Bates in all its many dimensions. And in the end, they reached consensus — unanimous, authentic, thrilling consensus — about who the right person was to become Bates’ next president.”

Bueschel explained how the search committee got to know Jenkins beyond his impressive resumé, and how they “quickly learned that he just gets Bates. He sees where we are and where we have the potential to go.”

And somehow, she said, “he already loved this place, from our very first moments with him, having never even set foot on this campus. And that love just radiated through our every moment with him.”

The gathering in Alumni

Gym was one stop on a whirlwind, two-day visit by Jenkins and his husband, Jon J. Lee, who is a law professor. There were meetings with the college’s senior leadership, a visit to the College Store for Bates swag, dinner with the search committee, and a photography portrait session on the Bates campus — in front of Coram Library, Alumni Gymnasium, and Hathorn Hall — a result of which is on this issue’s cover. And whether it’s the new Bates president or a new Bates student, a campus tour is

always on the itinerary during an initial college visit. Led by Bates Admission Fellow Ilana Rosker ’23 of Lexington, Mass., Jenkins and Lee visited iconic Bates places, including Gomes Chapel. Even the Bobcat stopped by to meet the new president, spending a few minutes on Alumni Walk with the president-elect and President

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Above: Jenkins takes in the moment before beginning his first remarks as Bates president-elect.

Below: Jenkins has the attention of Bates students.

Spencer, seeming to confirm (since the Bobcat doesn’t say much) that, indeed, it was a great day to be a Bobcat.

But the marquee moment was in Alumni Gym. Following the introductions by Gillepsie and Bueschel, it was Jenkins’ turn to offer his own words, covering personal and professional ground with warmth and sincerity. The audience responded with several rounds of sustained applause that reverberated throughout a historic Bates space that’s seen its fair share of big moments since it opened 95 years ago.

Becoming president, Jenkins said, is “a dream come true.” He praised President

Spencer’s leadership and legacy; spoke of the value of his own liberal arts education; and shared his admiration for Bates and the Bates graduates he has encountered as a professor at Ohio State and at Minnesota Law. Those Bates alumni, he said, are smart, no doubt. But they also possess “intelligence coupled with a capacity to think expansively, to creatively imagine new ways of solving

old problems, to engage in the world with passion, humility, and empathy, and with a genuine commitment to leadership and service to better the world.”

As dean of the Minnesota Law School, Jenkins is credited with leading the work to eliminate a budget deficit; deepening the school’s approach to diversity, equity, and inclusion; and expanding and improving the

“He makes sure that everyone is heard and that he has thought through problems before acting.”

DONALD TOBIN | Former colleague and dean of the University of Maryland Carey School of Law

Above: Jenkins listens to Rashad King ’25 (right) of Windsor, Conn., after his remarks. At center is Jenkins’ husband, Jon J. Lee, a law professor.

Below: Jenkins poses with students after his remarks.

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demographic and academic profiles of its admitted students, with its most recent entering class achieving the highest academic credentials in the school’s 134-year history.

“Garry has been an invaluable partner, and I have leaned on his innovation, creativity, and collaborative leadership,” said Joan T. A. Gabel, president of the University of Minnesota.

Jenkins led Minnesota Law to a record-setting fundraising campaign that ultimately raised more than $106 million, surpassing its $80 million goal.

He also continued to teach. In 2020, he co-taught a course titled “George Floyd’s Minneapolis: Past, Present, and Moving Forward,” which examined the implications of the murder of Minneapolis resident George Floyd, by police, through experts on racial inequity in the criminal legal system, policing reform, economic inequality, and the school-to-prison pipeline.

At each step of his career, leadership has been a part of Jenkins’ life. At Harvard Law School, where he earned a J.D., he was editor-in-chief of the Harvard Civil Rights–Civil Liberties Law Review. (He also earned a master’s in public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School). A 1992 graduate of Haverford College, he joined the college’s Board of Managers in 2009 and became its vice chair in 2015.

At Ohio State’s Moritz College of Law, where he was both professor of law and associate dean for academic affairs, he co-founded and directed the school’s innovative Program on Law and Leadership, considered one of the first programs at a U.S. law school to teach law students skills and aspects of leadership, such as group dynamics and how to move issues forward.

According to Donald Tobin, the co-founder of that Ohio State program, one of Jenkins’ key leadership traits is listening. “He can’t be out-listened,” Tobin says. “He makes sure that everyone is heard and that he has thought through problems before acting. He works toward

ABOUT GARRY JENKINS

On Feb. 27, Garry W. Jenkins was unanimously elected to be Bates’ next president by the Board of Trustees, effective July 1. He will be the college’s ninth president and first Black president.

EDUCATION

• B.A., Haverford College, political science

• M.P.P., Harvard Kennedy School

• J.D., Harvard Law School, editor-in-chief of the Harvard Civil Rights–Civil Liberties Law Review

CAREER

• 2016 to 2023: Dean and William S. Pattee Professor of Law, University of Minnesota Law School

• 2004 to 2016: Law professor, The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law, including eight years as associate dean for academic affairs

• Also: Chief operating officer and general counsel, Goldman Sachs Foundation; attorney, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett; law clerk, U.S. Court of Appeals, 3rd Circuit, Pittsburgh

consensus, and once he acts he is confident and clear in the direction that needs to be taken.”

Tobin, who is now a professor of law and former dean at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law, compared Jenkins’ leadership style to that of the late U.S. Vice President Walter Mondale, perhaps the most famous alumnus of Minnesota Law, who recognized that “as a leader,

BOARDS & SERVICE

• 2009 to 2023: Haverford’s Board of Managers, vice chair since 2015

• Also: Association of American Law Schools, National Women’s Law Center, Equal Justice Works

RESEARCH FOCUS

Law and philanthropy, corporate social responsibility, leadership studies, corporate governance

RECENT SCHOLARSHIP

• Chapter in Beyond Imagination?

The January 6 Insurrection (2022)

• Chapter in Building an Antiracist Law School, Legal Academy, and Legal Profession (forthcoming)

AWARDS

• Minnesota Lawyer’s Diversity and Inclusion Award

• Fellow, American Bar Association

• Elected member, American Law Institute

• Lawyers of Color Power List

it’s really not all about you, it’s about the people who have put their trust in you. It’s about the institution that has given you the privilege of leading it and of making sure it achieves its goals. Garry is that type of leader — he has embraced institutions that he is a part of and worked to make them better.”

Jenkins was raised in northern New Jersey, his mother a career high school teacher and

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Bottom

Bottom

his father a computer programmer who taught part time at a local community college.

“My parents were both the first in their families to graduate from college,” he told the Bates crowd in March. “From them I developed a strong belief in higher education and ultimately a passion for the ways that it ignites human potential.”

Of all his life experiences, whether as a student or in law, business, or philanthropy, “it’s my own residential, small liberal arts college education and experience that was transformative,” he said. He described his education at Haverford, where he majored in political science and was named a Charles A. Dana Scholar — the same Dana program that has been at Bates since the 1960s — in phrases familiar to generations of Bates

alumni: the academic rigor, the joy of learning and discovery, and relationships with staff “who mentored me and helped me believe that I belonged.”

So it’s no wonder Bates appealed so strongly. “Everything about Bates and its culture resonates with me,” he said in the initial announcement of his selection as president. “Even among the nation’s very best liberal arts colleges, Bates stands out.”

Over the years, and especially in his work on Haverford’s Board of Managers, he’s had a strong awareness of Bates.

“I’ve kept an eye on liberal arts colleges and I’ve watched with admiration Bates’ great strides” under Spencer’s leadership. “It will be an honor and a privilege to follow her. It’s an amazing legacy.”

Another Bates vibe that resonated with Jenkins is the college’s history: “open from the beginning to all people, not just the white men who were the traditional college students at the time of Bates’ founding in 1855,” he said. “Accordingly, not a place just waking up to newly discovered diversity, equity, and inclusion, like some.”

Yet, he added, Bates is selfaware that it is “not a perfect place — nor a place resting on its laurels. Rather, Bates seems to me a place that’s fully aware that there’s still more work to be done. In fact, plenty of work.

“But without struggle, without work, there is no progress. And I see that work happening. It’s happening here, and I want to be a part of pushing it forward — by all of us working together.” n

Above: Jon Lee and Jenkins walk to Alumni Gym with Board Chair John Gillespie ’80 and Trustee Andrea Bueschel ’90, co-chair of the presidential search committee.

Left: Picking up Bates gear in the College Store.

Right: On a campus tour with llana Rosker ’23 of Lexington, Mass.

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“My parents were both the first in their families to graduate from college. From them, I developed a strong belief in higher education and ultimately a passion for the ways that it ignites human potential.”

GARRY W. JENKINS | Set to become Bates’ ninth & first Black president

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Wyeth

STORY BY Mary Pols

Victoria Wyeth ’01 introduces the Wyeth family during a classroom presentation filled with digital images of her family’s artwork, including the famous 1948 work Christina’s World, which hangs in the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY Phyllis Graber Jensen

World

For these Bates newbies, having a guest teacher who is a Bates alumna and Wyeth family member meant getting a deep insiders’ look into Wyeth World

Wasilla, Alaska, last summer, incoming Bates student Karsten Stiner looked through the offerings for First-Year Seminars, and landed on one offered by Professor Emerita of History Margaret Creighton.

Called “Inventing New England: The World of the Wyeth Family,” it promised a rich look at both the place he was moving to and three generations of American artists named Wyeth: N.C., his son Andrew, and Andrew’s son Jamie. Stiner had never heard of them, and he mostly associated the words “New England” with a football team, the Patriots. “I’d heard the term like four times in my life,” he says, smiling. “I didn’t even know what states were included in New England.”

As he signed up, he did note that it was interesting that a Wyeth family member, Victoria Browning Wyeth ’01, who is the only grandchild of Andrew and Betsy Wyeth, would lecture in the course, helping to answer sweeping questions like: What is New England? Who and what gets included in popular images of the region? How does New England differ from other imagined areas, particularly the American West?

But he didn’t realize what having a Wyeth as a teacher would actually mean, or how deep of an insider’s look that she would provide into Wyeth World, especially during the group’s ultimate Midcoast road trip on an October day.

“I didn’t know that this would all be involved,” Stiner said as he walked through fields browning in the Maine autumn under gray skies, the tidal reaches of the St. George River a few hundred yards away. He’d just come from a tour of a Wyeth family home in Cushing, with a window seat looking out over the very New England countryside.

The group wrapped up the day at the famed Olson House in Cushing, the setting of many of Andrew Wyeth’s works, a tour of his very last studio, and a visit to the grave of Andrew and Betsy Wyeth, where Victoria would leave a couple of pumpkins, in honor of the Wyeth family love of Halloween (and kiss her grandparents’ tombstone, as she does on every visit).

There’d even been a guest star: one of Andrew Wyeth’s models from the 1970s, who talked to the students about what it was like to pose for the painter of such works as the iconic 1948 work Christina’s World, which hangs in the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Walking ahead of Stiner on the dirt road were his classmates and both his teachers, who two decades ago were teacher and pupil. Creighton was Wyeth’s thesis advisor when she was at Bates, and also her professor in a course that offered deep community engagement in Lewiston. Wyeth, who majored in American cultural studies, says today that Creighton was a vital part of her development as a Bates student, nurturing and mentoring her.

She and Wyeth began talking about co-teaching this First-Year Seminar in 2021. As Bates continues to improve and revamp its overall First-Year Experience program, both traditional and brand-new seminar offerings such as “Inventing New England” continue to play a key role in introducing students to Bates academics — close contact with professors,

Wyeth draws Leah Belber of Washington, D.C., and Trinity Poon of Forestdale, Mass., toward a detail of an Andrew Wyeth canvas at the Farnsworth Art Museum.

During the October field trip, Wyeth and Professor Emerita of History Margaret Creighton compare notes while at the Olson House, the subject of numerous works by Andrew Wyeth.

intensive writing, and building both a real sense of community and of place.

In the case of “Inventing New England,” a sense of place is particularly pertinent. The syllabus is filled with New England–specific work, like Carolyn Chute’s 1985 novel, The Beans of Egypt, Maine — but also some classic Westerns, such as John Ford’s film Stagecoach, which offer perspective on how the American West is represented on screen or canvas.

“That was a good way to start talking about region and regional identity and how the West got imagined in dominant American culture,” Creighton says. “And one of the advantages here is that N.C. Wyeth did a lot of Western paintings as well.”

The field trip to the coast had started with an up-close and personal visit to the art itself at the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland, where artworks from all three generations of Wyeth painters are well-represented in the Wyeth Center. There, Victoria Wyeth, who knows the paintings the way others know a family photo album, led the students through multiple galleries.

She’s a generous and ebullient lecturer, gesturing for emphasis, always inviting student input and sharing strong opinions about everything, from the media Andrew Wyeth used — on watercolors she says, “they control him, he doesn’t control them” — to results. While talking the students through

the composition of one study for a later work, she confides that “I actually like this better than the final version.” She also connects with her own Bates experience, readily offering up a tale of getting a B-minus in an art history class in the middle of the whirlwind of her highly personalized, expert crash course in the Wyeths.

In one gallery, showing Islands in Maine, an Andrew Wyeth exhibit of works from Muscongus and Penobscot bays spanning the period from 1939 to 2008, when Wyeth and his wife Betsy spent his last summer on Benner Island, Victoria stopped in front of a 1999 study for Dock

It shows a woman walking down a dock. The image of a woman walking away, straight-backed and somehow resolute, even from behind, conjures up a hundred possible stories for the imagination, but Wyeth knows the real one. “I always told you, he paints his life,” she told the class. The woman is Ann Call, she explained, a frequent model, easy to recognize by her perfect haircut. Call worked with Betsy on Benner Island, but lived on nearby Allen. “So this is her getting ready to go on the boat for the end of the day,” Wyeth said.

Wyeth lectures worldwide on the artists in her family. In 2011, she shared some of her never-before-displayed collection of family works in an exhibition at the Bates Museum of Art. As a student, she organized a 2001 show at the museum focused on her grandfather’s process from a series of studies to the final painting, Her Room, which was the very first Wyeth painting acquired by the Farnsworth in 1964. (She’s also a talented photographer whose occasional exhibits have included portraits of her grandfather.)

As the group moved around the galleries, Wyeth leaned into paintings and invited the students to do the same, to see all the little things that don’t show up in digital slides quite the way they do in person, like the little birds, and the dry brushwork that sketches out a lichen-covered roof, or “just the feeling of this storm coming in.” She knows the technical details of the works, like the way her grandfather came to use and cherish tempera as a medium, but also the emotional landscapes behind them.

She drew the students in to look at the last painting Andrew Wyeth completed before his death in 2009.

“Then I walk in the first day and Miss Wyeth is there and I was like, ‘Oh wow, this is going to be big.’”

The Olson House in Cushing, Maine, was made famous through its depiction in Christina’s World

Leah Belber of Washington, D.C., photographs the view from a window in a Wyeth residence facing the St. George River.

During the October field trip, Wyeth kisses the gravestone of grandparents Andrew and Betsy Wyeth, where she left pumpkins, in the spirit of the family’s love of Halloween.

It’s a view of a white building on the shore of Allen Island and its ghostly reflection in the water, and is called simply Goodbye. Wyeth reminded the students that her grandmother typically named her husband’s paintings and then asked if they could tell which white parts of the painting were tempera and which were simply the white panel, left bare by the artist. Leah Belber of Washington, D.C., got right in, and she and Wyeth debated the topic before deciding neither one of them could tell for sure. But it was easy to agree that the painting is beautiful, a haunting farewell to a well-loved place.

Belber was one of several students already well-acquainted with the concept of New England, and even the Wyeths themselves. She signed up for the course because “I love museums and I love looking at art.” She’s been relishing the interplay between Creighton and Wyeth. “It’s definitely quite a class. They have a fun dynamic.”

Josh Smith of Farmington, Maine, felt a pull to the class because in his family home, a print of Jamie Wyeth’s Fog Bound Coast has long hung on the wall.

Riley Baker of Northfield, Ill., says she signed up because “I just wanted something different,” but as with Smith, a specific piece of art sparked her connection. She attended St. Andrew’s in Delaware, where a giant mural by N.C. Wyeth covers the wall of a dining room. And that mural is featured in Dead Poets Society, a 1989 film shot at St. Andrew’s.

Baker has watched it over and over again.

When Liam Shlager of Ross, Calif., signed up for the course, he, like Stiner, was a newcomer to the Wyeth mythology but was intrigued. “Then I walk in the first day and Miss Wyeth is there and I was like, ‘Oh wow, this is going to be big.’”

And it has been, from the lively classroom discussions about art to the history lessons and insider stories about growing up in the Wyeth family, where artistic talent tends to make itself evident by age 6, according to Victoria.

Getting to spend a day touring various Wyethrelated properties, and hearing from one of Wyeth’s iconic models in person, standing in the exact spot in the farmhouse where Wyeth painted her as a teenager 50 years ago, only elevated the experience. “Like 100 percent,” Shlager says.

The model, who asked not to be named, shared a detail about posing for Andrew Wyeth, about how he asked her to wet her hair every time she arrived to pose, and that detail caused Victoria to gasp. “You never told me this,” she said. “I am blown away.”

“This is so cool,” Victoria went on. “That’s how you guys are going to remember this. I mean, I know it’s sinking in now, but I’m telling you, in 20 years? You’re going to remember this.”

For Wyeth herself, the excursion was equally joyful. “I was so thrilled to get to know my students on such a different level,” she says. “We all had a blast on the bus ride to Cushing. I learned about their taste in music and some fun family stories. I can’t quite put into words how much closer it made us as a class. We went from being a class to feeling like a family.” n

Victoria Wyeth smiles at students in front of a photograph she made of her grandparents, Andrew and Betsy Wyeth, that hangs in her Cushing, Maine, home.

Victoria Wyeth offers first-year students an inside look at the Wyeth homestead in Cushing, Maine, which includes a handcrafted boat housed in her family’s barn.

At the Farnsworth Museum, an early work of Andrew Wyeth, Charlie Ervine (1937, tempera on panel) captures the attention of Josh Smith of Farmington, Maine, Joe Yoxall of Dallas, and Liam Shlager of Ross, Calif.

Abbey Ende ’23 (center) of Asheville, N.C., and fellow dancers perform “Manicure,” which tells the story of the killing of Filkina Iryna in Bucha, Ukraine. The dance is part of Dance for Peace, written and choreographed by Ruslan Peredelskyi ’25 and performed at Temple Beth Elohim in Wellesley, Mass., in March and excerpted at Bates during the Spring Dance Concert in April.

‘LOVE

CANNOT BE KILLED WITH JUST ONE SHOT’

To express human hope in the face of war’s inhumanity, Ukrainian student Ruslan Peredelskyi ’25 used his immense talent in dance and writing to tell stories about the war in his homeland

By H. Jay Burns

IRYNA FILKINA was a heating-plant operator in war-torn Bucha, Ukraine, who wanted to find more beauty in her life.

Pushing her bicycle home one day in March 2022, she was shot to death by a Russian tank as she turned a corner. She was later identified by a friend, who saw a news photograph of her lifeless left hand and recognized her meticulously manicured nails, with a pink and purple heart emblazoned on the nail of her ring finger.

The image swept around the world, to be seen by millions, including Ruslan Peredelskyi, a Bates sophomore from Ukraine who grew up in the eastern part of his country, which has essentially been at war with Russia since 2014.

“We all saw this picture of just one hand peeking out the rubble and everybody was horrified,” he says, “how this incredible desire to live and share beauty can be caught like this.”

To express human hope in the face of war’s inhumanity, Peredelskyi has used two of his immense talents, in dance and in writing, to create Dance for Peace, which weaves together modern dance, spoken word, and music to tell stories about human loss from war, such as the killing of Iryna Filkina.

“I want to concentrate on individuals: their mental states and emotions, humility with the loss of loved ones, the bitterness of loss and grief, the trauma left by the war,” says Peredelskyi. “The dances seek to convey both the darkness of these emotions and the hope for the light of the future.”

Supported by a cast of 10 Bates student dancers recruited and taught by Peredelskyi, with support from Assistant Professor of Dance Brian J. Evans, Dance for Peace was performed in March before the congregation of Temple Beth Elohim in Wellesley, Mass., and later excerpted for the annual Spring Dance Concert at Bates.

The performance at Temple Beth Elohim was partly a fundraiser to support the temple’s work to bring Ukrainian refugees to the U.S., but mostly Peredelskyi’s personal thank you to the congregation for its support to bring his mother and grandmother to the U.S. last year (his father remains in Kyiv; men from age 18 to 60 are not allowed to leave the country).

“I really wanted to give something back,” said Peredelskyi, who is a double major in dance and politics at Bates and trained as a ballet dancer at the famed Kyiv Choreographic College before coming to Bates.

The hand of Iryna Filkina, with its beautiful manicure, is pictured as her body lies on the street in Bucha, Ukraine, on April 2, 2022. The image and story inspired the dance “Manicure,” part of Dance for Peace

Ruslan Peredelskyi ’25 and Mariana Kaluba ’25 of Lusaka, Zambia, rehearse in the Marcy Plavin Dance Studio in preparation for the Dance for Peace performance at Temple Beth Elohim in Wellesley, Mass.

REUTERS/ZOHRA BENSEMRA

When a member of the congregation invited Peredelskyi to give a dance performance, his first thought was, “Wow — I definitely need to involve my incredible Bates dance community.” Creating a work together would be that much more powerful, a gift not just from him, but from his Bates community. “The idea of dance gets matched with the opportunity to help others.”

In 2014, when Peredelskyi was 11 years old, he experienced war for the first time. He and his family were living in the eastern city of Donetsk, in the Donbas region of Ukraine, when Russian-backed rebels clashed with Ukrainian forces. He recalls sheltering in his home, watching the bombs fall from the sky.

His family soon fled Donetsk for Kyiv, where Peredelskyi went to high school and studied ballet. That’s how he learned about Bates, through the global reputation of the Bates Dance Festival. At the same time, he was pursuing creative writing,

including writing a novel, which won a new-writer award in Ukraine. “And I saw that Bates provides the opportunity to do all of that,” he said. “And I was like, ‘Wow, this is like a dream.’”

At the heart of Dance for Peace are two literal war stories that have become part of the collective memory of Ukrainians, who share and reshare intense war stories, however horrifying, as a way to feel more alive.

One is the story of Iryna Filkina. The other is the story of a woman who cannot sleep at night because, as shared in a monologue spoken by Verina Chatata ’26 of Lilongwe, Malawi, “all she sees is the body of her younger sister pulled from under the rubble…. Burnt family photographs, burnt childhood toys, burnt memories. Ruin, ruin, ruin.”

“My parents, my relatives, my friends just shared with each other stories of people who just had something so intense, so horrifying that I never read in

“DANCE FOR PEACE CONFRONTS THE VISCERAL REALITY OF LOSS,” EXPLAINS BRIAN EVANS.

“NOT SIMPLY A MATERIAL LOSS BUT THE INABILITY TO EXPRESS ONE’S BEING IN ANY CAPACITY.”

Peredelskyi is a double major in dance and politics who trained as a ballet dancer at the famed Kyiv Choreographic College before coming to Bates.

PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN

‘LOVE CANNOT BE KILLED WITH JUST ONE SHOT’

Peredelsky, flanked by Kaluba (right) and Olivia Krug ’26 of Fryeburg, Maine, during a rehearsal in the Plavin Studio. PHYLLIS

any book,” Peredelskyi explains. “So horrifying that it’s hard to imagine, hard to describe in words, hard even to imagine what the person feels at that moment.”

Telling the stories “is a type of Ukrainian folklore,” he adds. “Storytelling helps emphasize the value of life and love in times of darkness.”

“Dance for Peace confronts the visceral reality of loss,” explains Brian Evans. “Not simply a material loss but the inability to express one’s being in any capacity.” Faced with catastrophic loss, finding “hope through love, conveyed by artistic expression, may be the only tangible apparatus left to save the world.”

Iryna Filkina was 52. She wanted to become a makeup artist, to help others feel beautiful, decorated as she decorated herself, her fingernails expressing a sense of fun and love. “You need to love yourself and live for yourself,” she told a friend. Her death was part of what is now considered a mass murder of Ukrainian civilians and prisoners of war by Russian forces in early 2022. The number killed stands at 458.

In telling her story, Peredelskyi wants to prevent the horrors of war from being cleansed into a statistic. During the Vietnam War era, CBS television news anchor Walter Cronkite reported on the number of enemy dead every night. The number was known as the “body count.”

Little has changed about that scorekeeping model. “When I see a conversation about people affected by war, it’s about statistics,” says Peredelskyi. “It’s about how many millions of dollars were spent on tanks, or about how many people died. It’s a really dry, casual number.”

For the performance of Dance for Peace at the synagogue, Ruslan also created and performed a solo dance, to

the song “Anneini,” composed by Noah Aronson, who is an artist-in-residence at Temple Beth Elohim. “A beautiful, incredible musical piece. I just fell in love with it,” said Peredelskyi. The temple performance also included Evans performing a piece he created titled “Yoke,” plus a reading of “My Testament” by Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko.

In creating Dance for Peace, Peredelskyi says that the varied dance abilities of his fellow students fit perfectly with his vision of dance. “For us, the beauty of dance lies in its accessibility for everyone who wants to move and share their passion for movement.”

(In a sweet moment during the postdance Q&A at the synagogue, a student said that her most memorable moment during rehearsals was when her feet ended up, accidentally, under Peredelskyi’s. “I don’t know how pointed the feet are supposed to be in ballet, but they’re really pointed, so I’m not forgetting that anytime soon!”)

In writing the speeches, Peredelskyi focused on themes and motives “that would be intense,” he says. “Then, I was trying to jump into Spotify and Google to find music that would match this energy, not take away from this specific Ukrainian story, and also would be familiar to an audience for contemporary dance in the U.S.”

The opportunity to pursue creative writing and dance at Bates “is like a dream,” says Peredelskyi, pictured with Kaluba during rehearsals in the Plavin studio.

Telling difficult stories “is a type of Ukrainian folklore,” Peredelskyi says, “that helps emphasize the value of life and love in times of darkness.”

PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN

PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN

‘LOVE CANNOT BE KILLED WITH JUST ONE SHOT’

Peredelskyi (center, leaping) and fellow dancers perform “Why She Can’t Sleep at Night,” from Dance for Peace, during a dress rehearsal for the Spring Dance Concert in April.

“FOR US, THE BEAUTY OF DANCE

LIES IN ITS ACCESSIBILITY FOR EVERYONE WHO WANTS TO MOVE AND SHARE THEIR PASSION FOR MOVEMENT.”

THEOPHIL SYSLO

For the dance story about Iryna Filkina, titled “Manicure,” the music comprises a mix of four songs, all with heavy, sometimes hurried beats, and a sort of tense energy to them, which fit with the “horror, thriller-like” style of the choreography, he said.

Peredelskyi knew he wanted to mix contemporary Western music with Ukrainian folk music, which is how the traditional Ukrainian folk song “Oh, Christ Sat to Have a Supper” got mixed

with “Your Body Changes Everything,” a 2020 release by Perfume Genius.

“Manicure” does not shy away from expressing pain and grief — the dancers’ movements feel dark and macabre at times, and set to a beat that feels relentless. Yet, ultimately, the piece creates space for hope and healing, while commemorating the joy that Filkina took in recognizing and expressing beauty.

Marin Ackermann ’26 of Mount Kisco, N.Y., delivers one of the monologues written by Peredelskyi. She asks the audience to imagine what happened to Filkina’s soul.

Do you really think this passion for life, all this life, goes nowhere? Do you really believe that all these souls are gone? Do you believe that they are among us, that their love is still among us? This love cannot be killed with just one shot. It stays here. These souls will live forever.

Peredelskyi is a trained ballet dancer, but Dance for Peace is hardly classical ballet. As he anticipated performing it at the synagogue, he wondered if his audience might be put off by its intensity. The first part of the program was a poem, “Ode to Kyiv,” and from the stage he could see “a lot of sadness” on their faces.

But as the program went on, he saw the audience engage with the storytelling. During the Q&A at the end, audience members said they were humbled, awed, and inspired by the performance by the Bates students.

“I want to thank you for shattering my perception of people your age,” said one man, as the audience laughed. “A dinosaur like me thinks you’re all involved with Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. But you have given me hope.” n

ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY BATES COMMUNICATIONS STAFF WRITER FREDDIE WRIGHT

Peredelskyi and fellow student dancers perform “Manicure,” inspired by the life and death of Iryna Filkina, during a dress rehearsal for the annual Spring Dance Concert.

THEOPHIL SYSLO

‘LOVE CANNOT BE KILLED WITH JUST ONE SHOT’

SEE AND

In a purposely purposeless Bonney room, Associate Professor of Neuroscience Jason Castro (left) has a laugh during an April 2022 meeting with two of his thesis students, Johnny Loftus ’22 (right) and Juliet Bockhorst ’22.

BE SEEN

We prowled around Bonney Science Center during its first year — 2021–22, when masks were mostly on — interviewing and photographing the folks who teach, research, and support students and faculty in a new facility that puts science on display.

STORY BY JAY BURNS PHOTOGRAPHY BY PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN

A spray bottle of Murphy’s wood soap in one hand and a rag in the other, Dave Hanscom, one of three custodians in Bonney Science Center, wipes down a long wooden study table in the big lounge known as the Living Room.

Asked what he was thinking, he said, “My next task — it’s a pretty big room.” The next task might be taking out his trusty Windsor Sensor XP12 to vacuum up all the sand tracked inside on this winter day, or check for smudges on all the glass that surrounds him.

Bates’ newest building has expanses of glass. Two huge exterior glass curtain walls give views of campus. Inside, the classrooms and labs have glass walls. For custodians, lots of glass means more work. “But I like it,” says Donna Gendron, one of Hanscom’s fellow custodians, for how it lets folks see and feel the rattle and hum of all the teaching and research going on inside the labs and classrooms. Hanscom agrees. “Seeing the students working in the labs: That’s cool.”

Opened in 2021, Bonney gathers faculty in traditional science disciplines who share research interests and laboratory needs, many of whom are engaged in bioscientific pursuits that develop solutions that sustain, restore, and improve the quality of life for humans, plants, and animals in our world.

There are chemists who apply their skills to biological questions. Biologists who have skills in chemistry, and chemists who do neuroscience — and vice-versa. For students and faculty, it’s an inclusive environment.

In short order, Bonney has attained its goal of “recreating advanced scientific environments in an undergraduate setting,” says Michael Hinchcliffe, Bonney’s lead architect and a principal at the firm Payette.

We’ve prowled Bonney, interviewing and photographing the folks who now work in a building that puts science on display. Here’s what we saw.

WALK THIS WAY

From the Living Room, it’s a few strides down the hall to an organic chemistry teaching lab.

On a November day, Lorna Clark, an assistant in instruction in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, has an attentive group of 19 students getting ready for the experiment of the day, how to isolate and purify clove oil.

Assistants in instruction are lab linchpins who work closely with students. As Clark says, “being close by is a big part of the job.” She has been at Bates for 31 years, but never tires of teaching 18- to 22-year-olds. “It’s still such a great age. I love working with these students.”

The desktop computers in Bonney’s teaching labs allow students to keep electronic notebooks to submit to Clark after a lab, rather than hand-written ones. But old-school notebooks are still in play in Bonney’s various research labs. “There’s a lot to be said for learning to draw in organic chemistry, like learning how to draw compounds,” Clark says. “If you just cut and paste it, you don’t learn it!”

One floor above Clark, her colleague Amy McDonough is teaching her microbiology students how to “flame a loop,” which prevents contamination of pure laboratory samples.

Flaming a loop is done when a scientist takes a sample of live bacteria from a bottle or tube and transfers it to a petri dish using a thin wire with a tiny loop at the end that serves as the specimencollection surface. During the transfer the wire and rim of the bottle or tube are both “flamed” with a Bunsen burner to sterilize them and ensure bacteria don’t escape.

McDonough enjoys “those moments when a student may be struggling with a concept and you work with them, making them think — like a scientist — and then you see the light bulb go on.”

Clark also maintains some of the department’s instrumentation, including the most expensive instrument in the building, the Bruker Ascend 400 nuclear magnetic resonance instrument, used to study the physical, chemical, and biological properties of matter.

In Bonney, the NMR is one of the first things you see when entering the building, on full display behind a big window near the Living Room, like an exhibit at a science museum. Its location sends an intentional message: science is accessible.

When the chemistry labs were back in Dana Chemistry Hall (recently renovated to focus more on science teaching), the NMR was behind a locked door. Students submitted their samples for a teaching assistant to run. Which meant that the NMR was “a black box to the students,” says Clark.

Now, “students can walk right over, load their own reaction sample, and analyze their own data,” explains Associate Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry Andrew Kennedy. When Kennedy taught undergraduate organic chemistry at his Ph.D. institution, “students didn’t even get to analyze samples, partly because undergraduates didn’t rate.”

The NMR in Bonney was made possible by Dennis Keith ’65 and Jo-Linda Leib Keith. Dennis was a chemistry major who earned a Ph.D. from Yale and had a long and successful pharmaceutical career.

What makes the work fun is helping students think like a scientist — and then you see the light bulb go on.

D:

Keith remembers Dana Chemistry Hall, which opened in his senior year, as just a hole in the ground. “He took organic chemistry when Hedge Hall was the chemistry building,” says Kennedy. “It’s pretty incredible that he would be connected to Bonney Science Center this way.”

THE WALL

Touch the wall along a Bonney hallway: The material is mostly pinboard, to encourage all sorts of science communication.

Far down the hall from the Living Room, a section of pinboard features a rogue’s gallery of sorts, photos of ticks taken by students with a scanning electron microscope. It was for a Short Term course on tick-borne illnesses taught by Paula Schlax, the Stella James Sims Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry, who researches Lyme disease (more later).

In a classroom near the critters, Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry Geneva Laurita is teaching students in her chemical reactivity course. They’re all around the perimeter of the room, using the room’s 360-degree expanse of whiteboard to discuss and calculate the heat

exchange that occurs when cold water is added to a hot water bath.

A solid-state chemist, Laurita’s research concentrates on materials with energy and electronic applications, and she’s recently won a major National Science Foundation grant to further her research, which focuses on “what the structure of a material is, how atoms interact with one another, and how that gives rise to physical properties — for example, how does it conduct electricity or interact with light?”

In addition to whiteboards, Laurita also uses the room’s projection screens to display, for example, an animation of the photoelectric effect, a phenomenon where electrons are ejected from a metal surface when placed under a light source with sufficient energy.

Projecting information can be useful, similar to how a traditional lecture imparts information, but wherever possible Laurita uses the whiteboards.

“They allow students to make observations and work problems in groups in a way that can be shared with everyone in the class,” she says. “This puts the collective knowledge and approaches of the entire class on display.”

A: Custodian David Hanscom wipes down a wood table with Murphy’s cleaning spray on a February 2022 morning.

B: During an organic chemistry lab, Assistant in Instruction Lorna Clark works with teaching assistant Casey Winter ’23 of Malvern, Pa., Gretchen Lindenfeldar ’23 of Pennington, N.J., and Connor Montgomery ’24 of West Hartford, Conn.

C: Assistant in Instruction Amy McDonough (center) demonstrates “flaming the loop” to Gabby Smart ’23 (left) and Olivia Piacentini ’22.

In January 2023, students of Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry Geneva Laurita use a classroom’s 360-degree expanse of whiteboard during their introductory course in chemical reactivity. Whiteboards “put collective knowledge and approaches of the entire class on display.”

SAFETY FIRST

Across the hall, Jonathan Witt makes an observation as he gives a tour of the building’s storage of various chemicals and lab equipment, from pipettes and petri dishes to test tubes and beakers and other glassware.

“Chemists used to die young,” he says. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, chemists had a cavalier attitude toward the dangerous chemicals in their labs, touching, smelling, and tasting them. “And they smoked in their labs,” says Witt, the safety technician and chemical stockroom manager for the natural sciences at Bates. All of which led to early, and sometimes explosive, deaths for more than a few.

Today, Witt and others at Bates follow a range regulations from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and other federal agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency, to keep Bates science labs safe. In OSHA terms, Witt is the college’s “chemical hygiene officer.” In other words, he says dryly, “I do a bunch of safety stuff with chemicals.”

In Bonney, Witt showed us how flammable chemicals have their own room that is its own “control area” with fire-rated walls and floors. Special lockers keep dangerous and “nasty” acids locked away. All the other chemicals are stored in their own room.

The equipment stockroom has storage space in the center, seven shelving units — the space-saving, sliding kind like in a library — and shelves, cabinets, and drawers along the room’s periphery.

Many of the faculty in Bonney moved from Dana Chemistry Hall, now simply Dana Hall. During the move, Bates executed a plan for the safe disposition of all the old and unneeded supplies and equipment.

It was a lesson learned, says Witt: No more pack-ratting. When it comes to purchasing equipment or chemicals, “if we have it, don’t order it.”

DOWN THREE FLIGHTS

Downstairs from the stockroom, Mary Hughes, the vivarium coordinator, watches intently as a new student worker, Emily Walsh ’24 of Sausalito, Calif., learns to count rotifers under a microscope.

Rotifers are tiny microscopic invertebrates that, among other attributes, are food for the larval zebrafish that Hughes and her student workers raise in the vivarium.

A powerful model organism in biological research, zebrafish have helped scientists develop therapies for muscular dystrophy; better understand certain cancers, including mesothelioma; and, in a Bates lab, research how toxicants affect the development of aquatic species.

In the vivarium, rotifers are cultured in buckets filled with salt water and a rich amount of nutritious algae, then fed to the larval zebrafish. While it’s easy to measure a cup of chow for a dog, it’s hard to measure out the correct number of rotifers at mealtime. (And like any creature, larval zebrafish require a specific serving size.)

Walsh was learning how to take a small sample from the total serving of rotifers, place it under a microscope, and count the rotifers with a clicker.

From that count, a mathematical formula is used to extrapolate the total number of rotifers in the serving. From there, adjustments can be made to the serving’s “food density” before the rotifers become the fish larvae’s next meal.

Walsh is just learning this complex process. As with learning any skill, getting good at rotifer counting is “about repetition,” says Hughes. And like any good teacher, she doesn’t expect her student workers to be adept right off the bat. “You’re going to be bad before you’re good,” she says.

Students have to learn how to manipulate a special counting slide, called a Sedgewick-Rafter cell, which is not easy. At first, “you’re going to set it up wrong. You’re going to put the slide on wrong.

You’re going to put the cover slip on wrong. It just takes practice.”

And while there’s only one way to execute the task, Hughes sees many reactions from students.

“Everyone’s different. Failing bothers some more than others — they want to get it right the first time. But I always warn them: ‘You’re not gonna get this the first time. And it’s okay if you break a slide If you don’t get the count correct the first time, it’s okay. It’s like algebra: you’re not gonna get it right the first time.’”

And working with students and teaching them a skill? “The best part of my job,” she says. “I love to see them gain the confidence they need, and tell me, ‘I got this!’”

UP SIX FLIGHTS

From Hughes’ ground-floor vivarium, it’s six flights of stairs to the second floor. There’s the quick route, via utility stairs; the easy route, the elevator; or the scenic route, the signature Monumental Staircase that provides a view of campus through a massive window known as the Beacon for how it shines at night, welcoming students.

Across the hall from the second-floor landing, Assistant Professor of Biology Lori Banks and Associate Professor of Biology Larissa Williams share a lab space — and a teaching perspective.

Banks and her student researchers explore preclinical drug development, “mostly in the area of antimicrobials for both bacteria and viruses,” she says. Williams does research on how toxicants

affect the development of aquatic species, such as zebrafish, a model organism used in biological research.

As a teacher, Banks seeks to provide a “landing pad” for students, “a safe environment for them to screw up some stuff and figure it out.” And when they fail, Banks helps them get back up and try again — or try something new.

“When you put the right opportunity in front of them, you just see their whole personality change.

You’re going to be bad before you’re good.

E: Jonathan witt is the chemical hygiene officer — “safety stuff with chemicals,” he says dryly — and stockroom manager, overseeing the storage of chemicals and lab equipment.

F: Student worker Emily Walsh ’24 of Sausalito, Calif., learns how to count tiny “rotifers” under the tutelage of vivarium coordinator Mary Hughes.

G: Alexis Hockaday, the academic administrative assistant, heads up the Monumental Staircase.

They’re like, ‘I didn’t know they made this part of science before, but I’m glad they did. I want to go play!’”

Both professors appreciate the way the inclusively designed spaces in Bonney Science Center blur the distinction between teacher and researcher, physically reinforcing a major thrust of the college’s $75 million drive to improve STEM facilities and education: to ensure that any Bates student who is interested in STEM be provided with resources.

With their colleagues, Williams and Banks have developed innovative CURE courses, which offer Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences. Such courses give students real research experiences early in their career — not to accelerate the process, but to improve how students learn, by doing real, hands-on research.

For example, Williams’ students did investigations on how poison exposure affects animals. “Literally, this is science,” she says. “I have no idea how any of this is going to turn out.”

GETTING ANTSY

From the Banks and Williams lab, it’s to a spacious lab inhabited by biologist Ryan Bavis and two neuroscientists, Jason Castro, who looks at the neural circuitry that gives us the sense of smell, and Martin Kruse, who looks at how neurons speed around our bodies telling us what to do.

“We used to all be isolated in our labs” back in their former digs in Carnegie Science Hall, says Bavis. “This is a more collaborative environment.”

Last winter, Bavis was also sharing his digs with ants. Specifically, Lasius nearcticus, the yellow meadow ant, and Tetramorium immigrans, the pavement ant.

The critters were part of honors thesis research by biology major Etti Cooper ’22 of Denver, Colo. Bavis, the Helen A. Papaioanou Professor of Biolog-

ical Sciences, was her adviser. She was investigating how temperature changes might differently affect pavement ants, which spend their lives above ground, and the entirely subterranean meadow ant.

Cooper didn’t have to go far to collect her specimens. The pavement ants came from, well, pavement: the sidewalk outside Carnegie Science Hall. And the meadow ants came from, well, a meadowish place, around Mount David.

But because ants refuse to wear name tags, Cooper spent careful time in the lab confirming the taxonomic identification of her specimens, i.e., whether the ants actually were who Cooper thought they were.

“It’s difficult to tell some species apart, even under the microscope,” explains Bavis. Although

Bavis and Cooper were confident of their identification, Cooper sent a few specimens off to an expert at Providence College, James Waters — whose lab website is LoveTheAnts.org — to confirm the identification. Last spring, Waters was the outside examiner in Cooper’s thesis defense.

Cooper compared changes in the metabolism of the two species when exposed to temperature changes.

Bavis is a respiratory physiologist whose primary research looks at how the nervous system controls breathing in mammals and birds. “I know almost nothing about ants,” he admits, “but Etti’s interest in ants and my interests in all things physiology converged.”

ON PURPOSE

A few steps down the hall is a purposefully purposeless space, Room 283, where Bates folks can meet, discuss, laugh, and figure things out.

On an April day, the room was the scene for a lively meeting between Associate Professor of Neuroscience Jason Castro and two of his thesis students, Johnny Loftus ’22 of Palo Alto, Calif., and Juliet Bockhorst ’22 of Westwood, Mass.

There were some light moments as the trio used the whiteboard to sketch out some charts reflecting the work the students were doing in “principal component analysis,” an important technique in statistics and data science.

After a difficult, month-long project, the two “had identified what might be two new cellular subtypes,” explains Castro, “using machine-learning techniques to determine whether these cells could be classified into different types.”

He doesn’t recall the reason for the levity. “Juliet may have been talking about some of the challenges she faced when trying to label neurons” — which was key to the project — “and was making light of it.”

Castro’s lab researches how we smell. (Not if we’re smelly, but how our olfactory system works.)

Take the various and tantalizing smells that hit Bates students as they walk toward Commons for a meal. Whether it’s the allure of barbecue tempe, bacon and ham pizza, paprika-braised mushrooms, or tiramisu coffee cake, it’s simply chemicals hitting and stimulating the collective Bates nose.

“Although we know we can smell a huge number of volatile chemicals, we still don’t understand exactly how this information is handled by the olfactory bulb — the part of the brain that receives incoming signals about smells,” Castro says.

H: Assistant Professor of Biology Lori Banks teaches cellular biochemistry in Bonney in November 2021. The class was reviewing a community-engaged project with Lewiston Middle School that explored the science behind nutrition.

I: In November 2021, Etti Cooper ’22 holds a plastic “critter carrier” containing Lasiusnearcticus , the yellow meadow ant, which she collected on Mount David last fall for her senior honors thesis in biology with her adviser, Helen A. Papaioanou Professor of Biological Sciences Ryan Bavis. Cooper is now a doctoral student at the University of South Dakota.

J: In the lab of Assistant Professor of Biology Lori Banks, thesis student Osceola Heard ’22 holds an agar plate on which E.colicells had been cultured. The notations indicate that the E.colicells were expressing, or producing, a specific segment of protein associated with the harmful rotavirus.

K: Summer students in the lab of Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry Colleen O’Loughlin created this pyramid of nine paper-towel stickies, each carrying the name of a strain of bacteria that the lab tested. The students rearranged the pyramid according to how the day’s experiments went.

Literally, this is science. I have no idea how any of this is going to turn out.

UP AND A WAY

Climb another 24 steps of the Monumental Staircase, and you’re on Bonney’s third level, home to chemists and biochemists. And writers.

In his research, Associate Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry Matthew Côté uses sophisticated instrumentation to look at the electronic structure of solids and the interaction of light and matter.

In his office, he says he spends “a surprising amount of time with some form of dictionary and English-usage books.” He turns to those sources because he often writes and designs supporting documents for his upper-level courses “rather than having students purchase ridiculously expensive textbooks whose scopes don’t really match my intentions for the courses. That means I do a lot of writing.”

On one October afternoon in 2021, Côté was meeting with two seniors doing year-long theses, Chris Dye and Seren Parikh. Both have graduated and are now in Ph.D. programs, Parikh at Michigan, Dye at Notre Dame. Côté turned to the whiteboards to describe the Raman effect, which explains how particles of light “gain or lose energy as they scatter off a ‘sample of interest,’” he says.

Weekly thesis meetings provide one-on-one opportunities for the seniors “to learn the unfamiliar parts of the science underlying their thesis projects.”

GOOD KAGAKU

Around the corner from Côté’s office is a lab that, thanks to a tradition born 15 years ago, people around the world would know is devoted to chemistry.

Years ago, students of Associate Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry Jennifer Koviach-Côté began to use Sharpies to write the word “chemistry,” in the language of their home or heritage, on a fume hood in her old Dana Chemistry Hall lab.

The Japanese character for chemistry, kagaku, kicked it off. Over time, other students from other countries followed: Nepali, Russian, Korean, Spanish,

French, Swahili, Hindi, Singhalese, Hebrew, Norwegian, Lithuanian, Irish Gaelic, English, German, Japanese, Chinese (traditional and simplified), Vietnamese, and Burmese.

That word-strewn hood is gone but not forgotten. In 2021, Koviach-Côté’s thesis students gave her a lab-warming gift: a decal created from a photo of all the “chemistry” translations from the old sash. The decal now greets visitors to her Bonney lab, a symbol of continuity between past, present, and future.

LASTING LEGACY

Another symbol of continuity is the endowed professorship held by Paula Schlax, the Stella James Sims Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry. Sims, Bates’ first female Black graduate, in 1897, was a career science educator who taught future teachers at a historically Black college in West Virginia.

When she’s not teaching courses like biophysical chemistry or chemical reactivity, Schlax is in the lab, helping to bring greater understanding to Borrelia burgdorferi, the bacteria that causes Lyme disease, and the “switches” that control its genes.

The spiral bacteria, known as a spirochete, “is really pretty amazing,” she says. While its genome was sequenced in the 1990s, even today “we still don’t know what some of their genes do.”

In nature, B. burgdorferi is found almost entirely in deer ticks. When an infected tick bites a dog, cat, squirrel, or human, the blood meal starts to come in. And things start to happen inside the tick.

“The temperature that the bacteria experiences in the tick changes. Different nutrients are around. The acidity and salt concentration changes,” says Schlax. “All those things give the bacteria an idea that it’s time to grow up and move out.” Move out of the tick, that is, and move into the mammal.

As part of the moving-out process, the bacteria stops making certain proteins that have helped it bind to the tick host, and starts making new ones — at least 100 new proteins to get ready for the new host.

“I’m interested in how this process happens,” Schlax says. “What are the molecular switches that

allow that to occur?” The answers, which are probably related to messenger RNA, made famous by its use in COVID-19 vaccines, will help inform the design of better diagnostic and treatment strategies.

Schlax’s love for research, which always involves students, is palpable, but as she has said, research is the lasting legacy for very few scientists. Through teaching, however, one can “really influence people: help them find what they’re good at, what they’re not good at, what they like, and what they don’t like.”

Teaching and running a lab is the best of both worlds. “I love teaching my students and I love working with them in the lab,” she says

The new spaces in Bonney help spread the love, allowing Schlax, her colleagues, and their students to lift each other up and find new ways to collaborate and build community. “It’s just going to be terrific!” n

When you put the right opportunity in front of them, you just see their whole personality change.

L: In October 2021, Associate Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Matt Côté (left) meets with two thesis students, Chris Dye ’22 (center) and Seren Parikh ’22.

M: Associate Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry Jennifer Koviach-Côté applies a decal to the glass outside her lab. The decal displays the word “chemistry” in the various home languages of her thesis students over the years.

N: Cool colors as Paula Schlax, the Stella James Sims Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry, leaves her third-floor Bonney lab.

Naming the new Bates rowing shell for 98-year-old World War II veteran Ralph Sylvester ’50 “is by far the least that we can do,” said rowing head coach Peter Steenstra

BY JAY BURNS AND FREDDIE WRIGHT

BEFORE A LARGE GATHERING in Perry Atrium on April 29, Ralph Sylvester ’50 carefully christens the new rowing shell. At right is Geoff Swift, treasurer and vice president for finance and administration.

The 98-year-old man leaned forward in his wheelchair and slowly poured a glass of champagne onto the hull of the newest Bates rowing shell. In a soft but steady voice, he said, “I christen thee Ralph Sylvester.”

With that, a big cheer erupted from the crowd gathered in Pettengill Hall’s Perry Atrium on April 29 — the loudest coming from members of the men’s and women’s rowing teams. That’s because the occasion was a hope come true for the Bates rowing program, to name their newest boat in honor of the man who now sat before them: Ralph Sylvester ’50, World War II combat veteran and beloved member of the Bates and Lewiston-Auburn communities.

MAKING A NAME

BRITTNEY LOHMILLER

“He embodies what Bates rowing is about,” said Aidan Braithwaite ’23 of Milton, Mass., who learned about Sylvester from Peter Steenstra, the men’s and women’s teams’ head coach. “The consistency and hard work shown by his military service and being a part of the community that you’re in. It’s a quality I think he and others have that we should strive toward.”

Sylvester was born in Lewiston in 1924 and has lived in Auburn for most of his life. He was a “newsie” for the local paper, graduating from Edward Little High School and attending Bates for a year before being called to serve in World War II.

With the 295th Combat Engineers, he landed on Omaha Beach five days after D-Day, when the beach was still covered with the bodies of American soldiers, and later fought in the Battle of the Bulge.

After the war, he returned home to Auburn, attended Bates, then went to work in local banks

and in telecommunications. He married a local gal, Elaine Miller, in 1949. After retiring, he and Elaine started a morning routine, coming to campus for breakfast at the Den. (Everyone remembers how Elaine always made sure that Ralph had his napkin in the right spot.)

And that’s where they met Steenstra, who would head to the Den for breakfast after his team’s early morning rowing practice on the Androscoggin River.

“I’m having scrambled eggs and toast, and I got to talking to him,” said Steenstra, turning toward Sylvester during the dedication. “Probably to you it seemed like just kind of chatting away over some breakfast, but to me it meant quite a bit. Being able to chat with someone who had such a vast experience in the world helped me keep things in perspective.”

In recent years, Sylvester has slowed down a bit, understandably. Following the 2019 death of Elaine after 70 years of marriage, the staff at Dining Services has helped Sylvester keep his Bates morning ritual going.

They invited Sylvester to have his breakfast (and sometimes lunch) in Commons, which is easier for him to enter. More recently, during COVID, the staff delivered a hot meal to Sylvester each day at home on Josslyn Street. (Sylvester has recently moved to the Maine Veterans’ Home in South Paris.)

In Commons, everyone knew Ralph’s table, up front near the desk station for Dining Services staff. There, staff brought him his breakfast: Eggs (omelet, over easy, or scrambled, they’re all good); a bowl of oatmeal with brown sugar, milk, and raisins; and a cup of coffee, with a little cream.

WITH DEEP CONCENTRATION on the ceremonial task, Sylvester christens the new rowing shell.

RALPH SYLVESTER receives applause during the dedication from the Perry Atrium crowd, including, from left, Christine Schwartz of Dining Services, Alan Kelley of Facility Services, and rowing head coach Peter Steenstra.

BRITTNEY LOHMILLER

BRITTNEY LOHMILLER

“HE EMBODIES WHAT BATES ROWING IS ABOUT.”

And that’s where students, including hungry rowers returning after their morning workouts, got to know Sylvester. He recalls with a chuckle how “they’d come in and shout, ‘Hi Ralph, how you doing?’ The guys on the football team were the loudest.” The students would come and go from Ralph’s table, an endlessly rotating conversation from morning onward, and Sylvester had no shortage of stories to tell.

When the new boat arrived, Steenstra asked his captains to think about a name, something meaningful to them and their college. “They came back a week later or two, and said they didn’t have anything that really dug deep for them.” That’s when Steenstra suggested naming it for Ralph Sylvester.

Presented with that idea, the captains’ eyes widened, recalls Steenstra. They quickly asked their coach, “You mean that older gentleman who’s in Commons quite a bit? The one we’ve all seen?”

Steenstra, turning to look at Sylvester during the dedication, said, “It was a great sense of pride for them to discover more about you. They couldn’t have been more happy and more proud to put your name on the shell.”

Before the boat christening, Steenstra had a surprise gift for Sylvester: a Bates rowing blade.

Senior Bates rowers receive a blade at graduation to recognize “commitment to the program from the start to the finish,” Steenstra explained to the audience. “The honor is 100 percent attainable but by far the most difficult thing to achieve.”

“We have never given one of these to anyone who was not a rower for Bates. But there is no question in my mind and the team’s mind that if anyone deserves it, it’s you.”

Finally, speaking for many in the audience, Steenstra said, “This is by far the least that we, in this little school, in this little town, can do to say ‘thank you’ for everything you’ve done and everything you are.” n

IN AUGUST 2021, Ralph Sylvester arrives for his longrunning morning tradition, breakfast at the Den with Bates friends.

BATES ROWING TEAM MEMBERS Lucy Del Col ’24 of Wellesley, Mass., Oli Seline ’24 of Delaware, Ohio, and Hannah Braslau ’23 of Chelmsford, Mass., talk with Ralph Sylvester ’50 during the dedication in April.

JAY BURNS

BRITTNEY LOHMILLER

Who, What, Where, When?

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

1899

William Allen Saunders, Class of 1899, is the subject of a biography released in September. Man of Sterling Worth: Professor William A. Saunders of Storer College was written by Lynn Pechuekonis, who learned about this important West Virginia educator when she bought his former home, in Harpers Ferry. Saunders, who taught at Storer from 1907 into the 1940s, was “an incredible man who served in his community and was a leader throughout the area” and state, Pechuekonis told a local reporter. Saunders taught so many courses over so many years, and touched so many lives, that he helped define the Storer experience.

1940

Reunion 2025, June 6–8

1941

Reunion 2026, June 12–14

CLASS PRESIDENT

Margaret Rand alpegrand@aol.com

1942

Reunion 2027, June 11–13

1943

Reunion 2023, June 9–11

1944

Reunion 2024, June 7–9

1945

Reunion 2025, June 6–8

CLASS SECRETARY

Carleton Finch cfinch612@gmail.com

1946

Reunion 2026, June 12–14

1947

Reunion 2027, June 11–13

CLASS SECRETARY/ TREASURER

Jean Labagh Kiskaddon jean.kiskaddon@gmail.com

CLASS PRESIDENT

Vesta Starrett Smith vestasmith@charter.net

1948

Reunion 2023, June 9–11

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

CLASS PRESIDENT Wes Bonney wbonney@maine.rr.com

“A year has passed since Walker died, and I miss him enormously,” Sylvia Stuber Heap writes. “We met at Bates in 1946, were married in 1951 — 70 years!”...Ralph Sylvester was featured in Sun Journal coverage of a Veterans Day ceremony in Lewiston. An Auburn resident, Ralph recalled his World War II army service, including hitting Omaha Beach on D-Day and fighting in the Battle of the Bulge. A combat engineer, he met U.S. generals Dwight Eisenhower and Omar Bradley and British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery during planning for the Normandy invasion. The holiday “brings back a lot of memories of all the others that were killed,” Ralph said.

1951

Reunion 2026, June 12–14

CLASS PRESIDENTS

Bill Dill wmrdill@gmail.com

Jean McLeod Dill

CLASS VICE PRESIDENT Wilfred Barbeau whbarbeau@gmail.com

Betty Kinney Faella and Tony “feel fortunate to be healthy with family nearby,” she writes. “In September, the family had a fabulous party to celebrate Tony’s 100th birthday, complete with 100 cupcakes, with candles he blew out with a fireplace bellows!”...James Vetrano and Ginger Buhl Vetrano ’54 are still in reasonable health and enjoying retirement, he reports. On Valentine’s Day they celebrated 70 years of marriage with a gathering of children and their spouses. “It has been many years since we stepped on the Bates campus, but we continue to be strongly thankful for our experiences there.”...Robert Wilson is “still chugging along at 93,” living in a continuing-care retirement community in Santa Fe, N.M., and working on his third novel-memoir. “I’m missing my dear wife Jane Seaman Wilson, who died in August ’20. She would have enjoyed our three great-grandchildren.”

1952

Reunion 2027, June 11–13

CLASS SECRETARY

Marilyn Coffin Brown mcbrown13@verizon.net

Peter Ault turned 92 on Jan. 31. “Must have a lot of company,” he says.

1953

Reunion 2023, June 9–11

CLASS PRESIDENTS

Ginnie LaFauci Toner vatoner207@gmail.com

Dick Coughlin dcoughlin@maine.rr.com

Jean Chapman Neely lives in Shepherdstown, W.V., “where I’ve been since 1980,” she wrote in January. “Unable to walk, I use 24/7 caregivers from two agencies. By mid-February I’ll have an accessible bathroom! Can’t wait to have a real shower!”...Darien “Bud” Terrile is sad to report that he lost Ellie last year after 62 years of marriage. “I’m in a senior-living community in Salem, N.H., but still active,” bicycling in the summer and walking in the winter.

1954

Reunion 2024, June 7–9

CLASS SECRETARY/ TREASURER

Jonas Klein joklein@maine.rr.com

1955

Reunion 2025, June 6–8

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

Louise Baker Malcolm sends family news: She enjoyed a vocal concert by son Chris Malcolm ’82 last spring at the Green Acre Bahá’í Center in Eliot, Maine, not far from her home in New Hampshire. Son Ben Malcolm ’88 visited from South Korea last summer. “Daughter Andrea makes the trek up from Princeton, N.J., on a regular basis,” she continues. Louise lunched with Marcia Baker last fall and has kept in touch with Gail Molander Goddard and Nancy Mills Mallett Richard Condon writes that “my dear wife, Colleen, passed quietly at home from this life to the next on May 30, after a decline of about four years. We were blessed to have 66 great years together.” Friends and Condon children have helped him cope. He adds, “Reading, writing, and music have always been my recreations (or addictions) and I’m still able to enjoy them all.”...Diane “Dinny” Felt Swett recently visited Arkansas, New Hampshire, and the Jersey Shore, as well as Connecticut to see family. “Nancy Mills Mallett and I see each other regularly and I talk with other classmates on the phone,” she says. “I only wish there were more from Bates in the area.”...Fred Huber has been “reflecting on the 66 years since we made it out of Lewiston and the 10 years since I lost my high school sweetheart, Edna.” He says, “One certain thing is that our four years at Bates stood me in good stead with my chemical degree” — Fred’s chemical industry career spanned 45 years. “Another certain thing is 57 happy and thankful years of wedlock that produced two loving daughters and six lovable grandkids. During that time I’ve

PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN

managed to keep in touch with many of you. Truly blessed am I.”...Peter Hutchinson joined the Navy and saw the world, visiting 45 countries and 25 states and having an Antarctic island named for him. He earned two master’s degrees, taught at the university level, published journalism and poetry, and participated in archaeological digs from Maine to Virginia. Peter had three daughters with Anne, who passed away in 2007. A stroke five years ago cost him the use of an arm and leg, “but I survived.” His Bates circle included John Davis, Bob Gillette, Dave Olney, and Jim Riopel....“Hurricane Ian hit us dead on,” Loe Anne Kimball Pino reported from Port Charlotte, Fla., in November.

“Writing this from a house with floors rippled, wall-to-wall carpeting sliced up, belongings piled sky-high, and the washing machine doing overtime.” She and Dick rode it out in the house, but vacated after two days without water and electricity. Their elder son, Richard Pino, lives in North Carolina, and younger son Parkinson lives in Maine but plans to join his wife and child in England, where she teaches....Nancy Mills Mallett lost Russ in March 2022. “We are fortunate to have moved to this retirement community and enjoyed five years before his health declined.” She still travels from Basking Ridge, N.J., to summer at Lake Winnipesaukee and enjoys visits from children, grandchildren, and their friends. “Conversation with family aged 20 to 60 years is a joy when living with folks 75 to 100.”...

Gail Molander Goddard notes that with the worst of the pandemic behind us, things have opened up in New London, N.H. “In July I had lunch with Dinny Felt Swett” and, at The Flying Goose, with Nancy Mills Mallett and Louise Baker Malcolm. Gail walks almost every day and kayaked five times last summer. “My biggest problem is getting out of the kayak!”...Elise Reichert Stiles and Phillip “perform with a seven-member recording group (which he started) and I am still teaching pottery. Life is good!”... Mary Rogers Barnard and her husband of 62 years, Ken, live near Bates in an independentliving retirement community, their daughter Karen Barnard Choate reports. They’re a few blocks from Karen, a couple miles from daughter Amy, and son Charles lives in Portland. Mary was hit hard by the death of her daughter-in-law last July. But, Karen continues, Mary is looking forward to connecting this summer with Bates roommate Claire Poulin Damon. “This is a visit they have been able to maintain every summer for more than

a generation!”...Sylvia Small Spradlin and Lou are doing well in New Smyrna Beach, although they summer in Glenville, N.Y., to avoid the Florida heat and visit their daughter, Heather Spradlin. She adds, “all the family enjoys doing Wordle and comparing our scores via text, email, or phone.”

1957

Reunion 2027, June 11–13

SECRETARY

Peg Leask Olney pegolney@verizon.net

CLASS PRESIDENTS

Judy Kent Patkin jpatkin@gmail.com

Dick Pierce rhpierce52@gmail.com

This from Judith Larkin Sherman: “The minus 16 degrees on Feb. 3 was the lowest we have seen in our 33 years on the Maine coast. Winds were strong, too.” On a warmer note, she’s “enjoying our monthly class Zoom get-togethers.”...Jim McGrath and Jean sold their place in Naples, Fla., “after many years of going South,” he reports. “We are in Monroe, Conn., year round now. We’ll see how that works out.”

1958

Reunion 2023, 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

Lori Beer and Lyn had an action-packed 2022, Lyn writes — “full of home cooking, doctor appointments, very little travel, a lot of TV, a bout of COVID that knocked me out for six weeks but from which we both recovered, not enough walks, but full of laughter.”...Malcolm Block was among those distressed to hear of the passing of his good friend Dan Spink in September

(Editor’s note: See in Memoriam, page 89.)...Karen Dill Taylor writes from Peaks Island, Maine that “the love of family and friends and the daily gift of living in such a beautiful place have helped me to regain my balance and joy in life” since the passing of Gene Taylor ’56, last June.

“I still muck out stalls at the barn and go often to our one and only cafe to have coffee and play games with friends. I am grateful to be able to do that!” She adds, “Reunion, anyone?”...Carol Gibson Smith counts herself “very lucky.” She summers in Plymouth, Mass., winters in Safety Harbor, Fla., and welcomes “visits from classmates in either place. Coe Jenkins Huckabee and I enjoyed a lunch at Concord’s Colonial Inn

Century of Smiles

Lou Scolnik ’45 (standing) and Carleton “Zeke” Finch ’45 (seated) have a lot in common: They are classmates, fellow Navy V-12 alumni from World War II, and, as of this year, centenarians. Scolnik turned 100 on Valentine’s Day, and the youngster Finch followed on April 10. They’re seen in October 2019 at a campus reception honoring Bates veterans. Before the pair graduated from Bates proper, they attended and graduated from the V-12 program, which in the early days of World War II provided accelerated academic and military training for future Navy officers. V-12 programs were sited at 131 U.S. colleges and universities, including Bates. Finch lives in Fitchburg, Mass., and Scolnik in Andover, Mass.

last summer.”...“Magnificent!” is how Judy Granz Yennaco describes the Carnegie Hall wedding of her granddaughter Kara Yennaco to Ian Eckstein last October. “Because the wedding was on the Jewish Sabbath, the ceremony had to take place after sundown, so it began at 6:30. Very interesting, as both families were involved in the processional.”

Dinner, dancing, and traditional festivities followed. “A weekend such as I have never experienced, and so enjoyable to see a very happy couple united in marriage.” Speaking of which, she and Bob celebrated their 63rd in December….“We seem to spend more time with medical professionals, all of them kind and helpful, than

with our extended family and friends,” Ken Harris writes from Slippery Rock, Pa. “But otherwise, Nancy Tyler Harris ’59 and I remain engaged in life, community, and happily with each other.” He adds, “We are both still driving, but voluntarily restricting it to daytime travel unless it’s strictly local. That probably means we will not make any further Reunions.”

Daughter Jennifer Harris works in special-education services, and “son David had a heart transplant in 2021 and seems to be dealing comfortably with the new life granted to him.”...Coe Jenkins Huckabee still lives independently in a retirement community in Delaware, Ohio. But she finally caught COVID.

RENE ROY

Promises Kept

Wes Bonney ’50 has been honored for his long and valuable service to his home state, Maine.

In November 2022, the philanthropic John T. Gorman Foundation donated $500,000 to the Mitchell Institute to honor Bonney, who retired last year after 27 years of service on the Gorman board.

The Mitchell Institute, whose president and CEO is Jared Cash ’04 (shown with Wes), is a nonprofit scholarship organization founded by Sen. George J. Mitchell to improve college outcomes for students from every community in Maine. Students supported by the Gorman grant will be named Wes Bonney Promise Scholars.

In his career, Bonney held leadership positions at banks throughout Maine and New England. Born in Turner, he has been a Bates trustee, a founding member of what is now Educate Maine, and a member of the Maine State Board of Education. Throughout, he’s enjoyed the challenge of working to increase student success in Maine.

“It’s encouraging to see these young people who are so bright. They’ll be able to solve a lot of problems,” he said. “It just gives me hope.”

“The isolation was harder than the virus, because I was vaccinated and boosted and given meds.” She works with a Lifelong Learning Institute at Ohio Wesleyan and calls herself “blessed to be emotionally close to my three children and their spouses, grandchildren, and a new man in my life.” Coe has Reunion in her sights and asks, “How about you?”...Writing from Hawai’i, Kay Johnson Howells is “happy and healthy and still enjoying all my activities, plus a strength-and-balance exercise class and a weekly widows’ coffee. Mike, my permanent fiancé, joined me to celebrate my son Tom’s 50th birthday.” Grandson Tommy enjoyed a college trip to Scandinavia, and grandson Sam, a Spanishlanguage program at a university in Costa Rica....Marilyn Miller Gildea “had a lovely extended Christmas visit at my daughter’s home in Grover Beach (try to find it on the map) with my three

California children’s families. I especially enjoyed falling asleep on the den sofa bed, hearing my children, their spouses, and the two college-student grandsons chatting quietly in the living room far into the night.”...

Donald Moses and Sally Dean Moses ’60 celebrated their 65th in January. “Our health is good enough to avoid doctors as much as possible. We live in Vermont on the shores of Lake Champlain where I spend my time fishing for bass in the summer and whatever through the ice in the winter. Sally is into Chinese brush painting and playing the piano.” A psychiatrist, Donald still works with patients over the phone — “when I am not fishing.” Their younger son, Erik Moses ’87, lives at Stratton Mountain, “where our grandchildren attend the Stratton Mountain School and are training for ski racing.” The older son, Richard, is a retired preservation architect who “travels the world scuba

diving.”...Peter Post reports that Jane Anderson Post is physically well, but has little short-term memory. He hopes that a classmate will volunteer to be co-president of the class. Please call him to discuss at 508-434-2053….This from Jim and Barbara Stetson Munkres: “After more than a year in our retirement community, we are convinced that this was the right place for us and that we moved at the right time.” Barb attends art classes, belongs to a book group, and enjoys weekly sessions of seated volleyball. Jim enjoys weekly duplicate bridge sessions, and keeps his piano skills sharp by playing dinner music outside the dining room.

lives in the Special Care unit at the Meadows at East Mountain assisted-living community in Rutland, Vt., daughter Cathy writes. “She enjoys expeditions to see the countryside, fall leaves, Christmas lights, clouds, and a nice meal or a musical performance. She is still gracious and kind and always up for an outing, but generally confused about life. Alzheimer’s is a tragic disease.”…“I saw that Dick Simon and Dan Spink, the last of my 10 roommates, have passed away,” writes Bruce Young (Editor’s note: See In Memoriam, page 89.) “My 2022 Viking cruise, from St. Petersburg to Moscow, was canceled when Russia invaded Ukraine, but I have one booked for July, from Paris to Prague. It will likely be my last, as my ability to get around becomes more limited. I live with my daughter, her husband, my youngest granddaughter, and her two daughters.”

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

Regina Abbiati Lucas is “doing great with mostly replacement parts: eyes, back, boob, now hip. I’m so lucky to live near Boston where fabulous doctors make magic! Years from now, when they dig me up, they’re going to find nothing but plastic and metal!”...Ross Deacon moved to an independent living facility in Venice, Fla. “Living by myself in Melbourne proved to be too challenging following two failed right-eye retina surgeries,” he reports.…Since moving from Pittsburgh to Lisbon, Maine, in 2019, Calvin Wilson and Elizabeth have encountered numerous Bates graduates in the area, “which gives us the impression that we have returned home. Every two or three months we visit my former roommate Howard ‘Budge’ Walen in Belfast. It’s always a delightful encounter replete with remembrances of Bates days together. We were deeply saddened by the death of Cliff Lawrence, our other roommate, in 2021, which was followed by a magnificent Celebration of Life in Andover, Mass. Hearty greetings to all my fellow classmates.”

1960

Reunion 2025, June 6–8

CLASS SECRETARY

Trogler Reynolds

“It is wonderful to have given up trying to maintain a house and yard, and having to prepare dinner every night.” Jim adds, “Barb has some memory issues and no longer drives, and we both use walkers, but our health is stable.”...Jo

Louise Hjelm Davidson lchdavidson011@gmail.com

MARC GLASS ’88

CLASS PRESIDENT

Pete Skelley dskelley@satx.rr.com

Bob and Jane Braman Allen write from Venice, Fla.: “We made our first trip to California in three years to see son Scott Allen ’84 and family. In June, our first family reunion since 2019 took place in Truro, Mass., where we spent a week with more than 30 family members.”

Bob’s summertime passion is gardening at their Cape Cod home, “and we were again invited to be on the library garden tour, which attracted over 800 people!” During the autumn, their daughter Beth, of Knoxville, Tenn., recovered from endocarditis thanks to excellent care at Vanderbilt Univ. Medical Center. Thereafter the Allens ping-ponged between Venice and Barnstable, “where we celebrated Christmas with family. We are grateful to have daughter Julie and family next door to support us in the aging process.”...Sandy Folcik Levine checked in following one of the few really wintery weekends in the Northeast, with sub-zero temps and vicious wind chills.

“Reminded me of the time that Bates classes and activities were canceled because the temps were minus 40. Do you remember that?” Sandy hasn’t been able to visit extended family in England since the pandemic began.

“For a while, England wouldn’t allow me to enter,” she explains.

“Then a couple of English family members were diagnosed with cancer and didn’t want to take any chances!” But she has been a regular presence at Back to Bates and Big Game Saturday — where, last fall, she and Nan Harrington Walsh met a drone pilot “who took pictures of us and posted them on his drone website! We’re famous!”...Stephen Hotchkiss has published two books via Amazon: Essentials of Macroeconomics with Moral Dilemma Commentary and Essentials of Microeconomics with Moral Dilemma Commentary.

“I have saturated one market: my family. Hopefully Bates students will benefit.”...Congrats to Jim Wylie and Karen, who celebrated their 60th in January. Jim still works full time as executive chairman of NanoDx, a medical diagnostics company.

“We’re planning the launch of our first product for the rapid point-of-care and point-ofinjury diagnosis.” Jim and Karen returned to campus for the Big Game during Back to Bates. “The memories continue! Unbelievable student support!”

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 and Steve Nichols live in Steve’s hometown, Palm Springs, Calif. “We are thrilled to have Lauren Nichols ’00, Nick Gurnon ’01, and our grandchildren living next door.” Writing in mid-December, Sally was looking forward to a holiday visit from Sally Marshall Corngold ’62….“Family time together is great!” says Alan Cate. A resident of Bradenton, Fla., he accompanied visiting family on an Everglades experience last November — “the swamp of cypress trees, alligators of all sizes, a coiled water moccasin cleverly hidden alongside a trail built on a long-gone railroad track, pods of dolphins, birds, and a dying coral reef outside Key Largo.”

Over the New Year’s holiday, their grandson from New Jersey “spread good cheer as we took in some plays, saw the illuminated pineapple waiting to drop in Sarasota on Dec. 31, picnicked on white-sand beaches, enjoyed family heritage meals from Croatia lovingly prepared by his grandmother, and talked about his early acceptance to Stevens Institute of Technology.”...

In addition to Road Scholar expeditions to Michigan and Arkansas last year, Jerry and Gretchen Shorter Davis enjoyed a trip to Palm Springs to attend a film festival, and dined with residents Sally Benson and Steve Nichols….Beverly

Graffam Ketchum is the “proud mom of Andrew Ketchum, flight manager for the most recent flight of Artemis I,” the successful uncrewed lunar orbital mission. She adds, “I am fortunate to have had two lunches with Gretchen Shorter Davis, her daughter Jen and granddaughter Amelie; Sara Hayes and her daughter, Kathy; and my daughter Laura.”... Jack Henderson continues to improve after a major illness last year. “Physical therapy is a big plus,” he says. “The enthusiasm of our granddaughter Samantha Gamber ’25 for Bates is an ongoing delight. She interned this summer at the Bates–Morse Mountain Conservation Area and loved it. Her geology course took her all over the Maine coast and a couple of islands — she’s seen more of the coast now than Mary Jane and I have. Her livestreamed vocal recital in Olin was wonderful. What fun to share her excitement about Bates.”...Sara Kinsel Hayes reports from Belfast, Maine, that she and Arthur ’60 have survived the pandemic, but Arthur has health issues that keep him mostly housebound.

“I remain actively involved on the board of the Belfast

bates.edu/give

join your classmates in supporting bates

Auto Biography

John and Sue Jones Curtiss ’63 have been married 59 years, and in that time he’s owned 64 cars. “Sixty-four includes daily drivers, my first antique auto — a 1948 Ford coupe — and along the way, GTOs, Mustangs, and even a 1939 Packard Phaeton,” says John.

He’s posing with their 1941 Mercury 8 Club Convertible (built by Ford Motor Co.), which he and Sue enjoy driving around town. “It was a barn find that had been in the same family for 81 years,” John says. “I started my collection with a Ford V-8 and will end it with the same.”

Historical Society and with the local chapters of the D.A.R. and P.E.O.”...Sue Kittredge Barnard and David “are living the quiet life at an over-55 condo community in West Boylston, Mass.,” she reports. “After 19 years, I resigned my position as parish administrator of a local church about a year ago. It has taken me a while to adjust to not working, but I’m glad to be home with Dave who will soon be 97 and at current count is a great-grandfather 21 times over. As a World War II veteran and lifelong Worcester-area resident, he has quite a bit of history to share with that extended family!” Sue, Dave, and their cockapoo, Pepper, were featured in December’s edition of the Tufts Univ. veterinary school newsletter. “Perhaps our experience will be helpful to other ‘senior seniors’ hoping to adopt a shelter pet.”...Mary Morton Cowan notes that in lieu of the 60th Reunion nixed by COVID-19, classmates last September enjoyed luncheon on campus and a tour of the Bonney Science Center. Along with Mary and Carl, attendees included Dennis Akerman, Jerry and Gretchen Shorter Davis, Emily Dore Fletcher and daughter Sarah, George Goodall and his wife, Mary, Beverly Graffam Ketchum and daughter Laura, Sara Kinsel Hayes and daughter Kathy, Jack Henderson and his wife, Mary Jane, Judy Rogers McAfee, and Dorothy Sweetser Larsson and her husband, Alan. A couple of months later, Mary played organ with musicians including daughterin-law and cellist Marianne Nolan Cowan ’92 in the annual service of carols at the First Congregational Church in New Gloucester, Maine….Colorado resident Carol Smith thinks that Batesies, for the sake of their grand- and great-grandchildren, should somehow keep accounts of these extraordinary times. “I have a diary that belonged to my great-grandfather who was a principal of a normal school in New York state, and he lived in extraordinary times, yet his diary is filled with only day-to-day events. This was disappointing, as I hoped to have a glimpse into his mind and what was going on in his world.” At least, she adds, “my family was all together for Christmas, with the six grandchildren running around, playing tag and sardines. Maybe that’s all the extraordinary that I need.”

1962

Reunion 2027, June 11–13

CLASS SECRETARY

Cindy Kalber Nordstrom cindyknordstrom@gmail.com

CLASS PRESIDENT

Rachel Harper Garcelon raegarcelon@gmail.com

CLASS VICE-PRESIDENT

David Boone doboone@peoplepc.com

Peter Green is still “throwing pots in Portland, Maine,” he reports. Extreme cold in February caused a pipe to burst — “water, water everywhere. So it goes.” On a happier note, he and a niece drove “to Virginia’s Eastern Shore to visit a cousin and her four-generation family, including a genuine Chesapeake Bay waterman who supplied crabs and clams.”...Lorrie Otto Gloede couldn’t attend Reunion, but had a good visit with Caroline Taber Kiessling just prior to it. “I am so happy we did that, since she died suddenly about two months later. I was also fortunate to be able to visit Marcia Holt Thompson on Labor Day weekend, and we had a great time reconnecting at her home in Pennsylvania.” Writing from Dover, Del., Lorrie feels “blessed to be able to live in my home and take care of it, to travel to northern New Jersey weekly for social dancing, to play in a bell choir at church, and to have good health.” She concludes, “All is well this year so far, although somewhat different as a widow.” Wolfgang Gloede passed away in February 2022.

1963

Reunion 2023, June 9–11

CLASS SECRETARY Natalie Hosford nataliehosford@gmail.com

CLASS PRESIDENT Bill Holt wholt@maine.rr.com

CLASS HISTORIAN Dottie Stone dottie@stone-stonect.com

From your Class Officers: “Reunion 2023 marks the 60th for the Class of ’63! This is an exceptional statistic and we’re all looking forward to a grand celebration. Bates staff and a number of individual classes have put together a comprehensive program including lectures, tours, off-campus sports and outdoor activities, and fireworks. Truly something for everybody. Especially interesting are the tours of the new Bonney Science Center, a fantastic, state-of-theart research facility (that will certainly be the envy of those of us who were science majors back in the day). It is hard to believe that 64 years have gone by since our journey began with bibs and beanies. So remember to dig deep into your old junk for photos and mementos from days gone by. There will be enough space in our class lounge to display them all.”…Thom Freeman sends greetings “from a devastated Fort Myers, Fla. Claire and I survived Hurricane Ian, but it was the scariest time of my life as we watched the

JOHN CURTISS ’63

storm surge come up to the front door, lanai, and garage.” The water didn’t quite penetrate their living space, but their car was totaled. He adds, “I am still trying to accept the recent passing of Howie Vandersea, a classmate, teammate, and wonderful friend for more than 60 years.” (Editor’s note: See In Memoriam, page 85.)...Peter Hollis and Susan sold their home in Harwich, Mass. When he wrote, in February, they were planning a springtime move to Southport On Cape Cod, a 55-plus community in Mashpee. He adds, “Our oldest grandson, Bram, graduates from Bowdoin this year — oh, where did I go wrong!”...Still living in Santa Clara, Calif., Sue King Farr “survived COVID and the hibernation, but I am now getting out more and traveling.” In October, her extended clan gathered for her grandson’s wedding, in Fryeburg, Maine. “We had a wonderful reunion with all of my West Coast family, as well as my brother and his family” from Massachusetts. Writing in January, Sue was looking forward to getting out of California’s atmospheric rivers and spending time in Maui and in Ajijic, Mexico.

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 and Dick Andren dixmont258@gmail.com

CLASS HISTORIAN Dot March Harris dotharriswi@gmail.com

Steve Barron writes from Fort Myers, Fla.: “I still have my hair but have several more scars because of multiple surgeries to remove skin cancers. Nothing terribly serious, but it seems to be an ongoing issue.” Steve keeps in close touch, via texts and FaceTime, with his three daughters and 10 grandchildren. “My oldest grandchild, attorney Caihlan Snyder, married a wonderful young man, Nick Karkos.” The newlyweds live in Southern Maine. “With so much of my family in Maine, I have been back several times. Sadly, not during Reunion dates. Maybe next time.”...For Norm Bowie and Maureen, “2022 was the year of gradual and cautious re-entry. Fully vaccinated and boosted, I joined my son Brian and his wife in May to visit my granddaughter at Brown. It was a wonderful trip, but I learned it was hard for me to keep up with the young ones, and my daughter-in-law and I both got COVID-19. The vaccines

worked as promised — no worse than a slight cold. In June, I joined my other son, Peter, and my granddaughter in NYC. Of course, I did not do any better at keeping up with these family members either. In September we celebrated Maureen’s birthday and our 35th wedding anniversary by going out to eat over and over.”...Pat Folsom feels “blessed to again live in Waitsfield, Vt., where I grew up, in a house Dad built in the ’60s” and with family nearby. She adds, “It’s interesting that people I know here in town are all mutual friends of Eric and Rhoda Morrill Silverberg.” Active in politics for years, in 2022 Pat helped to both pass a Vermont constitutional amendment guaranteeing reproductive rights and support U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock in the Georgia runoff. “It feels good to work towards a specific goal in a positive way. Plus, I now have a whole group of friends I never would have met in other circumstances. Activism in my late 70s — better late than never.”...For Paul and Merrilyn Brown Goodwin ’65, “not much has changed. I’m still volunteering at Mystic Seaport Museum and am now transcribing Titanicrelated material. The Seaport recently acquired what is likely the third-best collection of manuscripts and artifacts relative to the loss of that great ship.” Lyn, meanwhile, “also keeps busy with volunteer work. And we both enjoy watching our grandkids growing up!”...Linda Gramatky Smith reports that “life is good for Ken Smith ’55 and me here at Cedar Crest, a continuing-care retirement community in Pompton Plains, N.J. We know many sharp, interesting people, with fun things to do — playing on a bocce team was our new experience in 2022 — and meeting guests for dinner in one of the five restaurants on campus,” in contrast to the exertion of throwing dinner parties. “In 2022, I got back to selling the wonderful Mary Kay products, so that’s been satisfying. For Ken’s 90th birthday last month more than 75 people wrote messages to him that filled a beautiful scrapbook.” Their son, Andrew Smith ’90, brought his sons to the party while their mom minded the store in California. Daughter Christina O’Shea and her family, Linda adds, are just 15 minutes away....Ron Green writes from Bedford, Mass.: “Maria and I, after 53 years of marriage, began to realize our mortality as we crossed the 80-years-on-the-planet mark. Our youngest daughter, the lawyer, living two miles away with her two sons, reminds me that it’s time to really, really, truly clean out the garage — letting go of projects never to be completed and products never to be used.” He adds, “A long addiction to smoking and an overworked back

took away any hopes of summiting Mount Chocorua one more time, but I try some shorter hiking on Mount Desert in the summer with the grandchildren.”...David Harrison still works at The Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, where he has been a researcher since 1970. “Way past retirement age, but looking for interventions that retard aging is too interesting.” He turned 80 last year, but still feels “pretty good,” he says. But cold-induced asthma forced him to give up cross-country skiing in Acadia National Park, a much-loved pastime, about 12 years ago. Now he and Norma Johnson winter in Haines City, Fla. Contact Dave at david.harrison@jax.org Jeff and Linda Pike Hillier ’65 moved to Philadelphia last June. “For those of you familiar with Philly, we are just around the corner from Baltimore and 48th,” Jeff writes. Daughter Laura Hillier ’90 and grandson Alex have joined them, and “we are just a couple of blocks from our other daughter, Amy, and her family.”

Jeff adds, “Prior to Philadelphia, my largest community was Lewiston. My mind is still boggling.”...A resident of Long Valley, N.J., John Holt chairs the Washington Township Democratic Committee, serves as secretary of the Washington Township Land Trust, and is a member of the township’s Green Team. He and Nancy Gable are happily married, have five grandchildren, and enjoy their summers in Seal Cove, Maine….After Paul Holt left the house restoration and real estate business, and he and Pamela left New England in favor of Melbourne Beach, Fla., she encouraged him to try oil painting to balance the time he spends playing wheelchair tennis. He reluctantly “submitted to an art class, which was tedious to say the least. However, it got me started, and now I enjoy the time spent creating something that other people seem to like, or attempting to paint my version of so much of the beauty that exists here near the ocean and lagoon.”...Eric and Rhoda Morrill Silverberg still enjoy spending three quarters of the year in Austin, Texas, and summering on Vinalhaven, off Maine’s midcoast. “Eric is looking forward to summer and the new dock, which did not appear last year, so that he can get out in his boat. I’m still working some, all from the dining room, training teachers to use the Wilson Reading System, a program for struggling readers. I have enjoyed playing fiddle with groups in Vinalhaven and now in Austin. As we are soon to turn 80, I keep thinking of that wonderful Hank Thompson song: ‘The Older the Violin, the Sweeter the Music.’ If I change ‘violin’ to ‘violinist,’ does it still stand?”...Last spring, Nancy Nichols Dixon and Dick “drove from Pennsylvania to

Denver and saw part of the U.S. we had not seen before, i.e., Missouri, Kansas, and eastern Colorado.” She reports, “We were in awe of the wind farms. We wanted to see the prairie grass area, but it was the wrong season — fall is better — and the Kansas Barbed Wire Museum, but it wasn’t open when we were there. We finally got to Vail, but not to ski. Only in our dreams, we guess.”...Writing in CovertAction Magazine last November, Jon Olsen argued that the U.S. claim to sovereignty over Hawai’i is fraudulent, noting that “Hawai’i is a country whose government was overthrown by the threat of force.” Jon wrote the 2014 book Liberate Hawai’i! He has also completed a political philosophy novel — “not dystopian, but cautiously optimistic” — and is working to get it published. A Maine resident, Jon is still raising organic blueberries and making his Tropical Maine syrup from passion fruit concentrate with local maple syrup. Contact him at joliyoka@gmail.com Anne Packard reports “considerable progress” in her five-year collaboration with conservation groups to establish an easement for her lakefront property in Freedom, N.H. With “donations from adjacent property owners and a grant from the N.H. Conservation and Heritage License Plate Program, we met our financial goal.” The property will be designated as wildlife habitat. In other news, deciding to visit a friend in New Mexico, Anne and Roger “packed up his car with our camping gear and in mid-October left N.H. for the road trip of a lifetime. We drove through 22 states plus Ontario, hiked the high points of seven states we had not hiked before, and covered 8,000 miles.”...From beginning to end, 2022 was quite a year for Lynn Parker Schiavi and John. “In January, we learned that John needed a pacemaker. Then it was recommended that he get bypass surgery. These were both done while we were in Florida,” with their daughters, Kate Schiavi and Deb Schiavi Cote ’89, in attendance. Lynn, Deb, Paul Cote, and friends later made a pilgrimage to Poland, the Czech Republic, and Germany — a trip scheduled around performances of the famed Passion Play in Oberammergau, which take place only every 10 years, and were pushed back from 2020 by COVID....Jerome Scott writes from Jamestown, R.I.: “I am a happy octogenarian living vicariously through my offspring — eight children, 13 grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren.”… Dick and Joan Spruill Andren count themselves “fortunate to continue our lives — but at a slower pace.” In Dixmont, Maine, last year’s “garden harvest was good even though we fought skunks, groundhogs, and

raccoons.” If their pace has slowed, the Andrens still cover plenty of ground: “We had two great visits to Vinalhaven, courtesy of Eric and Rhoda Morrill Silverberg. In the fall, we traveled to Iceland with Pat Parsons Kay ’64. We drove 1,600 miles around the ring road on the quest for waterfalls, hidden valleys, northern lights, and one-lane tunnels.” During the winter, they were looking forward to a California trip to see two kids and five grandkids….This from Joanna Starr in Boston: “I feel fortunate to have reasonably good health and to be able to enjoy life in this wonderful city with my longtime partner, Ron Dennenberg.” Her younger son, Richard, and his wife live fairly close by. Her granddaughter is a med student, and her grandson will soon graduate from Bates — Ryan Starr Weitzel ’23. Joanna’s older son, Bill, and his wife live in Geneva. “Thank heavens for Zoom.” Every year, Ron and Joanna count on a winter month in California and some summer time in Maine and eastern Canada. “I feel blessed to have my family, my friends, Ron, and my sense of humor for company as I trudge along through the ever-challenging landscape of older age.”...Alan and Sandy Prohl Williams “finally got to do a lot of traveling that was postponed due to COVID. Since we were both turning 80 in 2022, we each picked a trip from our bucket lists.” They fulfilled Alan’s interest in Mount Rushmore with a Road Scholar tour of national parks in June, and celebrated Sandy’s birthday on a long-awaited autumn river cruise from Bucharest to Budapest. Other excursions included a wedding in Albany; a family reunion in the Adirondacks, where they caught up with relatives “that we hadn’t seen since we moved to California”; and Thanksgiving in Salt Lake City with family. A more solemn trip took the couple to Wisconsin for a service for Alan’s sister Mary, who passed away in September….“As I approach the big 80,” Gretchen Ziegler reports from Harrisville, N.H., “I have cut back on my most time-consuming volunteer activities, as board chair of the Cathedral of the Pines in Rindge and of the Granite State Ambassadors” — volunteers who welcome the world to New Hampshire. She’s staying on those boards, and will still help train volunteers and state tourism staff for the Ambassadors. “Time to get back on the road traveling,” now that COVID has subsided, “and reading more of the books on the shelves!”

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

Jim Callahan and Elsa still live year-round in Massachusetts. “With two sons and their families, including four granddaughters, in Southern California, we visit them periodically,” Jim writes. “Thankfully, our daughter and her family, including three grandsons, live in Marblehead.” He and Elsa enjoy traveling, even though he contracted COVID on a 2022 Mediterranean cruise. “Fortunately, there were only three days left on the cruise. I wish I had done better in Dr. Alexis Caron’s French courses, because we wound up quarantined in Marseille, Elsa for seven days and me for 10.” Luckily, she didn’t get sick....

Newt Clark attended Back to Bates for two reasons. “First, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Bates Outing Club. And second, to join with members of the Class of 1967” — Patricia Lord Clark’s class — “to celebrate the life of Peter Gomes ’65.” A high point “was the gathering of about a dozen alums who shared stories about Peter. For example, speaking at a NESCAC conference, Peter commented on how prestigious each of the schools represented were, as he had an honorary doctorate from each of them.” Newt says, “I have fond memories of Peter.”...

Ralph “Tom” Day had a letter to the editor published by The Wall Street Journal. Responding to an article about reparations as a response to the climate crisis, Tom wrote, in part: “This century’s warming will take time to settle into a new equilibrium. Reparations are a side issue.”...Al Harvie had an adventure late one autumn evening “when a bear came up on my porch searching for birdseed.” Living in Auburn, across the river from campus, “I have seen lots of deer and an occasional fox, but a bear was new to me.” Al’s health is stable, he reports, and he’s writing an autobiography with lots of Bates stories. “It won’t be a tell-all, however.” Al wants to hear from classmates: alharvie65@ gmail.com Peter Heyel and Joyce Mantyla were the oldest Batesies at the December alumni meeting in NYC, he writes. “Good grief.” The occasion was a presentation by President Clayton Spencer, who ends her time at Bates on June 30. Peter is working for NBC Universal full-time and enjoys chatting on the phone a few times a month with Ted Foster, “who says to say, ‘Hello.’”...Brynna Kaulback and Rosemary Talmadge met

in 1979 and were together until Rosemary’s passing last year.

“I am grateful for the many years we had together,” Brynna writes. She has since moved from Brooklyn to Westport, Conn.

“COVID has had a huge impact on what I can do,” she continues. “The vaccines aren’t effective on me and I have a lung disease, so I have been pretty isolated. I keep busy sorting through the flotsam and jetsam of my life, and I am thankful for technology which allows me to communicate with others from a distance.” Brynna enjoys the companionship she has found in a few online groups, and gets outside whenever she can. But most of all, “I write, write, write. Thanks to all the teachers and professors who opened my mind to all the things to write about!”...Joyce Mantyla still likes to drive between homes in NYC, where she enjoys summer and fall, and Palm Beach, land of “birds, boats and sunsets! And warm weather!” Attending the previously mentioned New York Bates event with Peter Heyel, she says, “one of the older graduates we met was enthusiastic about his recent ‘combined Reunion,’’’ necessitated by pandemic-related cancellations and attended by members of three Classes. That alumnus appreciated the enlargement of both attendance and socializing opportunities. “Dear Classmates,” Joyce asks, “What does everyone think about that?”...John Norton published a number of children’s books last year. Illustrated titles aimed at younger kids are entries in a birthday series: Rudy, Santa’s Ninth Reindeer; Dear Tooth Fairy, Is Today Your Birthday?; and Henry, The Spare Parts Dog, alongside a newly revised edition of When Is Santa’s Birthday? Meanwhile, The Adventures of Eva and Buckskin Charlie is a series for advanced young readers and mid-grade students. The latest title is Eva’s New Older Brother, but The Fortune Teller on the Train and Eva’s Secret Name are also available in newly revised editions. John, of Davidson, N.C., expects the remaining Eva and Buckskin Charlie titles to appear this year. Folks who would like to be early readers or editors of these and future books, please contact John: john@johnnortonwriter. com Susan Smith Copley and Douglas are “settling well into our modest but comfy apartment at RiverMead, an outstanding continuing-care community in our hometown of Peterborough, N.H.,” she reports. “Quite a process to give away most of our worldly belongings — including thousands of books! — and officially downsize. We enjoy the residents, staff, programs, and events here, but miss our extensive gardens and dear neighbors at our former home.” Susan stays in touch with Bates

roommate Linda Olmsted, of Danbury, N.H., and sees Merry Webber Stockwell in a women’s hiking group that explores local backroads and Monadnockarea trails....Living in Kingfield, Maine, Susan Smith Davis is in her fourth retirement gig: “writing for the local paper, a perfect full circle from my English major at Bates. Other fun writing projects included surveying Franklin County farmers for the Greater Franklin Food Council. And Carrabassett Valley just hired me to write up minutes for their select board and planning board meetings. I’m getting a great civics lesson in local politics!” Susan planned to keep those plates spinning remotely “while celebrating my 80th birthday with my sister, Janet Smith, in Italy during March and in Sweden, where she lives, during April. The magic of Zoom!”

1966

Reunion 2026, June 12–14

CLASS PRESIDENT Alex Wood awwood@mit.edu

1967

Reunion 2027, June 11–13

CLASS PRESIDENTS

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

Peter and Judy Harvell Andersen have moved to a newly built house in an activeadult retirement community in Cumberland, Maine. The move came after 50 years in one house in Willington, Conn. “We are now MFAs — Mainers From Away — and closer to daughter Kristen Andersen ’00, other relatives, and our summer cottage Down East. We enjoy the Portland area, the maintenance-free lifestyle, and winter in Maine once again.”...Ann Warren Turner and Rick, thinking about the end of life, “started a small group of older friends from church to discuss our remaining years, what to tell our kids, and how to deal with our remains. Rick dubbed it, ‘Death Cab For Cuties,’ after the rock group. Check out The Five Wishes program for help in doing this” — www. fivewishes.org. “Otherwise, we are still in our high-hill passive solar home, gardening (reduced), shoveling snow, and oh, yes, falling hard on the front deck to dislocate a shoulder. Do not do this!” Ann continues to write short stories and the blog Faith Is My Operating System Rick “is loving retirement.”...

Helen Woodruff Paganucci and Fred visited their son near Ramstein Air Base, in Germany, for Christmas. “While there I was able to visit Sachiko Matsumoto

Kleefisch in Trier,” she writes. “Unfortunately she had suffered from a stroke and is confined to a nursing home, but it was still good to see her and visit with her son and his family.”

1968

Reunion 2023, June 9–11

CLASS SECRETARY

Rick Melpignano rickmel713@gmail.com

CLASS PRESIDENT

Nancy Hohmann nhohmann@yahoo.com

Gretchen Hess Daly enjoyed a fun cruise up the Inside Passage in Alaska last July with 18 family members and friends. She returned to Maine with an unwanted souvenir: COVID. “Thanks to vaccinations and boosters, it was a mild case.”...Aija Ronis Hopstock is enjoying partial retirement from the insurance business and spending quality time with her grandchildren — 5-year-old twins, a boy and girl. She, David, and family are all in good health although taking life more slowly.

“My weeklong bike rides are now short, a leisurely 20 miles.”

1969

Reunion 2024, June 7–9

CLASS SECRETARY

Deborah Bliss Behler debbehler@aol.com

CLASS PRESIDENT

George Peters geo47peters@gmail.com

Dick Brogadir still practices dentistry after 50 years — “a dream job,” he writes. “I work two days a week. I have no collection worries, no managing employees, no concerns about no-shows or broken equipment. And they even pay me. Fortunately I still have my health and skills.

I am lucky and blessed. Bettina and I have seven grandchildren whom we see often. How great is that!”...Mary Buckson Fuller is “catching up on travel. First time at the Grand Canyon in 2022, and headed to Kenya and Tanzania in April!”...Greg DeLisle finally retired from Willie Ross School for the Deaf, in Longmeadow, Mass., “after 41 years there and 53 years in deaf education. When I graduated from Bates, I had no idea that such a career was even a remote possibility, but I enjoyed every year.” He also really enjoyed the 50th Reunion and sends thanks to those who planned it….Colin Fuller, his daughter Meaghan Fuller Stoddard ’00, and her husband, Ian, completed the Big Bear Marathon in southern California in November. Colin’s time of 4:14 qualifies him to run in the 2024 Boston Marathon. A cardiologist, Colin urges us all to “keep moving, as little as 10

Keeping It Greene

In nearby Greene, Bates retiree Judy Marden ’66 continues to safeguard her land from development.

She had previously established the Marden-Chittick Refuge, a 200-acre conservation easement. Recently, she protected her historic farmhouse through an easement with Maine Preservation, which was notarized in the college’s Muskie Archives by college archivist Sam Howes, with classmate Bill Hiss ’66 attending.

“It’s wonderful to know that these easements will travel with the deeds forever, and no matter what happens to me, the land will stay forever wild, and the antique farmhouse will be protected from development or destruction,” says Marden.

The house, which dates to the late 1700s, and the land got the name Alpine Farm around 1870 when it was a dairy operation. Marden purchased the farm in 1975 with the help of the late Jane Parsons Norris ’46, a local banker who went to bat for Marden, a single, divorced woman, so she could secure a mortgage.

minutes of jogging or 30 minutes of walking at least a few times a week, to enjoy a longer and healthier life.”...The concept of retirement has no reality for Peter Handler. As a climate activist, he’s a group leader of the Philadelphia Chapter of Citizens’ Climate Lobby and a co-founder and principal of Honoring the Future. And he is also a custom furniture maker. The lease on his studio wasn’t renewed, so Peter has gone in with a friend on a different workspace. His wife, Karen Singer, is in remission after a diagnosis of multiple myeloma, six months of chemotherapy, and a stem cell transplant. Peter adds that their grandchildren live nearby — their grandson is 5 and his sister was born “two days after the Insurrection.”…William Menke bought an Airstream Atlas (Tommy Bahama Special Edition) last fall and drove it 1,500 miles westward from the point of purchase in New Jersey to see his daughters: Kris and her husband, Craig, in Issaquah, Wash., and Anna and Jackson in

Berkeley, Calif. “Have now visited all states except three. Idaho and Utah are my new favorites.” He’s back at home in Twain Harte, Calif….Larry Power is “still laughing about the ‘reading of the rules for incoming Batesie males’ at our 50th Reunion. Priceless!”...

Pastor Sam Richards told us about the February production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream offered by the youth theatrical troupe he oversees, the Southern Maine Association of Shakespearean Homeschoolers, aka SMASH. Held at Monmouth’s Cumston Hall, longtime home of The Theater at Monmouth, the three-performance run was “entertaining, excellently acted.”

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

James Glinski directs his energies in two directions since retirement: contributing to the history of Scituate, Mass., where he and Susan Denniston ’72 reside, and helping protect the South Shore environment. “Combining both interests, I wrote an article for the North and South Rivers Watershed Association on the history of the saltwater marshes of the South Shore.” He has also published a new local-history book, The Ceaseless War Against Intemperance: Scituate’s AnteBellum Temperance Movement, and joined the Scituate Historical Commission….John Shea spent a week on campus during the Bates Film Festival in April

PHOTO CREDIT

JUDY MARDEN ’66

It’s Catching

Alex Wood ’66 enjoyed fly-fishing in Argentine Patagonia last year and reports that the rainbow trout — one of which he’s displaying — the scenery, and the beef at dinner “were all outstanding.” (Trout fishing in South America, you ask? Yep: Trout were introduced from the U.S. in the early 1900s.) Alex also got the chance to introduce his grandson Christopher to fly fishing for bonefish on the flats of Andros Island in the Bahamas.

2022 and presented Grey Lady, the 2017 romantic thriller that he wrote and directed. “I met lots of talented film and theater students and great faculty, and did a Q&A in Schaeffer Theatre on the very stage where I got my start. Thank you, Bates.”...

For Christopher Wright, 2022 was a year of health troubles. Early in the year, working with his daughter Lydia, he undertook a regimen of daily dressing changes and applications of honey, and nothing else, to control an infection. Despite his month in bed with COVID, they were able to declare success by Easter Sunday. “I call this our ‘100-day miracle.’” Later on, though, increasing difficulty in breathing led to a diagnosis of stage 4 myelofibrosis. “So, in addition to the rare connectivetissue disorder that has wrecked my entire life, I get to experience a rare cancer,” he writes. “Many people with this cancer can survive for years, and I’ve likely had it for years. Severe anemia causes perpetual exhaustion. Pain, suffering, and anxiety have become my roommates until the Reaper knocks on my door. Thanks to having lived with the constant deterioration of my

skeletal system, I have learned to live with this challenge. In the meantime, I eat well, get the occasional blood transfusion, and continue reading, researching, and enjoying the gift of an active brain.”

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

Frank Foster served as an election official in Arlington, Mass., last fall. A strong turnout made for a “20-hour day.” He adds, “Reunion 2022 was very special, loads of fun and very well-planned and executed. Looking forward to staying in touch with classmates as we approach our 55th.”...Carol Hendrickson returned to Guatemala, a longtime focus of her professional work, in

December after a three-year pandemic hiatus. For two weeks, she volunteered with the Maya Educational Foundation’s Volunteer English Language Program, working with Maya university students. “After that I traveled to Tecpán, where I first did anthropology research in 1980. At that point people were still recovering from the 1976 earthquake that had flattened the town. These days, however, Tecpán is booming. It’s a huge business and market center as well as being known for its role in the ‘Maya Renaissance.’ I was stunned by all the changes in just three years.”...Jim Miller and Marsha have spent more than three years wandering the West in their 2012 Airstream trailer. They’ve enjoyed unique sights at Hueco Tanks, Texas, and Dry Falls, Wash.; hiking at mounts Rainier and St. Helens; biking the Coeur d’Alenes and Hiawatha Rail trails, in Idaho; beach time in Newport, Ore.; the Carlsbad Caverns, White Sands, and, of course, Roswell, N.M. Wintering in Durango, they worked on the design for the house to be built on their five acres of mountain land in Fairplay, Colo.

1972

Reunion 2027, June 11–13

CLASS SECRETARY Dick Thomas rthomas14@comcast.net

CLASS PRESIDENT Erik Bertelsen ecbertelsen@gmail.com

Michael Miskin and Liz took a “fabulous cruise to Italy, France, Greece, Malta, and Croatia. We started in Venice and ended up in Valbonne, France, for a couple of nights — actually enjoying the daily village life more than the scheduled, touristy part of the trip.”...Steve Mortimer’s 2022 was “great fun.” A high point was the wedding of son Ben Mortimer ’95. There was also travel to San Francisco, NYC, Chicago, Florida, and Acadia, as well as learning pickleball and seeing bears, coyotes, bobcats, and fisher cats in his back yard in Raymond, Maine — not to mention the 50th running of the Bates Alumni Cross-Country Race and “spending time with so many wonderful classmates at our 50th Reunion.”

1973

Reunion 2023, June 8–11

CLASS SECRETARY Kaylee Masury kmasury@yahoo.com

CLASS PRESIDENT Tom Carey tcarey@bates.edu

This from Ira Waldman in California: “As I try to sort out what kind of retirement or semi-retirement to head toward, I realize that I have many socially relevant interests that continue to excite me. I am a founding member of the Homelessness Task Forces created jointly by the American College of Real Estate Lawyers (ACREL) and my law firm, Cox, Castle, and Nicholson. I recently received, along with my firm, the Ruth Schwartz Legacy Award from Shelter Partnership.” Ira also co-chairs ACREL’s Climate Impact Affinity Group, dealing with the effects of real estate development on climate. And he has taken part in public Q&As with Eric Nusbaum, the author of Stealing Home: Los Angeles, the Dodgers, and the Lives Caught in Between, a study of the development of Dodger Stadium and the displacement of Mexican-American communities.

1974

Reunion 2024, June 6–9

CLASS SECRETARY Tina Psalidas Lamson tinal2@mac.com

CLASS PRESIDENT Don McDade mcdadecbb@gmail.com

SOCIAL MEDIA COORDINATORS

Bill and Karen Lord Cunningham karenlc67@gmail.com

Vicky Aghababian Wicks and Bruce are enjoying retirement in Rhode Island and traveling frequently, including visits with grandchildren in NYC and Portland. “We’re looking forward to our 50th Reunion and to reconnecting with lots of classmates.”...Ronald and Jan Neugebauer Brown have retired from working the Eastern States Exposition (“Big E”) Llama Show after nearly 30 years. “We started off as barn crew, shifting llama pens, helping llama owners handle their gear, and acting as runners. Then we graduated to clerk and announcer. Jan’s programming and organization skills were in play from August to the last weekend in September as she tweaked her database, recorded llama and handler entries, resolved questions, produced a show book, and recorded show results and produced final reports. Ron pretty much made copies, got supplies, fixed the printer, then just showed up and talked. It was a wonderful ride!”...Writing in February, Cindi Byrkit was “heading into 2023 looking forward to a better and more satisfying year” — better than 2022, which included “an unplanned move, a positive COVID test the day before Thanksgiving, and too many canceled travel plans.”... Wayne Douglas was sworn in as an associate justice on the Maine Supreme Judicial Court in March. Citing his “sharp legal mind, measured temperament, and dedication to the fair and impartial administration of the law,” Gov. Janet Mills selected the Ocean Park resident for a seven-year term on the court. He became a judge in 2002 and a York County Superior Court justice in 2015….This from Julia Holmes Reuter: Because of both the “dismal” grade in Beginning French at Bates attained by Jim Reuter ’75, and “his pitbull mentality — won’t let go once he sets his mind to something — we spent an amazing week in Avignon, France, in December.”

In the ancient walled city, “decked out for Christmas,” they took a one-on-two immersion course continuing their French studies. “A week hiking in the Pyrenees preceded it and the rainy forecast failed to deliver!”

1975

Reunion 2025, June 5–8

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

1976

Reunion 2026, June 12–14

CLASS SECRETARY

Jeff Helm bateslax@gmail.com

CLASS PRESIDENT

Bruce Campbell brucec@maine.rr.com

Marge McCormick Davis and Clara Smith Hubbard joined a Marist College classmate in revisiting some favorite places from their junior-year stay in Oxford, England, in September….David Snow and Lynette Yezierski Snow were named honorary alumni of Clemson University in October, in recognition of their generosity toward the South Carolina school. Their daughter Ashley is Clemson ’15. Her twin, Lauren, graduated from Elon University. David and Lynette live in Darien, Conn.

1977

Reunion 2027, June 10–13

CLASS SECRETARY Steve Hadge schmuddy@yahoo.com

CLASS PRESIDENT Keith Taylor drkeithtaylor@msn.com

Donald Earle is “really enjoying being a first-time grandfather.” In September, moreover, he saw “the field hockey team beat Bowdoin for the first time in something like 30 years (one of my daughter’s former athletes at Newton Country Day School is a first-year on the team). To celebrate, we went over to touch the Bobcat sculpture and then to the Goose so I could show Cooper where Grampa spent many an enjoyable Wednesday night. No, we didn’t go in!”...Joel Feingold describes the past year or two as “momentous.” In 2021, “everyone I knew got COVID, and Houda and I did not. The entertainment market was gross” (Joel is an agent and manager for entertainers in diverse fields). “And my theatrical project died an ignominious death.” He adds, “when I used the word ‘ignominious’ on the golf course my playing partners ribbed me for the next several holes.” He adds, “I enjoyed our 45th Reunion very much. It never ceases to amaze me how interesting Batesies are.”...

Liz Strout has had some big months as an author. One was April 2009, when her novel Olive Kitteridge won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Well, September 2022 was another. Her novel Oh William! was shortlisted for the

Berry Good

Bill Sherwonit ’71 has been writing about his adopted home state of Alaska for 40 years.

“I’m slowing down, but continue to be an active nature writer, documenting and celebrating the wildness in our world (and within us),” he says. He notes that the photo “shows me (or at least my lower body) in a blueberry patch within the Falls Creek drainage of Chugach State Park, Anchorage’s ‘backyard wilderness’ and a favorite place of mine.” Sherwonit is the author of more than a dozen books, including To the Top of Denali: Climbing Adventures on North America’s Highest Peak.

BILL SHERWONIT ’71

202 3

homecoming & family weekend: october 6–7 bates.edu/backtobates

prestigious Booker Prize. (Her My Name Is Lucy Barton made the Booker long list in 2016.) And Liz released Lucy by the Sea, in which her now-familiar character Lucy Barton and her ex, William, seek refuge in Maine from the pandemic. That novel provoked a flood of positive press, including from The New York Times, which used the new novel as the launch pad for an in-depth Strout profile. And Liz appeared on the First Draft: A Dialogue of Writing podcast in December.

1978

Reunion 2023, June 9–11

CLASS SECRETARY Chip Beckwith chipwith@yahoo.com

CLASS PRESIDENT Dean Berman deanocean@aol.com

Sam Apicelli is in his 24th year at the Philadelphia law firm Duane Morris LLP, where he chairs the patent and opinion division. “No intention of retiring — having way too much fun!” He and Andrea celebrated their 33rd in March. “My son Jackson continues his career at Goodwill. During the pandemic, while working from home in Bryn Mawr, I began re-learning German as a hobby and have become reasonably fluent.” Sam keeps in touch with Gary Coorssen and Roger and Marcia Owen Clark — and misses “snowy days walking through the Quad.”...After 18 years as managing partner at the Cleveland law firm Calfee, Halter & Griswold, which he joined in 1985, Brent Ballard is now chief strategy officer. As managing partner, Brent led the firm’s growth to its current six offices in three states and D.C. As CSO, he’ll continue to attract top attorneys who are committed to the goals of supporting diversity and inclusivity, and serving clients in an entrepreneurial and collaborative manner. Brent and Ann are the parents of daughter Isabel Ballard ’13 and sons Brent and Walter ’16….Chip Beckwith gets right to the point: “Hello, Classmates! Looking forward to our 45th Reunion!”...Kevin Cox has retired after 25 years of teaching physics, but stays active in education through his company Scorton Creek Publishing, which produces puzzles and other intellectual exercises for classroom use.

Living in Worcester, Mass., Kevin has three grandchildren — “the youngest of which is 4 and played Tiny Tim in A Christmas Carol.”...Mary Henderson Pressman has been busy. “We are loving Portsmouth, N.H., but my husband, Ron, has failed retirement and taken a new job in D.C.” Mary brunched in January with Mel Parsons

Paras, Jackie Alpert, and Deni Auclair, and has seen Amy Gordon ’79 and Karin Bjorkman Steiner ’79 during travels to and from D.C....Jacki Johnson Rivero is still on Cape Cod and “reveling in all my old-lady activities. Retirement is excellent.”...Richard Johnson is in his 41st year as curator of The Sports Museum in Boston. He has also finished his 25th book, the official centennial history of the Boston Bruins hockey team.

“Could I possibly be the first Bobcat to be awarded a Stanley Cup ring, which I received as an employee at TD Garden in 2011?”...Tim Jones has been happily retired since early 2022, having spent most of his career with PR Newswire, the financial and business news service. Last year, he traveled to Aruba, the Outer Banks of North Carolina, and Yosemite National Park with his kids, Tim and Megan....

Tina Kabb Diaduk and Bill are “thoroughly enjoying retirement! We have been line-dancing at least twice a week, along with taking day trips to sites we always wanted to go to but couldn’t due to work schedules. We have been to plays at the local community theater” — they live in southern Maryland — “as well as community theaters in other states, mainly Pennsylvania.”...

Paul McGovern retired four years ago after 40 years in the insurance industry. Between volunteering at a nonprofit educational farm in Hingham, Mass., where he lives, working at a country club, and playing golf and soccer, he keeps busy. His kids, Tim and Caitlin, both had to cancel weddings in 2020 because of COVID, but proceeded to get hitched in 2021. He adds, “Did my bucket list trip in New Zealand in 2022 with my wife, Barb McCord McGovern ’80, but had to cancel the Fiji visit due to catching COVID.” Paul visited with Chuck James last year....Bill McMurray “stopped in my tracks when I read of the death of one of my favorite professors at Bates. Lew Turlish was engaging, challenging, fair, invitational, and most of all, encouraging. He was 80. Lew told great stories and made compelling connections between 19th-century America and contemporary life in the mid-’70s. He’s someone I have quoted — well, paraphrased — in many an encounter with my own students.”...Ron Monroe retired after teaching and coaching for 44 years, 35 of them at the Kingswood Oxford School in West Hartford, Conn. “I’m enjoying life in Middlebury, Vt.”... Peter Moore, on the other hand, is “not retired. How do you quit being a writer? I still have a full docket of ghostwriting projects and clients. And it seems that I’m a cartoonist now, with a column online at The Colorado Sun website. Never saw that coming!”

But as master of his own schedule, Peter can still “fly to Utah to ski with Gail Cushman Rose ’80 and her husband Larry Rose, and catch up with old pal Doug Sensenig ’79 over dinner in Park City.”…Todd Nelson published a book of essays about his life in Castine, Maine, in April 2022. Cold Spell: The View from the End of the Peninsula (Down East Books) is available from Amazon and most independent booksellers….Albert Profy has retired from a “fun career in biopharmaceutical R&D. Janet and I live in Needham, Mass., and will celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary this year.”...John Sacci retired from the Univ. of Maryland School of Medicine late last year. “I will miss many aspects of the academic environment, but am looking forward to more travel with Nancy Dodson Sacci ’76, biking, hiking, and a lot of deferred projects around the house.”...

Christopher Sentementes retired last July after 38 years in the performance textile and apparel industries, a career that “allowed me to see the world and live abroad, as well as work with many incredible people. I’ll still consult, but will mainly work on our mini-farm.” Chris’s retirement gift to himself was to hike the famous Camino de Santiago in Portugal and Spain last fall....Writing in February from Concord, N.H., Virginia Smith Wright had already been skiing 14 times. That’s one way to enjoy retirement, and here are some others: “Russ and I had an amazing trip to Alaska last summer. We saw humpback whales, orcas, seals, sea lions, otters, puffins, and bears. We also enjoy regular visits with our 4-year-old granddaughter.”...

Jim Westerman hopes “to see everyone at an upcoming Reunion, maybe 2023?” He’s still working in the manufacturing business applications practice at Avanade, a joint venture between Microsoft and Accenture. “Sue and I visited Egypt last fall, and spent the winter in Steamboat Springs, Colo.”

1979

Reunion 2024, June 7–9

CLASS SECRETARY Mary Raftery mgraftery@gmail.com

CLASS PRESIDENT Patrick Murphy patrickm@paceengrs.com

Nancy Arey Cohen’s most recent book is available on Amazon and Kindle, and in local bookstores. “Running Home tells the relatable story of a woman who looks back on her life and contemplates her unfulfilled dreams,” Nancy explains. “She then has to decide if her past or present will determine her future.” She adds, “If you like it,

pick up my first book, Faraway Love!”...John Casey and Susan celebrated their 35th wedding anniversary in September — “and two months later welcomed our second grandchild, Finnegan Thomas Carroll. We enjoy spending time with Finn and his sister, Murphy Joan Carroll. This July I will have completed my five-year term as chief justice of the Massachusetts Probate and Family Court. Not interested in retirement at this time.”...Chuck McKenzie and Kelly split their time between the East and West coasts, doing volunteer work and traveling again in the new endemic world. “Retired life is pretty good!”...Patrick Murphy looks forward to retiring from full-time structural engineering this year and “spending more time traveling, canoeing, hiking, gardening, and being with family and friends!”

1980

Reunion 2025, June 6–8

CLASS SECRETARY

Chris Tegeler Beneman cbeneman@gmail.com

CLASS PRESIDENT

Mary Mihalakos Martuscello mary@martuscellolaw.com

“Pandemic breeds madness — it must!” Matt Buchman notes. “After nearly two years of work and planning, I launched Thrill Ride — The Magazine” in February. “Nothing but madness could make someone take on an editing project of this scale: four issues, 30 authors from five countries, more than 45 stories.”

Janet Leary-Prowse, having worked full time since graduation, finally retired this year, just after her 65th birthday. She spent her career in hospital research administration, managing education and compliance programs. Spencer Prowse ’82 had retired in 2021. Janet is heavily involved in Toastmasters, belonging to three clubs and serving as an area director monitoring six clubs in Delaware, where she lives. Not bad for someone who hated public speaking. Son Kendall is in his second year of residency at Albany Medical Center, and Graham is a geologist at an environmental consulting company in Delaware. When Janet checked in, Graham and his girlfriend were anticipating their move into a new apartment — “in the same place Spencer and I lived when we first moved to Delaware.”

1981

Reunion 2026, June 12–14

CLASS SECRETARY

Cheryl Andrews dr.cheryl.andrews@gmail.com

CLASS PRESIDENT

Hank Howie hhowie@gmail.com

Betsy Kennedy writes: “After 20 years in Wisconsin raising my children, I moved back East to Concord, N.H., in September 2021 to be near my Dad, who is now 93 and still driving... safely! So glad to be able to see classmates, including Sue Lovett and Brad Fenn — I finally made it to his summer party!” Betsy is a registered occupational therapist and a lymphedema specialist, and puts in occasional days at the L.L.Bean Outlet Store in Concord….Anne Loewenthal Shain and Eric have moved to Woodway, Wash., after six decades in the Midwest. “We love it! We have a new community of friends and the activities are great, but best of all, my husband and I are extremely involved grandparents.”...Don Mayer moved to Crested Butte, Colo., three years ago. “I can cross-country ski about 80 days a year, and other times of the year run trails at a 64-year-old, developmental-mile pace.”... James Miller was promoted to chief executive officer of TowneBank Mortgage of Suffolk, Va., last October. He has been president of the company since 2019 and retains that title in his new position. A banking veteran, he was previously chief operating officer at TowneBank and held that same position at Monarch Mortgage….Jean Wilson has “enjoyed meeting other Bates alums through a local book club in the Portland, Maine, area. The discussions are stimulating, and making new Bates friends has been really fun!”...Amanda Zuretti joined the Framingham, Mass., office of the law firm Bowditch and Dewey in May 2022, returning to real estate practice after seven years representing municipalities. “My spouse, Lisa Cagliandro, retired (technically) in December after 42 years as a public middleschool administrator and teacher. We spend our spare time outdoors with friends and family.”

1982

Reunion 2027, June 10–12

CLASS PRESIDENT Neil Jamieson neil@southernmainelaw.com

Ruth Mary Hall “had a wonderful trip to our 40th Reunion in 2022! Great to see classmates after the dark days of the pandemic. I was also pleased to learn more about the Androscoggin Land Trust’s work. When I was at Bates, the river was a polluted mess. Now it is cleaned up and supporting wildlife. I even saw a bald eagle — in Lewiston, soaring along the river!”...Kee Hinckley is semiretired, following a transition from TiVo to Meta, where he spent nine months as tech lead for the group that manages software for the tech behemoth’s

30,000 content reviewers. “It was not a good fit for my leadership style, which both they and I saw,” he says. “But about the time it became clear it wasn’t going to work, they kicked off the industry layoff trend, so the timing was very good.” He’s now doing opensource software development and consulting, and helping out with the consulting company operated by his wife, Mollie Pepper, which aids forcibly displaced people. “We’re exploring spending part of the year working from nice, warm, and cheap locations, starting with a month in Guanajuato, Mexico.”...Michele Jalbert is finally working in Rhode Island, after having lived there for many years. She leads the Providence Resilience Partnership, a nonprofit addressing local impacts of climate change. “I know more about stormwater systems and hurricane barriers than I ever thought possible.”...“We had a great 40th Reunion!” writes Neil Jamieson. “Thanks to our classmates who helped plan and organize our weekend. Although it is difficult to comprehend that we have been graduated for 40 years, the memories and endearing friendships confirm that we were fortunate to spend our college years together.” Neil wrote us in February as he and Heather were visiting daughter Lexie Jamieson ’20 in Taiwan, where she was completing a Fulbright experience, and Japan. In fact, it was a family reunion, as Ainsley Jamieson ’18 joined them — taking a break from her job as a senior staff member for U.S. Rep. Jared Golden ’11 of Maine….Communications expert John Lipman has published a biography of Alfred DelBello, a New York state politician whose terms as mayor of Yonkers, county executive of Westchester County, and lieutenant governor under Mario Cuomo revealed an extraordinary public servant. Alfred B. DelBello: His Life and Times appeared in September (Atmosphere Press)….Stephen Mackenzie is working out West again, “this time with the Ute tribal government as chief prosecutor. It’s a nice opportunity in that it is a much smaller tribe, and with a lower caseload I can actually develop sentences that make sense for each case, rather than the cookie-cutter approach many prosecutors have to take due to the volume of cases they handle.”...Writing in The Hechinger Report, Jon Marcus explained how Maine’s public universities and colleges have long coped with a problem now worrying higher-ed leaders nationally: decreasing numbers of high school students. The Univ. of Maine and Maine community colleges have managed to expand enrollment despite a shrinking prospect pool, but now “Maine college and university administrators are bracing for

what they say will be an even more challenging time: the next 15 years, when the number of new high school graduates in the state is projected to drop by yet another 7 percent” — while nationally, the equivalent number is “forecast to fall by 5 percent.”

1983

Reunion 2023, June 9–11

CLASS SECRETARY

Leigh Peltier leighp727@gmail.com

CLASS PRESIDENTS

PJ Dearden tribecapj@yahoo.com

Bill Zafirson bzaf@maine.rr.com

After five years in Washington, D.C., “I’m happily back in northern New England,” notes Dr. Karen George. She joined the Univ. of Vermont’s Larner College of Medicine in August after serving as clinical associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at George Washington Univ., and chairing the Council for Residency Education in Obstetrics and Gynecology of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists….Susan Hay Clevenger has retired, but stays busy caring for husband Michael’s mother, who is 96. Susan feels “fortunate to see the grandkids frequently. Realizing how quickly time is fleeting, and looking forward to Reunion!”...

Laura Howard, an “Atlanta Batesie,” is also looking forward to Reunion, but already got some Bates exposure in December. She attended the Bates in Atlanta gathering — “yep, I was the ‘old’ person in the room.” Meanwhile, “this art major–turned-architect is still at it, drawing and designing houses around the South.”...When she wrote in February, Class Secretary Leigh Peltier was about to embark on a Swiss ski trip. But by now she’s working with Co-Presidents PJ Dearden and Bill Zafirson to put together, she says, “the Best 40th Reunion Ever! See you there!”...BCE Inc., Canada’s largest communications company, in October appointed Louis Vachon as a director of BCE and Bell Canada. Louis is an operating partner at J.C. Flowers & Co. and previously served as president and CEO of the National Bank of Canada…. Daniel Watson was promoted to the position of chief revenue officer at the Beauty Health Company, becoming responsible for sales operations and growth around the globe. He had served as the company’s executive vice president of sales for the U.S. and Canada beginning in 2017 and took leadership for all of the Americas in 2020. He and Sharon Teasdale Watson ’81 live in Seal Cove, Calif., and have two children, Daniel Watson and Melanie Watson

’14….Christopher Wellborn, a board member of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers since 2010, became First Vice President of the NACDL in August. A resident of Rock Hill, S.C., he is a solo practitioner defending South Carolinians accused of crimes ranging from misdemeanors to felony charges in state and federal courts. In 2019, he received the NACDL’s annual Heeney Award.

1984

Reunion 2024, June 7–9

CLASS SECRETARY

Heidi

Lovett

blueoceanheidi@aol.com

Joan Keck Campbell relocated to Golden, Colo., in 2021 to be closer to family. “My Bates roommate, Linda Webster, and her daughter were my first visitors!” Why move? “After nearly two decades teaching and chairing the World Language Department at Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School, it was time to get some more slope time,” she says. “When I’m not skiing, I’m hanging out with my wonderful adult children, fixing up my new house, or volunteering at a women’s shelter in Denver.”...Performer, director, and scholar Artemis Susan Preeshl presented several papers at academic conferences in 2022, including “At First Blush: Eleonora Duse in Shakespeare” online at the Asian Shakespeare Assn. gathering; “Consent in Titus Andronicus” at the Armenian Shakespeare Assn. event in Yerevan; and “Gender Fluidity and Identity in Boccaccio’s Decameron, All’s Well and Cymbeline” at the American Boccaccio Assn. in Padova, Italy. She also reprised her role as St. Margaret in the Joan of Arc Parade on Twelfth Night in New Orleans....Lisa Quintal Loeb becomes head of the Upper School at Kingswood Oxford School in West Hartford, Conn., in July. She worked at K.O. 1995–2012 and, as she said in announcing her appointment, views her return as “coming home.” Despite the passage of a decade, “what makes K.O. a special community has not changed.” Lisa comes to K.O. from online educational platform One Schoolhouse….

Stephanie Richards left her biology-teaching position at Bowdoin last July. Now living in Nashville, she recruits students to biomedical doctoral programs at Vanderbilt Univ. and runs a summer program for undergraduates in STEM....The Lincoln County News profiled Charlie Richardson when he joined the Legacy Properties Sotheby’s International Realty office in Damariscotta, Maine.

Chris Lynch, president of Legacy Properties Sotheby’s, told the

paper that “I have known Charlie for more than 40 years, all the way back to our Bates College days. He is a terrific person who has the passion and drive to be an incredible asset to his clients.”

Charlie and Annie have deep roots in the Midcoast, having lived in Nobleboro 1996–2005 as they raised their two children, and returning for good in 2010.… Linda Webster celebrated the big six-zero “with four days and three nights of hiking Mount Washington with my family. Who knew those Bates Outing Club excursions would plant the seeds for lifelong outdoor adventures? I even met a fellow Bobcat, Class of ’23, who was a ‘hut leader’ coordinating food and activities for us weary souls. Their name I can’t remember, but their pancakes I’ll never forget.” Linda still works at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and lives in the suburbs. “Bobcats have a standing invitation to visit.”

1985

Reunion 2025, June 6–8

CLASS SECRETARY

Elissa Bass bass.elissa@yahoo.com

CLASS PRESIDENT

Lisa Virello virello@comcast.net

Judy Kohin stepped away from running an arts school in Telluride, Colo., to concentrate on her own art in 2021. Last summer, the Slate Gray Gallery showed her work in the exhibition Re-Wired. Judy “fills her new body of mixed-media work, these quiet but juicy canvases, with flattened planes, a mix of bright and muted colors, and pared-back compositions that capture close-up and personal details of the majestic landscapes that surround her home, her playground,” wrote a reviewer for Telluride Inside… and Out. Judy and Mark Scholtes ’84 operate Wild Hare Snowshoe and Hiking Tours…. Greg Otis has been named managing director of fiduciary services for the Southwest Florida Wealth Leadership operation of Wilmington Trust. With more than 30 years’ experience in wealth advising, Greg previously served as CEO for a billion-dollar family office in Florida, worked for banks including HSBC, and practiced as a trusts and estates attorney. He and Julia live in Naples, Fla.

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

Sean Carlos is marking his sixth year as a real estate broker in Tuscany. In addition to giving him reasons to roam around Italy, his work with clients sometimes taps the German-language skills he began developing at Bates. Look him up if you’re in the area — or, he says, “looking for a second home!”...President of R. W. Holmes Commercial Real Estate since 1995, Garry Holmes spoke with Boston Real Estate Times in January. Topics included the effects of office vacancy rates that have increased as working from home has taken hold. “Municipalities aren’t feeling the pain right now,” he noted, but as owners of substantially vacant buildings start seeking property tax abatements, that will “be a major tax impact on these municipalities. It’s not just the developers’ problem, it’s not just the lenders’ problem, it’s an issue for all these towns and cities.”

1987

Reunion 2027, June 11–13

CLASS SECRETARY Val Kennedy brickates@gmail.com

CLASS PRESIDENT Erica Rowell ericarowell@mac.com

Margaret Brosnahan is an associate professor of equine medicine at the Midwestern Univ. College of Veterinary Medicine in Glendale, Ariz. “I’m also still in perpetual student mode, nearing completion of a Master’s in Medical Humanities through Creighton Univ. This effort has enabled me to merge my lifelong love of humanities with my career as a veterinarian, and facilitated the writing of my publication in the Journal of Veterinary Medical Education titled ‘Life, Death and Humanity in Veterinary Medicine: Is it Time to Embrace the Humanities in Veterinary Education?’”...David Farrington has a new position within Groupe Beneteau, the internationally known boatbuilder and his employer since 1994. He lives in Annapolis, Md. “Working from a home office has given me quality time with my wife, Leopoldine, and daughter.”...Congrats to James Gleason, who earned a doctorate in liberal studies from Southern Methodist University…. Kari Heistad continues to lead a global team within her company Culture Coach International, which provides products and services in the diversity, equity, and inclusion space. She’s now based in North Andover, Mass…. In August, Regina Marchi published a new edition of her 2009 study, Day of the Dead in the U.S.A.: The Migration and

Transformation of a Cultural Phenomenon. Revised and rereleased on the 50th anniversary of the first Day of the Dead celebrations held in the U.S., the book lays out the history, meaning, and evolution of this profound and increasingly popular celebration. Regina is an associate professor in the Department of Journalism and Media Studies at Rutgers Univ.–New Brunswick….Cindy Snell “had so much fun at our 35th Reunion! Great to see old friends and meet new ones. I loved how we pretended we were in our 20s at night (I’ll leave that to your imaginations) and then acted our age during the day — talking about retirement and shingles vaccines! Always love to room with Kathy Leonard Bertagna like the good ol’ days!”

1988

Reunion 2023, 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

A veteran of more than 25 years with the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission, Sarah Carroll was approved by the city council for a second term as commission chair in September. Chair since 2018, she manages a staff of approximately 80 architects, archaeologists, preservationists, historians, attorneys, and administrators. Prior to her appointment as chair, she was LPC’s executive director, overseeing the designations of more than 4,000 buildings and sites across the city. Originally from New York, Sarah majored in art history at Bates….Christina Hummel Grenier started the new year with a new job. After 20-plus years of teaching, she now leads operations and communications for the nonprofit Gloucester (Mass.) Education Foundation, which supports teaching and learning in Gloucester’s public schools. She enjoys going home without a book bag filled with student papers….“It’s been a loooong time,” Steve Kramer says, since we’ve heard from him. “I am still here, an insignificant collection of energy in an infinite universe. I am a living stereotype of a disestablishmentarianist.

I am a personal assistant to my dog and my mother — when they allow it, I provide armchair solutions to the world’s problems, binge-watch every show, create masterpieces that nobody sees,

and fill out poorly written consumer surveys to ensure my supply of life-supporting junk food. For some reason (unknown if you didn’t read any of the previous sentences), I remain free from romantic entanglements. I am taking applications, though.” His advice: “Breathe deeply, smile, and enjoy the moment. Makes for a much better world!”

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

Now in her second year as the president of St. John’s College in Annapolis, Md., Nora Demleitner spoke with What’s Up Media about St. John’s. Topics included the college’s annual financial standing, including its $297 million endowment. Given the college’s relatively small alumni pool, “this achievement is really startling,” Nora said. “The vast majority of our donors are alumni, plus parents and people who have taken our summer courses. There is a lot of passion.”

Nora’s formal inauguration was scheduled for March.…

Michael Foley still divides his time between St. Petersburg, Fla., where he has been promoted to full professor of modern dance at the Univ. of South Florida, and Paris, where he directs two studyabroad programs. “I taught at the Bates Dance Festival last summer for the last time, culminating my 35-year relationship with the BDF. Bittersweet, to say the least!”...Jennifer Gibbons now works at Georgetown Univ., where she is director of development at the Walsh School of Foreign Service. “Let me know if you’re in D.C.”...Andrew and Grace Tallman Gooding look forward to the graduation in May of their younger child, Chris Gooding ’23, a double major in politics and philosophy. Older brother Evan graduated from Earlham College last year and is an assistant language teacher for the Japan Exchange and Teaching Program in Akita, Japan. Andrew still helps get returning students through college at Marshall Univ. while Grace is substitute-teaching at Huntington High School in West Virginia. Their three cats will keep them company as they adjust to an empty nest.…Donna Waterman Douglass “recently met an ’86 alum on the tennis courts in Florida. The grandson of a neighbor is a freshman at Bates now.” She and Troy live in Fort Myers.

More than a decade after its first launch, Al Demany Chiman takes to the water again with (from left) Tim Shaw ’91 and his children, Helena and Aidan.

media outlet: Small Boats Monthly

headline:

Al Demany Chiman: A skin-on-frame outrigger canoe

takeaway:

A project with a purpose provides a feeling of renewal

Ten years after Tim Shaw ’91 first floated his handmade outrigger canoe, he decided to renovate it for a specific purpose: to take his daughter, Helena, on the water.

Writing about the project in Small Boats Monthly, Shaw described wanting to find ways to allow Helena, who has limited mobility following a seizure, to stay active. And after building a trail-ready wheelchair and a kicksled for the winter, Shaw decided to tackle the water, since paddling was something they could both do.

“What I really wanted, though, was to get back on the water more, and I wanted to bring Helena,” Shaw wrote.

He named the boat Al Demany Chiman, three words meaning “the” in Arabic; “sail” in Malagasy; and “canoe” in Algonquin. The project gave Shaw “not only the experience I had hoped for but also many lessons.” The boat has “proved to be a vehicle — and metaphor — for perseverance and renewal.”

SHAW FAMILY

Miracle Encounter

Mike Jeresaty ’85 and Doug Coupe ’92 pose with music hall of famer Smokey Robinson at a celebrity charity golf tournament last October.

The tournament, Denny & Mark’s Pro-Am Jam, is hosted by Denny Hamlin, a NASCAR driver and team owner, and Mark Bryan, a founding member and lead guitarist of Hootie & the Blowfish.

Jeresaty and Coupe live on Daniel Island, located in Charleston, where the tournament takes place, and Coupe serves on the advisory board for the event, which has raised more than $2.3 million for various charities in its 10 years.

As for Robinson, age 83, the Motown great has had a golf handicap in the teens for many years.

1990

Reunion 2025, June 6–8

CLASS SECRETARY

Joanne Walton joannewalton2003@yahoo.com

Joyce Bareikis El Kouarti now works as communications lead in the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture’s Office of Partnerships and Public Engagement….John Bitar is one of four new trustees at Felician Univ. in Rutherford, N.J. John is a partner at the Windels, Marx, Lane & Mittendorf law firm, handling corporate and securities, financial transactions, public finance and not-forprofit, and COVID-19 response and resources, among other sectors. He earned a JD from Rutgers Law. John and Roberta Desjardins Bitar ’92 live in Chatham, N.J., and have three sons….Vice provost and dean of admissions at the Univ. of Pennsylvania, Whitney Blanchard Soule discussed the university and her work with The Philadelphia Inquirer. A focus of the Q&A was her goal of

bringing “clarity, simplification, and equity to Penn’s application process.” For example, she cited Penn’s participation in a Common Application pilot project that encourages applicants to detail how they take on family and household responsibilities — “signaling that we value the commitment of these responsibilities,” she said.…Ismael Carreras has changed jobs. After more than four years as chief data strategist in the president’s office at the Univ. of Massachusetts, he’s now the inaugural associate dean for strategic analysis in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard Univ., helping to “integrate and analyze data to inform strategic decision making at the FAS. I will also get to see more of my four-year roommate at Bates, Christopher Sokolowski, a conservator in Special Collections at the Harvard Library.”

1991

Reunion 2026, June 12–14

CLASS SECRETARY

Katie Tibbetts Gates kathryntgates@gmail.com

CLASS PRESIDENT

John Ducker jducker1@yahoo.com

Pam Batchelder Johnson attended a January Bates presentation in Charlotte, N.C., where she lives. The event featured Allen Delong, senior associate dean for Purposeful Work, and Cary Gemmer ’07, senior leadership gift officer. “It was great to catch up on what is happening on campus, and I enjoyed showing off the city,” says Pam. “We had a lively gathering of about 15 local Batesies, ranging from graduates from the 1970s to a member of the Class of 2022.”... After diplomatic assignments to the United Arab Emirates and the Bahamas, Jon Custis started a new position at the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi….John Ducker writes from Portland, Ore.: “I was volunteering with my family at the Potluck in the Park for feeding the needy, and

struck up a conversation with another volunteering family. It wasn’t long before we figured out our Bobcat connection — great to meet you and your family, Bethany Dozier ’93!”...Brendan Gillis and Jill moved to a “new condo in the complex we have lived in for nearly 20 years,” he reports. “We went from a second-floor, two-bedroom unit to a first-floor, three-bedroom unit. It took us almost 20 years to move 400 feet.” They will celebrate their 20th anniversary this year, and Brendan’s business, Gillis Accounting Services, is in its 11th year. “The boss is a really great guy.”...Aaron Humphrey shared that he and Trish Shepard ’95 have gigs as part-time ramp agents for SkyWest Airlines at Aspen/Pitkin County Airport (ASE), in Colorado. “We move more than 300,000 bags through ASE annually for Delta and United,” he says. “It’s very glamorous.” Handling luggage is a big part of the job, but their duties also include operating the cart used to pump out airplane septic tanks. “I don’t think our Bates degrees were a contributing factor in getting hired; being able to breathe without conscious thought is a significant criterion for employment and anything else is considered a bonus.”...Debbie Parrott was profiled by the trade-show industry newspaper Exhibit City News in December. She is CEO of Highmark TechSystems of Fort Wayne, Ind., purveyors of innovative exhibit systems. Highmark’s roots lie in her father’s business, ICON Exhibits, but Debbie’s long and winding road home after Bates provided ample relevant experience along the way. “I inherited my parents’ work ethic and their commitment to excellence, which I also apply to my work outside of Highmark,” she said. She serves on the board of directors and the Paralympic Board of Advisors at Turnstone Center for Children and Adults with Disabilities. She and Erik Johnson ’90 live in Fort Wayne.

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

Heather Balser became town manager of Kennebunk, Maine,

ALEX WOOD ’66

in February. Her municipal government experience includes 16 years in Louisville, Colo., where her tenure included nearly four years as city manager. Now back in Maine, “I’m excited to walk the beach as often as I can. I haven’t done that in a long time,” she told the Portland Press Herald, adding, “I am really excited to get to know the community.”...This from Al Bruno: “With the kids both out of the house and at college this year, Kristen Downs Bruno and I are fully adapted to being empty-nesters. We gleefully attend numerous music and sporting events, and compete at local trivia nights with friends. Look us up if you are in the New Haven area.”...Philip Clark joined Nouryon, a worldwide supplier of specialty chemicals, as senior vice president and chief technology officer in December. He oversees global technology and innovation strategies, as well as research capability development, at the Amsterdambased company. Philip joined Nouryon from 3M, where he was vice president and technical director for the automotive and aerospace solutions division. He and Christine live in the Philadelphia area….Lisa Genova, a neuroscientist and writer whose novel Still Alice was adapted for a major film, offers online TED courses. In a promo for “How to boost your brain + memory,” she describes three types of forgetting that are typically normal, and one that deserves a closer look — the sudden inability to perform routine tasks. “Just as you do with your heart health or reproductive health,” she counsels, “I encourage you to be in conversation with your doctor about your memory and realize you have a lot of agency over your brain health.”...Bill Guidera came to PrizePicks, North America’s largest independent daily fantasy sports platform, in January as senior vice president of government affairs. He previously held related roles with Netflix, 21st Century Fox, News Corp, and Microsoft. He and Aimee Rogstad Guidera live in Long Lake, Minn., and have two daughters….Mike Lieber reports that things “are a little quieter in our suburban Chicago house these days as our twins are off at college, including Sarah Lieber ’26 at Bates and her twin brother, Evan, in Los Angeles.” That leaves Mike and Rebecca with just one child, Reece, under their roof….Erin Lydon was the subject of a Q&A blog with Ladderworks, whose publications empower children to become social entrepreneurs. A resident of Liberty Lake, Wash., Erin runs Poker Power, an organization that teaches women to play poker as a source of skills for success in business, finance, and life. “Our mission is to teach

a million girls and women how to stack their skills, negotiate, and take calculated risks by gamifying key leadership lessons,” Erin told her interviewer. “No gambling is permitted. No real money transacts.”

1993

Reunion 2023, June 9–11

CLASS SECRETARY

Lisa Bousquet lisaannbousquet@gmail.com

CLASS PRESIDENTS

Mike Charland mfc@wilkinsinvest.com

Jason Hanley jason.hanley@wexinc.com

Kyle O’Bryan was one of eight 2022 inductees into Maine’s Midcoast Sports Hall of Fame. A 1989 graduate of Lincoln Academy, in Newcastle, he won varsity letters for three years in soccer, basketball, and baseball there — and captained all three teams as a senior. An outstanding goalie in soccer, he helped lead the team to a state Class B championship in 1987. In basketball, Kyle was a top scorer for the team, which won the 1989 state Class B championship. (He also played varsity hoops at Bates.) Kyle works at the Boston office of law firm Mullen & McGourty....Evan Silverman left Roku in January to join the esteemed food media company America’s Test Kitchen as chief operating officer. Previously he served as COO of This Old House Ventures, parent company of the popular TV show, and ran that entity’s business operations after its purchase by Roku.

1994

Reunion 2024, June 7–9

CLASS PRESIDENTS

Courtney Landau Fleisher courtney.fleisher@gmail.com

Jonathan Lewis jlewjlew@mac.com

U.S. Rep. Ben Cline assured people attending an October candidates’ forum that he often “crosses the aisle” for discussions with his Democratic counterparts in the House — and is rewarded with “strange looks” from fellow Republicans, reported the Daily News-Record of Harrisonburg, Va. He also advocated for U.S. energy independence, robust funding for law enforcement, and a bettersecured border with Mexico. In 2018, Cline succeeded mentor Bob Goodlatte ’74 in representing Virginia’s 6th District…Physics major Amy Laurence benefited from Arctic experience amassed by geology major Kim Marsella when they camped and skied cross-country in the Adirondacks as temperatures dropped to an overnight low of minus 20 degrees. “So much fun reconnecting!

media outlet: Greenville News

headline: The cost of unity

takeaway: Historical systemic racism roots its way into 21st century urban redevelopment

Ken Kolb ’98, a Furman University professor of sociology, joined an investigative team of academics and journalists who reported on how urban redevelopment in Greenville, S.C., is forcing families out of historically Black neighborhoods.

Published in the Greenville News, their six-part series, “The Cost of Unity,” documents gentrification and racial displacement in Greenville and “the staggering loss of Black residents from a city with one of the highest racial economic disparities in the Southeast,” the reporters say.

The author of Retail Inequality: Reframing the Food Desert Debate, Kolb contributed an opinion piece about his research, explaining how “Greenville’s neighborhoods today are still shaped by the legacy of racist real-estate practices of the past,” such as racially restrictive covenants that were “written into property deeds going back to the early 1900s [and] forbade the sale of homes to non-white buyers.”

FURMAN UNIVERSITY

takeaway: Ken Kolb ’98

Erica Suter ’98

1995

Reunion 2025, June 6–8

CLASS PRESIDENTS

Jason Verner jcv@nbgroup.com

Deb Nowak Verner debverner@gmail.com

media outlet: WYPR Public Radio

headline:

Adnan Syed attorney Erica Suter on justice and the Innocence Project

takeaway:

Attorney Erica Suter ’98 has been in the national media for her role in helping to overturn the murder conviction of Adnan Syed, a case that gained attention through the podcast Serial and the HBO documentary The Case Against Adnan Syed.

Last October, prosecutors in Baltimore dismissed charges against Syed, who had been convicted and imprisoned in 2000 for the murder of Hae Min Lee. (The case is now under appeal.) Suter is Syed’s lawyer and director of the Innocence Project Clinic at the University of Baltimore School of Law.

To understand how difficult it is to get a case back into court to be reconsidered, one must understand the U.S. criminal legal system, Suter told WYPR Public Radio.

“It worships at the altar of finality. Once somebody is convicted, once somebody is in the clutches of our criminal legal system, it is damn near impossible to pull them back out again. In this field of innocence work, far more cases are lost than won because it is so difficult.”

Christian Gullette received a Bread Loaf writing scholarship in 2022. A poet and translator, his work has appeared or is forthcoming in The American Poetry Review, The Yale Review, Kenyon Review, New England Review, Northwest Review, and Los Angeles Review. Christian is the editor-in-chief of The Cortland Review and lives in San Francisco with his husband, Michael….Nisha Koshy “was overjoyed to reunite with Beth Lurvey Bounds, Bayne Gibby and Ing Voosen Frick in Austin during the winter to celebrate turning 50. And I’ll be excited to see them again in September for my wedding to Mark Cunningham in Ogunquit, Maine!” Nisha adds, “My daughter Sophia Cocchiarella ’26 has joined me as a Batesie and a Merimander.”...Laike Stewart enjoyed Reunion 2022, which embraced classes whose inperson gatherings, including Laike’s, were pushed back by the pandemic. She says, “It was great to see classmates and the campus, which is almost unrecognizable.” Also during the summer, she got together in Winchester, Mass., “with some wonderful souls” — Tim Mills, Phil Pettis, Jason and Deb Nowak Verner, Ellen Sampson Moore, and Edmund “Joey” and Carolyn “Bunny” Kavanagh Gaither. Laike “couldn’t ask for a better group of kind, loving, and supportive people in my life,” she says.

1996

Reunion 2026, June 12–14

CLASS PRESIDENTS Ayesha Farag ayesha.farag@gmail.com

Jay Lowe jameslowemaine@yahoo.com

Tom Keller is “a psychotherapist and a licensed alcohol and drug counselor in Minneapolis. I enjoy walks around lakes, travel, visits with family and friends, and also, of course, my two cats who have managed to get me through the pandemic single-pawedly.”

1997

Reunion 2027, June 11–13

CLASS SECRETARIES

Todd Zinn tmzinn@hotmail.com

CLASS PRESIDENT

Stuart Abelson sabelson@oraclinical.com

“The best squash in the world is played outside of the United

States,” the Finger Lakes Times opined in January, and credited Pat Cosquer’s prowess in international recruitment as vital to the squash program at Hobart and William Smith Colleges. Pat became head coach at those schools in 2019, after 11 years in that role at Bates. “It’s a blessing to give the gift of diversity to HWS,” Cosquer told the paper. “In order to compete and be a stronger team, it behooves us to go across our borders to find talent.”…Heather Davies Bernard and Durel still love living in Austin, Texas. Heather was elected chair of the board of trustees of the International School of Texas. Their sons, Jack and Sawyer, attend that International Baccalaureate World School....Director of California’s San Luis Obispo Botanical Garden since 2019, Chenda Lor was profiled last fall by the Estero Bay News Her successes at the garden include establishing land-use and operational agreements with San Luis Obispo County, creating an education center, and dramatically expanding both staff and the governance structure. “This job merged my career goals, community service advocacy, and a reason to get up and love going to work every day,” she said. One of her four children is Zander Rolph ’20…. Sam Martin, Kelly Hennessy, and their three sons still live in Andover, Mass., but have changed houses. “We now have a pool, which the kids love.” Sam adds, “My oldest son, Ben, now attends Central Catholic High School” in Lawrence. “His English teacher and track coach is Joe Welch ’94.”…J. Carl Maxwell joined the Association of American Publishers as vice president for public policy. Collectively, AAP’s members publish millions of peer-reviewed research articles a year across a breadth of disciplines. Carl previously spent 19 years with the American Chemical Society, most recently managing government affairs. He and Chelsea live in the D.C. area.…Mary Richter was sorry to miss her 25th Reunion, “but was glad to see Lauren Cardonsky Gretina a lot this past year.” Mary and Dina Barker just spent their third winter in Florida. “Thanks to my work becoming largely remote, I am able to escape the Hudson Valley winters for the beach.”...A children’s book by Matt Tavares, the subject of Bates Magazine’s Fall 2022 cover story, was one of 27 titles temporarily withheld for scrutiny by a Florida school district. Henry Aaron’s Dream, which depicts how baseball great Hank Aaron overcame segregation as a teenage athlete in Jacksonville, made news when it came under review by Duval County Public Schools. Media reported that the district sought to determine whether the books ran afoul of

To its detriment, our criminal justice system “worships at the altar of finality”

Florida’s so-called Stop Woke Law, but the school district said it also needed to establish appropriate age levels and inschool placements for the books (i.e., libraries vs. media centers). The book was ultimately cleared for student use....Brian Walsh joined the Hyannis, Mass., bank Cape Cod 5 as a mortgage officer in September. A resident of Yarmouth Port, he previously worked as a senior loan officer and loan consultant for local mortgage companies.

1998

Reunion 2023, June 9–11

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

Renee Leduc received the American Meteorological Society’s Kenneth Spengler Award in January 2022. Presented virtually, the award recognized Renee’s contributions to the weather, water, and climate community and the linkages she has built among the government, private, and academic sectors. Better still, a year later she was recognized for the same award again — this time in person — at the 103rd Annual Meeting of the AMS. “This was extra-special recognition,” Renee writes from Alexandria, Va., “as I’m celebrating 10 years of owning my own weather and climate policy consultancy, Narayan Strategy, in 2023.”

1999

Reunion 2024, June 7–9

CLASS SECRETARY

Jenn Lemkin Bouchard jennifer_bouchard@hotmail.com

CLASS PRESIDENT

Jamie Ascenzo Trickett jamie.trickett@gmail.com

Sidelines, a magazine “for horse people, about horse people,” profiled Alexandra Cherubini in September. A horse person whose family business is the development of technically advanced medical products, Alexandra combined both interests to launch EquiFit, whose innovations make riding healthier and more comfortable.

“I have been so fortunate, I’m not sure where to begin!” she told the magazine. “I’ve had the privilege of meeting and working with the most incredible people and horses. EquiFit has taken me all over the world.”...Olga Demin Lambert has been appointed dean of the College of Liberal

Arts at Benedictine Univ. in Lisle, Ill. Prior to the appointment, Olga taught languages and literature at Benedictine for 14 years. She and Philippe live in Lisle….Kate Hine Smith and Corey have “enjoyed seeing our daughter Maddie Smith ’26 find her place at Bates this year! Funny to see how much has changed, but good to know some traditions are still going strong.”...Brian Kuser reports that his and Tracy Fantle’s family farm was added to the National Register of Historic Places and its state-level equivalent — making Fernbrook Farms eligible for state grants to restore its historic buildings, of which the oldest dates back to 1760. Located in Chesterfield, N.J., “the farm is shared with many and used to educate both young and old about food, the beauty of nature, and sustainable farming....Jenn Lemkin Bouchard’s debut novel, 2021’s First Course, was slated for release in audiobook form in May. TouchPoint Press will publish her second novel, Palms on the Cape, this year....Matt Sonne sent one of the many responses to the Sun Journal’s call for memories of the Lewiston bar The Cage, which went dark after 54 years. Matt was pranked by Chase House buddies who recommended La Cage as a place to treat his grandparents and their friend to lunch. “I escorted this trio of 80-year-olds into a dark, low-ceiling, windowless bar and realized — I’d been had!” Matt added, “My grandfather loved reliving the episode.” The newspaper noted the “deep connection to Bates College, especially among the series of owners, who all appear to have been alums or have a direct Bates connection.” Matt and Kristin McGovern have three children, including Olivia Sonne ’27, and live in Bethesda, Md…. Ryad Yousuf is the first native of Bangladesh to be named a partner at Goldman Sachs. Co-head of emerging market sales for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, Ryad joined the financial giant in 2011, following seven years at Deutsche Bank. He, Dagny Kimberly, and their children live in London.

2000

Reunion 2025, June 6–8

CLASS SECRETARY

Cynthia Link cynthiafriedalink@gmail.com

CLASS PRESIDENTS

Jenn Glassman Jacobs jenniferellenjacobs@gmail.com

Megan Shelley mhshelley@aol.com

Courtney Elf Rowe and Ethan Rowe ’98 are performing more music now that pandemic restrictions are receding, she writes. She plays flute, Ethan is a jazz pianist, and both sing

bates.edu/professional-development

find career growth at any stage with alumni

professional development

CAREER

Milky Way

With some help from Hannah Sessions ’99 and Greg Bernhardt ’99, Bates students got to have their cheese and eat it too in the fall semester course “Living in a Microbial World.”

Taught by Lori Banks, assistant professor of biology, the course invited students to explore the microbial world by looking at two different cheeses made by Banks and two colleagues, Beth Malachowsky, a research technician, and Amy McDonough, an assistant in instruction.

The course got cheesier in October with a visit by Sessions and Bernhardt, who own and operate Blue Ledge Farm, a goat dairy and cheesemaking operation in Leicester, Vt.

In addition to bringing samples from Blue Ledge, the couple, who are parents of two Bates students, explained their work, such as which goat breeds best suit which types of farming.

The couple are also painters, creating works that depict the animal and natural life that gives purpose to their day-to-day existence. Most recently, Sessions turned her artistry toward a children’s picture book, writing and illustrating Rosalyn Thought She Was a Goat, based on the real story of a Blue Ledge lamb who grew up thinking she was a goat.

In life, said Bernhardt, “you have to make something you love. It’s sort of like writing a paper for a professor; if you don’t love it, they won’t either.”

with choral groups. “In other news, while our jobs and home remain the same, we are adjusting to being parents of two teenagers now that our younger, Madeleine, has turned 13. Our older daughter Julia has entered the exciting-yet-terrifying phase of learning to drive. Only one car has been totaled in the process of parent-guided driving lessons so far.”...Michael Kitces, head of planning strategy for Buckingham Wealth Partners and manager of a popular blog for financial advisers, returned to the podcast The Long View in August for a wide-ranging interview that touched on his very busy career. How does he keep all those plates spinning? “It’s essentially taking control of your own calendar

to say, ‘Here’s where I’m going to focus the time…And here’s where I’m not spending the time.’”...Anne Linder has joined ZVMLaw, a boutique law firm in Ann Arbor, Mich. She specializes in outside general-counsel support for businesses across the country. “I hope to see beloved Bates friends in the Northeast when working out of the NYC office!” she writes.

2001

Reunion 2026, June 12–14

CLASS SECRETARY

Noah Petro npetro@gmail.com

CLASS PRESIDENTS

Jodi Winterton Cobb

jodimcobb@gmail.com

Kate Hagstrom Lepore khlepore@gmail.com

This from Jen Crawford: “After eight years of having the honor of belonging to the Bates Alumni Council, including two as vice president and two as president, my term ends in June. However, I am very proud to have been selected as the new vice president of the College Key.”...February’s Down East magazine ran a Q&A with Jaime DeSimone, chief curator at the landmark Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland, Maine. The interview followed the museum’s reopening after a comprehensive overhaul of its permanent-collection

exhibitions. Previously employed at the Portland Museum of Art, Jaime was asked what drew her to the Farnsworth. “I love Maine, and I believe there’s something special happening (at the Farnsworth) that has informed and directed American art in a way that not many places have,” she said....John Payne of Westerly, R.I., has been reelected to the board of directors at Wood River Health, which serves parts of Rhode Island and Connecticut. An attorney, he served on the board 2010–2019. He holds a JD from Penn’s Dickinson School of Law and an MBA from the Univ. of Rhode Island’s College of Business.…

Craig Morgan Teicher’s “Birthday Poem” appeared in the Aug. 15 New Yorker. Ostensibly about a pet dog, it concludes:

“The leash has been recording / her every turn, and her territory / which was the whole wide yard, is diminishing. / Bewildered, suddenly stuck, she’s me.”

2002

Reunion 2027, June 11–13

CLASS SECRETARY

Stephanie Eby steph.eby@gmail.com

CLASS PRESIDENTS

Jay Surdukowski jsurdukowski@sulloway.com

Drew Weymouth weymouthd@gmail.com

2003

Reunion 2023, June 9–11

CLASS PRESIDENTS

Kirstin Boehm kirstincboehm@gmail.com

Melissa Yanagi melissayanagi@gmail.com

2004

Reunion 2024, June 7–9

CLASS PRESIDENTS

Eduardo Crespo eduardo.crespo.r@gmail.com

Tanya Schwartz tanya.schwartz@gmail.com

Nicole Brown Jones has become a partner at Bradley Arant Boult Cummings, a national law firm based in Birmingham, Ala. A member of the firm’s banking and financial services and litigation practice groups, she focuses on defending claims and advising financial institutions on compliance with state and federal regulations.

A political science major at Bates, Nicole earned a JD from the Univ. of Mississippi School of Law….Mike Lopez is associate editor of the Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports and senior director of football data and analytics at the National Football League. He talked with STATtr@k, a site for statisticians new to the field, about the career

PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN

path that led him to success as a sports statistician — from his Bates math major to high school coaching and teaching to four years as an assistant professor at Skidmore. “Between the public speaking, subject-specific expertise in football, ability to teach and work with other researchers, technical/coding skills, and, most importantly, evolution of the sports world,” he said, “the stars aligned.”

2005

Reunion 2025, June 6–8

CLASS PRESIDENTS

Kathryn Duvall duvall.kathryn@gmail.com

Melissa Geissler melissa.geissler@gmail.com

James Kenly became executive director of the Vail Symposium, a nonprofit educational institution, at the beginning of 2023. James brings diverse nonprofit and events-related experience to the 50-year-old symposium, most recently at Walking Mountains Science Center. He, Kristen Johnson Kenly, and their children live in Eagle-Vail…. Megan Richardson Day joined the board of directors of the Belfast (Maine) Area Chamber of Commerce in January. Megan manages communications and public affairs at Waldo County General Hospital and has more than a decade of experience in the field. A lifelong Waldo County resident, she lives in Belmont.

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

John Phelan has joined the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency as an information specialist. Previously a consultant to that organization, he works in the cybersecurity division “alongside a phenomenal team in Workforce Operations.”...

Oliver Wolf was promoted from vice president to partner at DCI Group, a global public affairs firm headquartered in Washington, D.C. Oli has been with DCI for 16 years and now manages international and domestic public affairs campaigns focused on environmental and energy policy, trade, technology, tax, financial services, and development issues. Prior to joining DCI, he worked on Republican political campaigns and on the staff of Maine’s senior U.S. senator, Susan Collins. “I’m grateful the management committee has

decided to continue to invest in me as an employee, a colleague, and now a partner,” Oli said in an announcement of the appointment. He lives with Lisa and children Zachary and Bridget in Chevy Chase, Md.

2007

Reunion 2027, June 11–13

CLASS PRESIDENTS

Keith Kearney kdkearney@gmail.com

Rakhshan Zahid rakhshan.zahid@gmail.com

Emily Cohen-Shikora was promoted to senior lecturer in psychological and brain sciences at Washington Univ. in St. Louis, and in September received the university’s Excellence in Teaching Award….Allison Marshall D’Ascenzo and John D’Ascenzo welcomed Heidi MacGregor D’Ascenzo to their family in November. “Her big sister, Isla, is loving her new role and the two girls are having lots of fun together.”...Sarah Sprague Katan took part last year in storytelling sessions presented by the Ancram (N.Y.) Opera House. Sarah’s story connects her love of maps “to how I relate to my young son, who is autistic,” she explains. Proprietor of the outdoor education and guide business Whale of a Trail Adventures, Sarah made her storytelling debut in June, and shared the opera house stage in November with Kitty Kiefer ’73.

2008

Reunion 2023, June 9–11

CLASS PRESIDENTS

Liz Murphy elizabeth.jayne.m@gmail.com

Alie Egelson

alisonrose.schwartz@gmail.com

Nick Bauer has joined XGenomes, a startup in Cambridge, Mass., that uses super-resolution microscopy to advance DNA sequencing. Nick earned a doctorate in biomedical research at Emory Univ….Anna Bernhard continues to direct the Stanley G. Wold Visual Resource Center and Library at Colorado State Univ. She helped curate Off the Shelf, an exhibition on book arts presented last fall at the university’s Gregory Allicar Museum of Art. In 2021, she cofounded the Center for Artists’ Books and Inclusive Narratives at the university, and teaches a course on the subject. Anna lives in Fort Collins with her husband, Peter, and their two children….Natasha D’Souza and Ashley Serrao welcomed their daughter, Sydney Amelia Serrao, in December. The family lives in Brooklyn….Tim McCall and Charlotte Hogan welcomed their son, Clark, in October. They live in Mount Tabor, N.J.

media outlet:

The Washington Post

headline:

“Environmental racism” and the mysterious cars rusting in D.C. woods

takeaway:

Where you see trash accumulate sends a message

Finding an old car rusting in the woods isn’t incredibly unusual. But its location does send a message, says Nathan Harrington ’05, executive director of Ward 8 Woods Conservancy in Washington, D.C.

Ward 8 is a historically Black neighborhood with more than 500 acres of forest that Harrington’s grassroots nonprofit is working to rejuvenate and enhance.

In the case of a junk car in the woods of Ward 8, the message is “deliberate inaction on the part of the agencies that control that land,” Harrington told The Washington Post. The inaction smacks of environmental racism, experts say, the idea that a predominantly Black neighborhood is unworthy of proper stewardship.

“They don’t have cars in the woods of Rock Creek Park,” Harrington said, referencing the national park that’s adjacent to wealthy D.C. neighborhoods. “I don’t see why we should.”

WARD 8 WOODS CONSERVANCY

Marshall Hatch ’10

2009

Reunion 2024, June 7–9 CLASS PRESIDENTS

Tim Gay timothy.s.gay@gmail.com

Arsalan Suhail arsalansuhail@gmail.com

Marshall Hatch ’10 speaks to the Olin concert hall audience after a Jan. 15 screening of the documentary All These Sons, which features Hatch’s work in Chicago.

media outlet: Block Club Chicago

headline:

Sankofa Wellness Village on West Side wins $10 million prize

takeaway: A focus on opportunity helps achieve the goal of redemption

Marshall Hatch Jr. ’10, co-founder and executive director of the MAAFA Redemption Project in Chicago’s West Garfield Park neighborhood, talked with media outlets about a $10 million community development grant to launch Sankofa Wellness Village.

The $50 million project will include a wellness center, housing, health and fitness facilities, daycare, credit union, the MAAFA Center for Arts & Activism, an entrepreneurship incubation hub, and a community grocer initiative.

“West Garfield Park has been the stepchild of the city for far too long,” said Hatch, who is among the community leaders of the project. “But I like to refer to this as a renaissance of West Garfield Park and the West Side. This is a movement.”

The neighborhood “has a lot of challenges, but also has a lot of opportunities,” he added. “This is about restoration, this is about redemption.”

Tom Bowden has been named president of Rockledge Regional Medical Center in Rockledge, Fla. He had served as chief administrative officer and, previously, as the hospital’s COO. Tom joined parent company Steward Health Care in 2014 at St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Boston, and progressively took on leadership roles as Steward expanded beyond Massachusetts. “Every day reaffirms this career was the right choice,” Tom told Florida Today. He, Charlotte Coulter Bowden, and their children live in Melbourne….A board member at Maine’s Mitchell Institute, Paul Suitter told a September fundraising gala that the financial-aid provider changed his life. A Mitchell Scholar and 2005 gradute of Southern Aroostook Community High School, Paul went on to graduate from Bates and from Harvard Law, and is now an assistant attorney general for the state of Maine. “Never could I have imagined for myself a future that would involve college, pursuing and earning an advanced degree, and having the opportunity to help other first-generation college students aim higher and find their paths,” Paul said, according to the Maine Sunday Telegram. (On staff at Mitchell, meanwhile, are Brand and Communications Director Marc Glass ’88 and President and CEO Jared Cash ’04.)

2010

Reunion 2025, June 6–8

CLASS PRESIDENTS

Brianna Bakow brianna.bakow@gmail.com

Tiel Duncan vantielelizabeth.duncan@gmail. com

An attorney at the D.C. law firm Shook, Hardy & Bacon, Alex Garnick was recognized by the online news magazine LGBTQ Nation as one of 70 notable transgender people to know. His practice focuses on defending pharmaceutical and medical-device companies in liability litigation, and he runs a practice within his firm’s pro bono program to provide name and gender-marker changes for low-income transgender clients. Alex earned a law degree at the Univ. of Maryland’s Francis King Carey School of Law, in Baltimore….Rachel Kurzius joined The Washington Post as inaugural reporter for “The Home You Own,” a line of

coverage designed to explore questions “big, small, and existential” about maintaining a home. Recipient of a regional Edward R. Murrow Award for investigative journalism, Rachel is known as a host and reporter for WAMU and for the local news and culture site DCist She lives in D.C. with husband Jason Flory and cats Bucatini and Tortellini….Andrew Livingston joined Camden National Wealth Management in November as a senior wealth adviser in the firm’s office in Portland, Maine. Outside of work, he serves on the board of directors for the Alfond Youth and Community Center; sits on the state treasurer’s Trust Fund Advisory Committee; and is treasurer of the Frank J. Gaziano Memorial Offensive and Defensive Lineman Awards….Anthony Phillips was elected to Philadelphia’s City Council, representing the 9th Council District. Asked by The Philadelphia Citizen what he considered Philly’s most pressing issues, he replied: “Crime. Hope. And a spirit that says we can get this done.…We have to stop acting like many of these problems are not chronic and bedeviling issues for generations.” Anthony co-founded Philly’s Youth Action advocacy organization when he was 14.

2011

Reunion 2026, June 12–14

CLASS PRESIDENTS

Theodore Sutherland theodoresutherland89@gmail.com

Patrick Williams Patw.williams@gmail.com

U.S. Congressman Jared Golden, who represents Maine’s 2nd District, organized a letter also signed by two Democratic and two GOP colleagues urging President Biden to supply F-16 warplanes to Ukraine.

2012

Reunion 2027, June 11–13

CLASS PRESIDENTS

Mikey Pasek mikeypasek@gmail.com

Sangita Murali sangitamurali12@gmail.com

Nuclearelectrica, Romania’s sole producer of electricity from nuclear power, has appointed Cosmin Ghita to a second term as the utility’s CEO. The renewal will take him to 2027. Previously he was an adviser to the prime minister of Romania on energy security and energy policy. During his time at Nuclearelectrica, Cosmin has focused on strategic investment projects that by 2031 will both double the utility’s capacity and Romania’s total CO2–free energy production….A civil litigation

PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN

attorney in Austin, Texas, Nicholas Shadowen focuses on national and international antitrust and human rights litigation. He has represented Mexican families whose petition to an international human rights group sought to hold the U.S. government accountable for the deaths of their loved ones at the hands of Border Patrol agents, and has represented the Mexican government in a lawsuit against U.S. firearm manufacturers, claiming that the companies actively facilitate the supply of weapons to powerful drug cartels in Mexico.

2013

Reunion 2023, June 9–11

CLASS PRESIDENTS

Megan Murphy megan.a.murphy3@gmail.com

Ryan Sonberg rsonberg9@gmail.com

Previously a teacher of English and history at Carrabassett Valley Academy, Lucas Milliken was appointed head coach of the Nordic skiing program at Mount Abram High School in Strong, Maine, in December. He was a three-year captain of the Nordic team at Bates. “I’m really excited to have Lucas taking over,” Merit “Buzz” Bean, who co-coached the team for 39 years with his wife, Sally Bean, told the Central Maine Morning Sentinel

Charley Stern has joined the performing arts faculty at Proctor Academy, a private coeducational day and boarding school in Andover, N.H.

2014

Reunion 2024, June 7–9

CLASS PRESIDENTS

Milly Aroko mildredaroko@gmail.com

Hally Bert hallybert@gmail.com

Catherine Elkhattaby Strauch and Nour are enjoying the parenting of baby boy Burhan. “Burhan is an Arabic name that means ‘proof of a higher power’ or a precious gift,” Catherine writes. “He is that indeed!”...“After six years of brain research and an exciting defense,” Marisha Manahova received a doctorate in cognitive neuroscience at the Donders Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging in Nijmegen, Netherlands. Yet, she reports, “I have pivoted in my career and started a business, Marisha Manahova Coaching. I help people design the life they want by setting priorities, following through with their intentions, and gaining insight into what makes them feel alive and fulfilled.”

’14

West Meets East

During a 1,300-mile road trip, Noah Sleeper ’14 rang in 2023 in West Texas with Andrew Carranco ’14. “We hadn’t seen each other for three years, so it was a lot of fun catching up,” says Sleeper. Visits along the way included the roadside sculpture Prada Marfa, Seminole Canyon State Park, and a replica of Judge Roy Bean’s courthouse and saloon. “Yes, it’s the same building.”

Carranco came to Bates from Laredo, Texas, on the Mexican border; Sleeper from Portland, Maine.

“I saw more windmills and tumbleweed than I’ve ever seen in my life,” said Sleeper. “To this Mainer, West Texas might as well be Mars — endless open desert that terminates abruptly in the looming Sierra Madres.”

2015

Reunion 2025, June 6–8

CLASS PRESIDENTS

James Brissenden brissendenja@gmail.com

Ben Smiley bensmiley32@gmail.com

Eric Adamson, a project manager for Northern Europe at the Atlantic Council & Swedish Defense Association, in Stockholm, was one of three co-authors of a council report suggesting a role for Sweden and Finland as they join NATO. They suggested that NATO should use those countries’ accession to help convince aggressors that hostilities against Northern Europe simply can’t succeed — in other words, to create a so-called deterrence-by-denial “bubble” over the region….In October, the Anxiety and Depression Association of America jointly profiled Rachel Lippin-Foster and her mother, Ruth Lippin, who are both social workers who treat anxiety and related disorders. Ruth’s work struck a young Rachel as something “that was fun, interesting, proactive, and made a difference in people’s lives,” she said. She treats anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder at Cognitive and Behavioral Consultants in White Plains, N.Y.

2016

Reunion 2026, June 12–14

CLASS PRESIDENTS

Andre Brittis-Tannenbaum andrebt44@gmail.com

Sally Ryerson sallyryerson@gmail.com

Mary Deneen began a four-year term as judge of the Greater Windsor Probate Court in Connecticut in January….Alex Subocz and a former football teammate at Northampton High caught the eye of the Daily Hampshire Gazette last fall when the two friends, who are now coaches at different Bay State high schools, were about to compete in a game. Alex, at Smith Vocational, essentially “taught Dan McCarthy how to be a football player” in high school. Now the tables have turned. With longer coaching experience, Belchertown High coach McCarthy often finds himself advising Alex. “A lot of the little things that actually are big things that I didn’t know about,” said the latter. “He’s helped open the world up to me.”...

In September, Grace Wright joined the board of directors of the Blueberry Hill Outdoor Center in Vermont’s Moosalamoo National Recreation Area.

Grace also earned a master’s in international and global studies,

along with a certificate in nonprofit management, from the Univ. of Oregon. An intern at the NGO Mercy Corps, she performs policy analysis and proposal development research for the organization’s Asia Regional Program.

2017

Reunion 2027, June 11–13

CLASS PRESIDENTS

Jessie Garson jgarson4@gmail.com

Matthew Baker mattdbaker13@gmail.com

William James Browns Jr. and Kimberly NiCole Harris were married late last July, culminating an engagement that The New York Times described in August. They met through a Facebook dating group — just in the nick of time, as both “had become almost disillusioned with the online dating world” — and hit it off on their first date, in 2019. “I finally was with somebody who showed me that they’re intellectual, they can laugh and joke, and they can have fun,” William told the paper. He teaches science at Providence St. Mel School, in Chicago, and Kimberly is a trust and estate planning associate at Perkins Coie.…Tara Humphries is serving as transitional

NOAH SLEEPER

media outlet:

The Reckoning

headline:

Can a Black queer couple survive in an ’80s-inspired horror flick?

takeaway:

The sexuality of a movie’s leading couple isn’t always its story line

In an interview with The Reckoning, filmmaker Isaiah Rice ’15 explains how the seed of inspiration was planted at Bates for his short horror film, He’s Watching You.

Rice, a dance and politics major at Bates, recalls telling his Bates film professor how “anytime you see a Black queer man on film in a relationship, his partner is always white. And I remember voicing this to him, and he was like, ‘Okay, so clearly this bothers you. What are you doing to change it?’”

In He’s Watching You, the two leads are “Black queer men in a relationship,” but the focus of the story “is not centered around their sexuality,” Rice says.

While many films that have queer characters and story lines “seem to focus on the trauma of coming out of the closet, hiding your sexuality from society, or at times being oversexualized,” in He’s Watching You, like many other horror films, the couple is just “in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

minister at the Allen Avenue Unitarian Universalist Church in Portland, Maine….Nisha Naik is a registered nurse at the Edward M. Kennedy Community Health Center in Worcester, Mass. And she’s earning a doctorate in nursing practice on the psychiatric–mental health, nurse-practitioner track in the Tan Chingfen Graduate School of Nursing, UMass Chan Medical School, where she became a registered nurse through the Graduate Entry Pathway program. The GEP year allowed her to provide substantial care to an aunt dying of cancer, Nisha told the university communications office. Though difficult, the experience “really solidified for me how necessary it is to have good nurses and empathetic nurses out there.”... Leah Spingarn, a third-year student at Northeastern Univ. School of Law, is working as a legal intern at GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders. She preceded law school with two years in the professional development and training department at Ropes & Gray, and later took part in a judicial co-op under the supervision of the Hon. Hélène Kazanjian. Hoping to support people in the fight for systemic change, Leah views the intersection of law and policy as the place to effectively pursue equitable rights and opportunity.

2018

Reunion 2023, June 9–11

CLASS PRESIDENTS

John Thayer john.robert.thayer@gmail.com

Jake Shapiro shapirojacob6@gmail.com

Alisa Amador contributed an essay to a September issue of the Boston Globe Magazine featuring perspectives from Latinx Bostonians. The musician, whose song “Milonga accidental” won last year’s NPR Tiny Desk Contest, explained how for her, both music and Boston can be places where the disparate “boxes” of identity don’t matter. “The music industry is full of boundaries, red tape, and gatekeepers, but music itself is free of all of that,” she wrote. “Like Boston, music is a home for me and my family.”…In a January Portland Press Herald op-ed, Kiernan MajerusCollins decried two aspects of Maine democracy: the absence of ranked-choice voting in state elections and the selection of constitutional officers by the Legislature. With the GOP opposing ranked choice and Democrats against popular election of state officers, “the two reforms should be packaged together into one constitutional amendment.” Each party would win on one issue and lose on one, but “Maine’s democracy

comes out ahead on both.”...

Mats Terwiesch competed on the U.S. team at the 2022 World Rowing Championships, in Prague, the first iteration of the event since the pandemic began. Mats rowed with the Riverside Boat Club in lightweight men’s quadruple scull events, coming in fifth overall. As a senior captain at Bates, he rowed for the first varsity eight at the National Invitational Rowing Championships where the Bobcats won the gold, winning the 2018 NESCAC Championship….

Amelia Wilhelm was featured in a National Institute of General Medical Sciences blog showcasing the institute’s Medical Scientist Training Program. The dual-degree program helps prepare participants for careers integrating clinical practice and rigorous research. Amelia is in her second year at the Univ. of Washington School of Medicine, in Seattle, but will earn a doctorate in immunology before finishing med school. “Being able to ground your research in questions coming directly from your patients and their families is...a huge part of why I’m interested in becoming a clinician-scientist,” she said.

2019

Reunion 2024, June 7–9

Harry Meadows harry.meadows4@gmail.com

Cara Starnbach

cara@carastarnbach.com

Caroline Barnes is in a doctoral program in classical archaeology at the Univ. of British Columbia. A scholar of Late Bronze Age architecture, she focuses on Cypriot building practices and masonry techniques. She’s currently studying so-called ashlar masonry, the use of large rectilinear blocks whose visible faces, at least, “have been worked toward a flat surface,” she told the blog Peopling the Past in September. Aiming to better understand the workers who built ashlar structures, as opposed to the affluent people who owned them, Caroline is “developing an architectural energetics project that will estimate the time and energy” needed to construct such buildings in Cyprus….Lily Kip is working toward an MFA at the Univ. of Montana. Originally from the Bay State, her journey from Lewiston to Missoula was roundabout and rich in adventure — including finding a new passion for art-making during the pandemic and taking a three-month road trip to Big Sky Country with her boyfriend.

“I wanted to go to school somewhere I would want to live, and Missoula was a town I wanted to live in the most,”

ISAIAH RICE

bates notes

she told the Montana Kaimin Sandy Plashkes co-owns and is vice president of content for OwnersBox, an Ontariobased sports tech company that produces an online fantasy sports platform. Following new provincial regulations on daily fantasy sports, OwnersBox is one of only two companies still legally providing such services. “Our prize pools are probably 10 to 15 percent of what a DraftKings or FanDuel would offer,” Sandy told the legalbetting news site Sports Handle “We’re a smaller company, but these are the biggest prize pools we’ve done. It’s exciting.”...

Louisa Woodhouse published a two-part blog on the New America site spotlighting a Univ. of Michigan scholarship initiative that has attracted high-achieving, low-income students in the state. The HAIL program, she writes, counters flagship public universities’ focus on out-of-state recruitment as a way to boost institutional income and prestige. HAIL succeeds, first, by making clear that in-state recipients “often receive the equivalent of a full ride” in tuition and expenses; and second, by reaching out to prospective applicants in the fall of their senior year, thereby telling “these students that they are wanted.” Louisa is a master’s candidate in public policy at Michigan and a research assistant in an education policy program at the Poverty & Inequality Research Lab.

2020

Reunion 2025, June 6–8

Priscila Guillen priscila.guillen65197@gmail.com

Maya Seshan mayaseshan55@gmail.com

Muhammad Ghasharib

Shoukat is head of product and a researcher focused on policy implementation and social reform at Pakistan Agriculture Research. He co-authored an op-ed in a December edition of Pakistan’s Express Tribune about declining wheat production. “There is a huge scope to increase this yield through relatively simple changes in the production system,” noted Muhammad and Daud Khan, as well as a large potential to reduce losses through improved harvesting, handling, and storage.…Bence Szechenyi was selected to receive a Budapest Fellowship, a fully funded study opportunity in Hungary’s capital. A Brooklyn resident, Bence will be hosted in Budapest by the Migration Research Institute and will investigate migrant integration into the EU, specifically Central Europe. His family’s story of migration between Hungary and the U.S. gave him a lifelong interest in immigration and migration.

Personal Poster

Annie Canning ’20 teaches English at two elementary and one junior high school in Miyazaki, Japan, where she moved in September 2021. She created this poster for her students when she first arrived.

“I wanted to make an ‘about me’ poster for them, so I included some photos of Bates and a picture of me during Japan’s famed cherry blossom season.”

A politics major and Japanese minor at Bates, Canning says that “the Japanese program certainly prepared me well! I have loved working and living in Japan. I definitely experienced some culture shock, but have met amazing people and learned a lot about myself.”

All of his grandparents were Hungarian immigrants to the U.S. and his parents, first-generation Hungarian Americans, returned to Hungary, where Bence was born. A 2021 Fulbright supported Bence’s initial research in Hungary.

2021

Reunion 2026, June 12–14

Imani Boggan imaniboggan@gmail.com

Julia Maluf jmaluf120@gmail.com

Jade Zhang jadezhang9843@gmail.com

A graduate student studying journalism at the Univ. of Maryland, Michael Charles joined the The Washington Post sports staff as an Academic Year Fellow last fall. As a summer intern with Major League Baseball in 2021 and 2022, he assisted with content creation and covered events including MLB games, the premiere of an ESPN documentary on Derek Jeter, and the opening of the

Jackie Robinson Museum….Talia Sperduto, an environmental studies major, later became “fascinated by real estate investment and its potential for intersection with sustainable design,” she writes. Now a Realtor licensed in Maine and New Hampshire, “I help clients buy and sell homes and investment properties on the seacoast. I work with all property types, but specialize in historic homes. I am also interested in sustainable development.”

2022

Reunion 2027, June 11–13

Anna Landgren aslandgren@gmail.com

Rachel Retana rachel7600@gmail.com

Ognyan Simeonov ognyan99@gmail.com

Sean Vaz savyvaz@gmail.com

A November article in Forbes about accent discrimination in the workplace cited an honors thesis in sociology by Ronan

Goulden, who also majored in environmental studies and is now the Post-Baccalaureate Civic Leadership Fellow at the Harward Center. Forbes pointed to Goulden’s finding that “those with perceived African accents are seen to be the Lewiston-Auburn area archetype of African refugees and migrants...being assumed to have little education, job skills, intelligence, and trustworthiness within the workplace.”...

Candace Johnson was one of 14 recipients of professional development awards from the Maine Community Foundation in January. The awards went to people of color who lead nonprofit organizations. Candace is co-executive director of AK Health and Social Services, which serves immigrants, refugees, asylum seekers, and people of color in the Lewiston and Portland areas. The organization runs programs in public health, community support services, civic engagement, and workforce development.

ANNIE CANNING ’20

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.

Hallan ’04 & Rivera

Megan Hallan ’04 and Alberto Cornelio Rivera, Nov. 12, 2022, Oaxaca City, Mexico. All Class of 2004, except the groom.

Back, from left: Annie Schauer, Shelby Graham Larsson, Jane Finn-Foley, Hedda Burnett, Caroline Renyi DelPercio.

Front: Alberto and Megan. Not pictured, but present in spirit: Tina Brown and Valerie Wicks.

Michael ’12 & Bodwitch ’11

Leigh Michael ’12 and Aron Bodwitch ’11, Aug. 13, 2022, Newcastle, Maine. From left: Morgan Lynch ’11, Cam Urban ’11, Marta Solomianko ’11, Tyler White ’13, Sam Polak ’11, Edward Sturtevant ’11, Lindsay Blitstein ’12, Emma Stevens-Smith ’12, Keegan Runnals ’11, Greg De Wet ’11, Erika Blauth De Wet ’12, Josie Reinhardt ’12, Greg Flynn ’11, Basil Ferenczi ’11, August Felix ’11, Luke Nichols ’11, Eliott Morgan ’11, Jon Rubin ’11, Erin Pinover ’12, Zoe Bryan ’12, Alex Streim ’11, Kaitlin Weinman ’12, Camille Venturi ’12, Kit Sheridan ’12, Liana Blum ’12, Alex Koster ’11, Nora Allen ’12, Violet Shneider ’12, Claire Lampen ’12, Alix Vandeventer Quinn ’12, Pat Quinn ’12, Jane Salpeter ’12, Rachel Vaivoda ’11. Leigh and Aron appear at center, holding glasses.

Barkan ’15 & Tieu

Eliza Barkan ’15 and Michael Tieu, July 16, 2022, in Seattle. From left: Emma Kate Lindsay ’15, Jenna Armstrong ’15, Michael and Eliza, Alex Millstrom ’15, Margaux Joselow Malasky ’16, Hannah Weiss ’15.

Morrison ’13 & Kenda ’09

Rachel Morrison ’13 and Matej Kenda ’09, Oct. 2, 2022, Canterbury (N.H.) Shaker Village. Back, from left: Jared Golden ’11, Brandan Blevins ’08, Samuel Prawer ’13, Molly Bruzzese ’13, Lillian Christine ’15, Megan Loeb ’09, Becky Wason St. Cyr ’09.

Front: Isobel Moiles Golden ’11 (with Rosemary), Flora

Rice-Chan ’11, Jocelyn RiceChan ’12, Tessa Feldvebel ’13, Sophie Dalterio ’13, Rachel Morrison ’13, Matej Kenda ’09, Kirsten Pianka ’13, Jennifer Brown ’13.

King ’13 & Hall

Annie King ’13 and Andy Hall, June 25, 2022, Ocean Gateway, Portland, Maine.

From left: John Springer ’00, Camille Smith ’13, Leah Burke ’13, Courtney Talcott ’12, Courtney Lemenze ’13, Tiffany So ’13, Brianna Hawkins ’13, Annie Burns ’12, Katy Zingale ’13, Jeffrey Whitaker ’77, Libby King ’12, Annie and Andy, Jenn Brallier ’13, Canice Christian ’13, Reid Christian ’12, Linnea Fulton ’13, Lauren Rutherford ’12, Kristen McDonnell ’12, Caitlyn Donovan ’12, Kiely Barnard-Webster ’12, Kelsey Flaherty ’12.

Fuller ’18 & Riddell ’16

Erin Fuller ’18 and Keyan Riddell ’16, June 26, 2022, Chequessett Yacht Club, Wellfleet, Mass. From left: Ben Tattersfield ’20, Tyler Jones ’16, Rosie Snyder ’16, Sam Tyler ’19, Gabriele Gucagaite ’21, Kathryn Cleary ’19, Sam Hersh ’18, Keyan and Erin, Kylee Fuller ’26, Meaghan Fuller Stoddard ’00, Owen Cardwell-Copenhefer ’18, Garrett Anderson ’18, Colin Fuller ’69, and Augie Folz ’17.

AndersonDiepenbrock ’14 & Sturtevant ’14

Emily Anderson-Diepenbrock ’14 and Josh Sturtevant ’14, July 23, 2022, Orcas Island, Wash. All Class of 2014 unless noted. Back, from left: Sarah Street, Emma Timbers, Lizzie Baird, Sarah Xiao ’15, Sasha Lennon ’16, Ben McCormack, Matt Furlow, Tasker Smith ’90, John Barbadoro. Front: Julie Polizzotto, Nina Wineburgh, Olivia Gregorius ’15, Emily Anderson-Diepenbrock, Josh Sturtevant, Allie BalterKennedy, Collin McCullough, Charlie Grant, Lila Wilmerding, Lucas Milliken ’13, Billy Collins. Rosen ’18 & Lubelczyk ’16

Julia Rosen ’18 and Kevin Lubelczyk ’16, July 23, 2022, Chebeague Island (Maine)

Inn. Back, from left: Will Seider ’17, Aaron Nickelsberg ’15, Elizabeth Prins Wyatt ’17, Brigid Quinn ’18, Joe Maffley-Kipp ’16, Ben Richey ’16, Sam Polito ’16, Wes Shrewsbury ’17, Alex Opiela

’16, Ben Sommer ’16, Logan McGill ’18, Allegra Sacco ’18, Emma Goff ’18, Noah Riskind ’16, Nile Rabb ’17, Gil Spivak ’16. Front: Sam Predham ’16, Jacob Brand ’16, James Wyatt ’16, Julia and Kevin, Alanna Morque ’18, Ainsley Jamieson ’18, Blair Weintraub ’18, Lindsey Landwehrle ’18. Griffin ’15 & Porter ’15 Cameron Griffin ’15 and Ben Porter ’15, June 11, 2022, the Popponesset Inn, Mashpee, Mass. Back, from left: Bruce Stangle ’70, Emily Siegel Stangle ’72, Kelley Attenborough ’21, Jennifer Guckel Porter ’88, Nick Margitza ’16, Maddie Stein Lee ’15, Henry Lee ’15, Hannah McGrath ’15, Emma Bunker Getsinger ’15, Daniel Mansuri ’15, Nate Tower ’15, Garret Bonney ’15, Ryan Conrad ’15, Kim Hamelburg Karelis ’04. Middle: Hannah West ’21, Kendra Asklof Krowicki ’15, Chloe Marcelo, Carolyn Attenborough Margitza ’15, Kathy Yannopoulos ’15. Front: Cameron, Eleanor Griffin, Ben.

Finn & Chiappetti ’13 Jackie Finn and Chris Chiappetti ’13, Oct. 15, 2022, The Lace Factory, Deep River, Conn. From left: Jared Quenzel ’13, Jon Woelfel ’13, Eric Kimball ’13, Matt Isaacs ’13, Alex Henrie ’13, Taryn Woelfel ’13 (directly behind Henrie), Walter Cabot ’13, Jeff Clausen ’13, Hank Geng ’13, Jackie Finn, Jen Brown ’13, Chris Chiappetti ’13, Danny Kuzio ’13, Katie Kuzio, Sula Watermulder ’14, Alison O’Neill ’13, Mikayla Foster ’13.

Van Heerden ’11 & VandenBerg Eliza van Heerden ’11 and Will VandenBerg, Sept. 4, 2022, The Bar Harbor Club, Bar Harbor, Maine. All Class of 2011. From left, Chelsea Pennucci, Mackenzie Dreiss Zentek, Jessie Igoe, Will and Eliza, Rachel DiStefano, Lauren McAllister, Micaela Holland Johnston, Sarah Moore Frechette.

Holtzman ’15 & Summers ’17

Tessa Holtzman ’17 and Matt Summers ’15, July 30, 2022, West Coxsackie, N.Y. Back, from left: Dylan Desjardins ’18, Matt Kahn ’17, Bennett Saltzman ’18, Chloe Stroman, Nick Kinnon ’15, Kevin Deng ’15, Emma Kenyon, Charley

Kenyon ’15. Front row: Dmitriy Redkin ’17, Laura Nguyen ’19, Emily Pinette ’17, Caleb Grenier, Sasha Grodsky ’16, Ben Schultz, Tessa & Matt, Greg Honan, Emily Roseman ’15, Shannon Griffin ’16, Jack Powers, Zoe Seaman-Grant ’17.

Augulewicz ’13 & Antonellis ’13

Erin Augulewicz ’13 and Mike Antonellis ’13, July 31, 2021, Salem, Mass. From left, Chris Fusco ’14, Katherine Bailey Chiampa ’11, Mike Ciummei ’12, Joe Drinkwater ’12, Gordy Webb ’11, Noah Burke ’11, Paul Chiampa ’11, Ryan

Sonberg ’13, Caroline O’Sullivan Sonberg ’14, Kevin McGregor ’13, Mike, Evan Dowd ’13, Erin, Matt Antonellis ’13, Wil Muller ’14, Pat George ’13, Kevin Lentini ’13, Josh Chronopoulos ’13, Ciara Zagaja Spinosa ’13, Mike Spinosa ’13, Tom Lopez ’69.

Dobish ’12 & Rutherford

Lauren Dobish ’12 and Paul Rutherford, May 1, 2021, The Preserve at Chocorua, Tamworth, N.H. All Class of 2012 unless noted. From left: Elizabeth King, Lucy O’Keefe, Kelsey Flaherty, Linnea Fulton ’13, Jennifer Brallier ’13, Lauren and Paul, Courtney Talcott, Annie Burns, Caitlyn Donovan, Kiely Barnard-Webster, Kristen McDonnell, Andrea Hall ’13, Robert Thompson ’73.

Durand & Kimball ’13

Kelsey Durand and Eric Kimball ’13, Sept. 24, 2022, Scituate, Mass. Back, from left: Sean Colligan ’12, Jeff Clausen ’13, Sula Watermulder ’14, Katie Kuzio, Jared Quenzel ’13, Alex Henrie ’13, Jon Woelfel ’13, Danny Kuzio ’13, Chris Chiappetti ’13. Front: Luke Harmeling ’12, Walter Cabot ’13, Taryn Woelfel ’13, Alison O’Neill ’13, Kelsey and Eric, Matt Isaacs ’13, Jen Brown ’13.

Kahn ’10 & Ohashi ’11

Nicole Kahn ’10 and Tim Ohashi ’11, Aug. 13, 2022, Seattle. Back, from left: Ben McCall ’11, Joanna Harran ’13, Benj Shasha ’10, Joe Doody ’11. Middle: Meg Curran ’11, Lila Totino ’10, Daniela Jaeckel Shasha ’10. Front: Tim Molnar ’11, Nicole and Tim, Brian St. Thomas ’11.

Wahr & Infelise ’09

Alexa Wahr and Tyler Infelise ’09, July 2, 2022, St. Helena, Calif. From left: Russell Richie ’09, Annie Query ’11, Ryan Pollie ’10, Josh Lake ’09, Ira Waldman ’73, Ethan Warren ’08, Alex Kapelman ’09, Nick Swerdlow ’09, Chris Joyce ’10, Michael Springer ’07, Alexa and Tyler, Caroline Servat ’10, Jason Tsichlis ’09, Tommy Denby ’09, Molly Ritner ’09, Jason Brander ’09, Carson Lappetito ’08, Kelly Kruger ’14, Sashi Shankar ’12.

1943

Annabel Cofran Aldrich

May 9, 2023

1945

Mildred Lever Kistenmacher

Dec. 20, 2022

Sylvia Gray Sears

Jan. 4, 2023

1946

Jane Parsons Norris

Feb. 19, 2023

Sarah Macfarlane Wilbur

Oct. 17, 2022

1947

Jane Sedgley McMurray

Jan. 31, 2023

Jacqueline Thompson Thurlow

Dec. 6, 2022

1948

Roger Alvan Howard

May 17, 2023

1949

Paul Mann Chase

Nov. 9, 2022

Marilyn Bisland Cleveland

Jan. 9, 2023

Marilyn Roth Cochrane

Nov. 17, 2022

Philip Roberts Houghton

Feb. 4, 2020

Joanne Williams Plank

Nov. 28, 2022

George Daniel Reale

Nov. 12, 2022

James Warren Stevenson

May 28, 2022

Barbara Badgley Williams

Feb. 16, 2023

Leon Alan Wiskup

Feb. 15, 2022

1950

Robert George Baal

Nov. 3, 2022

Frances Curry Kerr

Feb. 23, 2023

Navarre Scott Them

Feb. 6, 2023

1951

Maria Louise Press Aylward

April 24, 2023

Leroy Merle Faulkner

Nov. 12, 2022

Richard Otis Hartman

Sept. 10, 2022

1952

Doris Hardy Crosby

Jan. 15, 2023

Quentin Norman Hall

May 7, 2023

John Fordyce Myers

Feb. 11, 2023

Caroline Rothstein Rubin

Sept. 2, 2022

1953

Nancy Lowd Hanby

Dec. 9, 2022

1954

Virginia Bailey-Olney

March 28, 2023

Bruce Broughton Burnett

Oct. 12, 2019

Dolores Dombek Daigle

Jan. 17, 2023

Lorraine Reed Lewis

Jan. 15, 2023

Janice Todd O’Rourke

Oct. 23, 2022

1955

Paul Richard Barbera

April 19, 2023

This issue’s In Memoriam extends through May 26, 2023. See bates.edu/memoriam for more information.

Carolyn Dawson

Oct. 29, 2022

Carl James Morrison

Nov. 21, 2022

Julius Henry Mueller III

Nov. 4, 2020

Ettore Charles Raccagni

Jan. 4, 2023

Lois Stuber Spitzer

April 12, 2023

William Henry Wallace

Dec. 14, 2022

1956

Sharon Ellene Elledge

Oct. 29, 2022

Richard Haynes Hooper

Dec. 8, 2022

Zoe Bucuvalas McFarland

2022

Mary Needham Moore

Jan. 4, 2023

Frank Croydon Perham

Jan. 31, 2023

George Thomas Stevens III (date of death not available)

Barbara Lindsay Vaux

Feb. 21, 2012

John Frank Woodward

Dec. 1, 2022

1957

Richard Frank Walton

Jan. 18, 2022

1958

Patricia Lysaght Fresina

March 17, 2023

Daniel Herbert Spink

Sept. 18, 2022

Charles Russell Stanley

April 4, 2023

Carol Stevens Woodard

May 23, 2023

1959

Clifton Whittier Jacobs Jr.

Dec. 17, 2022

Richard Louis Moraes

Nov. 21, 2022

John Joseph O’Grady

March 27, 2023

Charles Warren Sayward

April 21, 2023

1960

Peter John Bertocci

2022

Roberta Randall Diussa

Feb. 14, 2023

Barbara LeVine Glaser

February 2022

Katherine Lowther Gray

Oct. 20, 2022

Carol Swanson Hooper

May 2, 2023

Elizabeth Willard Rusnell

Nov. 21, 2022

1961

Ronald Whitcomb Alley Sr.

Oct. 25, 2022

Alden Hastings Blake

May 3, 2023

Malcom Pierce Johnson

Aug. 29, 2023

David Lewis Phillips Sr.

Feb. 9, 2023

1962

Allen David McNab

Dec. 21, 2022

1963

Alan Wright Doherty

Jan. 13, 2023

Deanna Dinsmore Goode

Feb. 12, 2023

Brian Wesley Moores

March 6, 2023

Howard Sidney Vandersea

Dec. 29, 2022

Samuel Wilfred Young

April 13, 2023

1964

Linda Eichhorn Day

March 3, 2023

Brian Joseph Langdon

May 19, 2023

Robert Breck Williams

Jan. 20, 2023

1965

Arthur Frederick Amend

March 10, 2023

Stella Robak Bukanc

Dec. 4, 2022

Carol Bishop Caley

April 8, 2023

John Austin Krause

Dec. 10, 2023

1966

Everett Corson Barclay

June 2021

Elizabeth Harwood Eldredge

Jan. 4, 2023

Mary Louise Stuart Ewing

May 9, 2023

Carol Inda Stone Haberland

April 18, 2023

Rebecca Nally Syphers

Feb. 17, 2023

1967

Martha Miner Gregoire

Nov. 10, 2022

Edward Richard Lilley

April 19, 2023

1968

William Arthur Bruce

Nov. 16, 2022

Henry Alen Seigel

2020

1969

Rufus Allen Winsor

Feb. 26, 2023

1970

Henry Charles Ellis

April 4, 2023

Bruce Edward Hodge

Feb. 16, 2023

1971

Edward Kenneth Romine

March 18, 2023

Debra Graves Warner

September 2022

1972

James Elvin Anderson

Oct. 23, 2022

1973

Maurice Louis Dubé

Oct. 22, 2022

Joan Elisabeth Madden

Nov. 21, 2022

1975

Robert Duane Marso

May 21, 2023

1976

Alan Joseph Pescik

Nov. 8, 2022

1977

Paul Joseph DelCioppio

Dec. 18, 2022

1978

Perryman Keith Maynard

Dec. 5, 2022

1979

James Crampton Rogers

March 13, 2012

1981

David Kenneth Blackhurst

March 15, 2023

Pamela Wheaton Duggan

Jan. 12, 2023

1983

Thomas Octavius McInerney

Feb. 10, 2023

1987

Lisa Klingler Looke

April 12, 2023

Melissa Ann Martin

Jan. 20, 2023

Joe Miller II

March 5, 2023

1997

Christine Ballantyne Doxsee

Oct. 22, 2022

2015

Billy Earl Selmon Jr.

Jan. 28, 2023

FACULTY

Lewis Afton Turlish

Jan. 4, 2023

Love in Action

Mac Herrling ’72 recalls one of the first off-campus Short Terms, to East Harlem in 1970, led by a young religion professor and defined by a Black woman who personified love in action

by mac herrling ’72

FOR ME, THERE WERE TWO DISTINCT versions of Bates — the before times, and then the more chaotic, Age of Aquarius times.

When the Class of 1972 arrived at Bates in 1968, we performed rituals from the 1950s. We wore Bates beanies and stood on Bobcat Den tables to sing the school song. We played played Shoe Toss and Pass the Orange.

Then 1969 hit, a tsunami blasting down College Street, washing away men’s crewcuts and the bottom half of women’s skirts. In March, William Baird brought to campus his one-man crusade to legalize abortion. October brought Moratorium Day and protests against the Vietnam War. John Shages ’70, dressed like Uncle Sam, led us back and forth in downtown Lewiston as we shouted obscenities about President Nixon and

raised our fists: “Hell no! We won’t go!”

In December, Yippie co-founder Paul Krassner came to campus and talked about class warfare, Jimi Hendrix’s penis, the military-industrial complex, and how to join the radical underground.

In January 1970, my classmates Mark Winne, Fred Wolff, and Robin Wright, joined by Doug Hayman ’71 a week later, turned in their draft cards to the local board. There were weekly teach-ins by student antiwar committees. Rich Goldstein ’71 and Bill Lowenstein ’72 organized meetings to plan out the next protest.

For a few of us, the portal from 1950s Bates to this new one was provided by Garvey MacLean ’57, an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ who had just become the college’s first multifaith chaplain.

Left: An undated photograph of Blorneva Selby, the dynamo who welcomed Bates students to East Harlem to do community work in the 1970s.

Right: Blorneva Selby “lived out of her heart, advocating for people, her people, all people.”

LEFT AND RIGHT: JUETTA WALLACE

He answered our questions with a drawl of his native Dorchester, Mass., and he always knew what to say. Within days of his arrival, he was leading discussion groups about human values and sexuality. We became DOGs: “Disciples of Garvey” (no one ever called him “Professor MacLean”). He held small groups or “micro labs” where we got into raps about parents, broken hearts, perfectionism, suicide, the war, and sex — “the penile-vaginal thing,” as he described it. Garvey seemed to know about and understand it all.

We asked a lot of him, but he only asked one thing of us: to come to New York City in spring 1970 for a Short Term course, “Religion in the Secular City ” to “transpose our discontent into action.”

The course was founded in 1968 by MacLean’s faculty colleague Arthur Brown, associate professor of religion, and it was among the first courses to head off campus during Short Term, which itself had only been around since 1966. It drew its name and purpose from the book Secular City by theologian Bryan Cox, who urged readers to find a way to speak to God outside organized religion. Even “standing in the picket line is a way of speaking,” he said. “By doing it, a Christian speaks to God.”

MacLean described the course as “Love in Action.” The real revolution was happening on the streets, he said, asking us to see the hypocrisy of modern religions that preached compassion but didn’t stand up to fight for people who needed their power.

We DOGs didn’t hesitate, quickly hopping on his version of the Who’s Magic Bus to New York City and Manhattan. By this point, the wealthy city was hurtling toward the political, social, and economic dark days of the mid-1970s.

Street jugglers threw red balls 20 feet in the air. Men fallen-down drunk snored in doorways. Glamorous women strode by in big hats and 6-inch heels. Young women in flowing tie-dyed dresses sold flowers on the corners. It was the heyday of New York’s Hare Krishnas, and they were out in full force, chanting in their orange and saffron robes. Bankers and ad men sneered at it all.

Greasy-haired men dressed in rags begged for donations so they could get home to Arkansas or Toledo. Freaks with beads and headbands hustled to sell you news sheets about where to find LSD and dope and support the revolution. Whole families appeared in raggedy street clothes performing folk music to raise funds for their commune.

Our base was Manhattan’s Upper West Side, at the West Side YMCA. From there, we found our way into the preternatural mystery of the brio of Spanish Harlem, where we worked with the interdenominational East Harlem Protestant Parish, which focused on social justice and community action.

On our first day, we popped out of the subway at the Harlem–125th Street station ready to fight oppression, a small herd of white suburban virgins, pale as daikon radishes, our senses quickly overwhelmed. We smelled roasting meat, frying tortillas, rotting garbage, rain hissing on the sidewalk, and the permanent aroma of bodies sweating from the oppressive heat wafting up from the pavement.

A wedding in East Harlem, circa 1970, the year that Garvey MacLean ’57 led Bates students to the city for “Religion in the Secular City.” In Harlem, recalls Mac Herrling ’72, “there was energy. Everyone and everything was happening on the street.”

We tried to take in a tornado of purple, green, red, orange, pink, and black shirts and pants moving in a swarm of smiling and yelling faces, black and brown, spilling onto and over broken heaving sidewalks. Music seemed to blare from every nook and window: funk, blues, rock, and cha-cha-cha played on guitars, congas, trumpets, and harmonicas.

We were in East Harlem to help community members with antipoverty efforts, being sponsored by Massive Economic Neighborhood Development (MEND), a War on Poverty program that began in the 1960s.

But it didn’t feel like these folks needed help from a group of white kids. I had seen hopeless, grinding poverty in Lewiston, where people knew they were poor. But here, there was energy. Artists drew murals on vacant building walls and storefronts, and set up easels on the street in celebration of spring and hope. Raw, wiggling, crazy, screaming hope. Everyone and everything was happening on the street.

Our boss at MEND was Blorneva Selby, supervisor of MEND’s community action program. She epitomized the convergence of all this energy. At age 44, Selby was in a hurry to help her children and her neighborhood, ready to lift them up with the power of a 747. She was a social worker / activist / pastor / grandmother / saint / wise counselor / translator / humanitarian. A Black woman, she lived out of her heart, advocating for people, her people, all people. She lived in the now

For us, Selby was like Virgil escorting Dante through Hades and out the other side. Her sweet Southern patois dripped with generosity. She talked about getting out of a bad marriage and about “no account” boyfriends — and fighting racism her entire life.

In the years that Brown and MacLean took students to East Harlem, Selby was a constant. Jane Goodman ’78 took the course in 1975, and worked in Selby’s church. She remembers Selby’s piece of advice on her last day, so well suited to an uncertain young college student: “She said that I would get to know myself better as I got older.”

Selby and everyone we met treated us with respect despite our youth, race, and heads stuffed with “knowledge.” We attended services at her church, the Church of the Resurrection on 101st Street, where we were literally and figuratively embraced. Everyone sang. If it was off key and loud, it didn’t matter. The building shook and rocked with spirit.

Downtown was the WASP-y Marble Collegiate Church, where Norman Vincent Peale told parishioners they could think themselves to success. Here, the congregants — including powerful developers who were literally bulldozing poor neighborhoods in the name of urban renewal — sang in a whisper, as if unwilling to disturb the status quo.

During our stay, we ate on the cheap. We dined at the Horn & Hardart automat. We practically lived at Blimpies, the sub shop around the corner. I saw the shredded lettuce in my dreams for months afterward.

We made it onto The Dick Cavett Show, knocked on Katherine Hepburn’s door (no answer), loitered at museums, and watched street performers. From the elevated train, we saw Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx stretching to the horizon with thousands of square, gray graves that dwarfed my sense of being. We were children at play in the adult world.

Returning to Bates in fall 1970, we had left the Fifties behind. There were still Sadie Hawkins dances, but the world had cracked open and there was no putting it back together.

As for me, I tried to bring Spanish Harlem with me wherever I went after Bates, like Hemingway did with Paris — A Moveable Feast. I fashioned a career in journalism, writing about the urban poor, rent control, and changing the justice system, then did social work in Massachusetts and Maine.

As for the Short Term course itself, Arthur Brown took back the reins within a few years. After suffering a massive stroke in 1978, he retired from the faculty but was later able to write two books of poetry; he died in 1989.

Blorneva Selby’s granddaughter Juetta Wallace says that Selby, who died in 1989, was “always vibrant in our community,” and she’s petitioning the city to have an East Harlem street named for Selby.

Garvey McLean left the Bates faculty in 1978 to return to parish ministry; he returned for Reunion last year.

What I and my fellow DOGs owe our mentor thanks for is a path — toward careers that were Love in Action, working on behalf of those who lacked a voice or didn’t have the resources to lobby for change. Turns out, that Short Term had a very long arm. n

Appointed as the college’s first multifaith chaplain in 1969, Garvey MacLean ’57 led the 1970 edition of “Religion in the Secular City.” He “always knew what to say,” writes Herrling.

Mac Herrling ’72 lives in Bradley, Maine.

EDMUND S. MUSKIE ARCHIVES AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS LIBRARY

from the edmund s. muskie archives and elsewhere

Give a Ring

This silver Bates cigar-band ring belonged to the late Jane Libby ’56, a noted editor of archaeological publications. She co-edited the scholarly book Pendejo Cave (2003) with legendary archaeologist R.S. “Scotty” MacNeish, which suggested a much earlier human inhabitation of North America than scholars previously thought.

Bobcattin’

This photo by George Conklin ’53 shows a Texas-style derrick, near what is now Lane Hall. It gushed water high into the air during the 1952 Mayoralty campaign. Replete with skits, stunts, shenanigans, and contraptions, Mayoralty thrived during the mid-1900s — an epic, three-day student campaign to elect a mock mayor of Bates. In 1952, the Texas-themed campaign of “Smilin’ Jack” Davis ’54 defeated the Hollywood-inspired campaign of “Lymelight Lynn” Willsey ’54.

This ceramic Bates stein belonged to the late Margie Gregory Wright ’45, who used her chemistry degree to land her first job, selling scientific equipment. She later taught science and health in Baltimore, and was a consultant to a family-life discussion group for the board of education.

What Goes Around

Feb. 19 was the 550th birthday of Nicolaus Copernicus, whose stained-glass depiction can be seen in Gomes Chapel with other great Western thinkers, including Marie Curie and Leonardo da Vinci. The chapel’s stained-glass imagery was designed by Charles J. Connick, whose work in the Gothic Revival style is found worldwide.

Fine Stein

outtake

While documenting the visit by a guest speaker in one of Pettengill Hall’s ground-floor classrooms, I glanced out a window, toward Lake Andrews. I saw three empty Adirondack chairs facing the Lane Hall parking lot, aka “the Pit,” hemmed in by a pile of dirty, crusty snow. Late March in Maine is many things, but typically not a harbinger of spring. Rather, it's a reminder to practice patience and change your perspective, good advice for a photographer, perhaps better advice for us all.

— Phyllis Graber Jensen

Editor

H. Jay Burns

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

Freddie Wright

President of Bates

A. Clayton Spencer (through June 30, 2023) Garry W. Jenkins (as of July 1, 2023)

Contact Us Bates Communications 2 Andrews Rd. Lewiston ME 04240

magazine@bates.edu 207-786-6330

Production Bates Magazine is published twice annually at family-owned 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.

On the Cover Garry W. Jenkins, who officially becomes Bates’ new president on July 1, poses for a portrait in front of the college’s oldest building, Hathorn Hall, during his first visit to campus on March 6. See page 27 for our story introducing Jenkins as the college’s ninth president, a leader who, in the words of a Bates alumna who considers him to be a mentor, “reminds me of my favorite Bates professors.” Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen.

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 in the recruitment and admission of its students, in the administration of its education policies and programs, or in the recruitment of its faculty and staff. The college adheres to all applicable state and federal equal opportunity laws and regulations. Full policy: bates.edu/nondiscrimination

FROM A DISTANCE

6 8

7 9

Here’s what we saw in the Bates costume shop as the team created 70-plus costumes for the March production of Much Ado About Nothing, set in Bar Harbor, Maine, right after World War II:

1

U.S. Army officer uniforms, worn by war veterans returning not to Messina, Italy, but to Maine.

2 Photos of past productions, including Michael Driscal ’19 in Our Country’s Good

3

Costume designer Carol Farrell’s sketches of a few Maine archetypes, including yellow-slickered lobstermen.

4

Farrell working on an evening gown for the play’s masked ball.

5

Gravity-fed industrial iron by Silver Star (note the water hose to the ceiling).

6

Jenna Perry ’25 sewing longer sleeves on a dinner jacket for a long-armed actor.

7

One of several stuffed crows that roost in the shop’s upper reaches.

8 Adelle Welch ’25 working on floral pants for the Leonato.

9 Tea set from Goodwill, where Farrell and her students take a break for tea each afternoon.

THREE COOL CATS

A few days after his selection as Bates’ ninth president, Garry W. Jenkins visited campus for a whirlwind two-day visit that included work and fun, like meeting the Bobcat and President Clayton Spencer on Alumni Walk. To learn more about Bates’ next president, see page 27.