Bowdoin Magazine, Vol. 91, No. 3, Spring/Summer 2020

SPRING/SUMMER 2020 VOL. 91 NO. 3

FINDING OUR WAY Bowdoin alumni take the lead in uncertain times.

Contents SPRING/SUMMER 2020 VOL. 91 NO. 3

“Stress is building for our members around so much uncertainty.”

—BEN MARTENS ’06, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF MAINE COAST FISHERMEN’S ASSOCIATION

32 Why We Run

Running has various advantages and meanings for individuals, especially in a time when most of the country is homebound.

38 What’s in a Name?

20 Finding Our Way

As the pandemic began to sweep into the US, Bowdoin alumni in Maine, as in communities everywhere, were planning, preparing, and taking the lead.

The strange tale that led to the naming of Bowdoin’s most eccentric building.

46 Q&A

Dean Whitney Soule talks about college admissions in an upended world.

Forward 5

Fade To: Caroline Farber ’20 embarks on a writerly life.

7

Dine: Award-winning Maine crab breakfast flatbread

from Dining’s Isaac Aldrich.

8

Library: Bowdoin librarians get creative in the face of COVID-19, illustrated by Rose Wong.

10 Zoom, Zoom!: There are Bowdoin backgrounds on Zoom— and then there’s a real Bowdoin background at Zoom.

13

One More Cup of Coffee: Molly Safford sets

the café tone.

18 Column: Lee Rowe ’70 tells of lessons learned in nearly fifty years as a doctor.

Connect 49 Scott Budde ’81 and Charlotte Cole ’82

at home in Maine.

50 Richard Geldard ’57 talks contrasting decades of influence.

58 Zully Hatch ’11 on college success.

In Every Issue 4 Respond 48 Whispering Pines 64 Here BOWDOIN MAGAZINE SPRING/SUMMER 2020 | CLASSNEWS@BOWDOIN.EDU 2

ENCOURAGING WORDS Following his first communication about the novel coronavirus on March 4, President Clayton Rose wrote to the Bowdoin community another seventeen times—with words of support and concern, links to resources, information about finances, and updates about the groups at work on the challenges ahead. In the message that came during the last days of exams, on May 15, he closed with this paragraph: “Every college and university in this country is contending with exactly the same issues that we face. Notwithstanding the seriousness of the global health crisis and related economic distress, and the difficult decisions and painful periods ahead, we are fortunate and as well positioned as any school to weather the challenges. Thanks to prudent management, wise investments, and generous donors over many years, we have financial strength. Our model of personal learning is crafted and guided by exceptional faculty devoted to the education of students who are kind, collaborative, smart, imaginative, and independent thinkers. And it is sustained by an amazing staff who devote their professional lives to making Bowdoin better every day. And, perhaps most importantly, we are a community built on care for one another, resilience, and determination. None of this will be diminished by the current crisis.”

A tree blooms on campus on May 23, 2020, the day that Commencement would have occurred. Photo by Fred Field.

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PHOTO:ARTIST_CREDIT

Respond

Love for Maine YOUR WINTER 2020 VOLUME was the finest issue of Bowdoin Magazine in my sixty-nine years of loyal readership. The special feeling for Maine was beautifully illustrated on the cover, lovingly and warmly expressed in your letter, and maintained throughout. Having been concerned about the percentage decline in the number of Maine students for several decades, your winter issue is spectacular reassurance that students respect and revere the College’s Maine roots. Congratulations! You have produced a treasured keepsake celebrating Maine’s bicentennial.

Alan L. Baker ’51

INSTA LOVE I’m just enamored with the illustrations

by Portland, Maine, artist Pat Corrigan that accompanied articles in the latest @bowdoincollege magazine. [And] the tear-out heart on heavy stock—a framer!

Stephanie Rogers ’94 (@readeatsee) via Instagram CREDIT As the wife of a Bowdoin alumnus (’62), I am writing with a compliment and commentary. I just love the frameable art of “Maine Love,” and the letter accompanying it!

However, I have searched the magazine for the names of the artist and author.

They deserve to be

recognized. Thank you for your highquality publication— it is always a pleasure to receive and read it!

The excellence of Bowdoin is evident in all ways.

Martina Eastman (H. Wilson Eastman ’62) Editor: Bowdoin Magazine Art Director Melissa Wells designed the Maine heart graphic. Executive Editor Alison Bennie wrote the accompanying letter.

PITCH PERFECT I thoroughly enjoyed Brock Clarke’s “We’re All Related.”

It captures the essence of Maine humor—funny, yes, but with the wit of a subtle humorist.

Going to Bowdoin in the late ’50s introduced me to the

facebook.com/bowdoin

genre—first from my dear departed good friend, classmate, and fraternity brother Phil Wilson ’60, who had a wealth of these stories, some his own, told with the perfect “Maine pitch.”

Bob Spencer ’60 TIES THAT BIND Reading Bowdoin Magazine and the article about the medical school, I was surprised to see my relative, John Budd Thompson (Class of 1896), in the photo that listed faculty. My paternal grandmother was a Thompson whose family built a home near Brunswick that I still visit occasionally. It was one of the reasons I applied to Bowdoin. There’s an old panoramic

@BowdoinCollege

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photo of the Quad (circa 1908) hanging in the kitchen.

Tim Hayes ’00 CORRECTION The Medical School of Maine feature in our last issue identified William Allen as Bowdoin’s second president; he was the third (Jesse Appleton was the second). On page 31 of that same piece, the year “2021” should have read “1921.”

STAY IN TOUCH!

MAGAZINE STAFF Editor Matt O’Donnell Consulting Editor Scott Schaiberger ’95 Executive Editor Alison Bennie Associate Editor Leanne Dech Designer and Art Director Melissa Wells Design Consultant 2COMMUNIQUÉ Contributors Jim Caton Rebecca Goldfine Scott Hood Micki Manheimer Tom Porter On the Cover: Mark Swann ’84 talks on the phone with photographer Heather Perry while she interviews and photographs him in the Bowdoin Pines near Whittier Field. The portraits in our cover story are inspired by Perry’s Six Feet Apart project: sixfeetapartproject.com.

Reach out and update us on what you’ve been up to since graduation. Send us an email at classnews@ bowdoin.edu.

BOWDOIN MAGAZINE (ISSN: 0895-2604) is published three times a year by Bowdoin College, 4104 College Station, Brunswick, Maine, 04011.

Printed by J.S. McCarthy, Augusta, Maine. Sent free of charge to all Bowdoin alumni, parents of current and recent undergraduates, members of the senior class, faculty and staff, and members of the Association of Bowdoin Friends.

To read the full versions of these excerpted letters, plus additional mail, visit bowdoin.edu/magazine.

Opinions expressed in this magazine are those of the authors.

@bowdoincollege

Please send address changes, ideas, or letters to the editor to the address above or by email to bowdoineditor@bowdoin.edu. Send class news to classnews@bowdoin.edu or to the address above.

Forward FROM BOWDOIN AND BEYOND

FADE TO

Caroline Farber ’20, who interned with The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and with Law & Order: SVU, was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa and graduated on May 23 with plans to pursue a career as a writer and performer. A champion high school golfer, she cocaptained the golf team at Bowdoin and earned Academic All-NESCAC honors this spring. “I guess I should take this opportunity to thank my dad,” she said, “for suggesting I sleep on it one more night after I’d decided to apply early decision to another school. Phew.”

PHOTO: GRETA RYBUS

In fall of my sophomore year, I took “Character, Plot, Scene, Theme, Dream” with Professor Anthony Walton, a class that completely changed my outlook on creative writing and my hopes for the future.

We spent time in class meticulously breaking down scripts and films and workshopping each other’s work to truly learn the craft. I couldn’t get enough of it. Professor Walton is one of the most inspiring, encouraging, and thoughtful professors I’ve had the pleasure of learning from, and he has been beyond influential in helping me grow as a writer.

At Bowdoin, I was part of Purity Pact, a sketch and stand-up comedy group for those who identify as women and nonbinary, which really ignited my passion for comedy and was an important part of my Bowdoin experience. I got to write and perform comedy with talented, funny, supportive, and passionate individuals, many of whom became my closest friends.

It was incredibly sad to lose senior spring and the culmination of an amazing experience at Bowdoin, and I’ve definitely felt a lot of grief in that, while trying to stay grateful for all that I still have. A positive aspect is that, with some extra time, I was able to start interning remotely for Fortitude International as a script reader.

Learning remotely made me even more grateful for Bowdoin professors—just to see the effort they put into making sure that not only were we getting the most out of the class as students but also that we, as people, were taking care.

For more of our interview with Caroline, visit bowdoin.edu/magazine.

Forward Athletics

Campus Life

AND YOU WILL THRIVE!

From Lax Gear to PPE Lacrosse equipment company StringKing makes a nimble pivot.

JAKE MCCAMPBELL ’11 described it as an “oh sh*t moment”—the realization that the sports equipment company he cofounded nine years ago could make a meaningful contribution in the fight against the novel coronavirus. But it would take a lot of work. The former Bowdoin lacrosse player is president of StringKing, a maker of high-end lacrosse gear that also includes on its roster former Bowdoin lacrosse teammates Jeff Cutter ’09 (senior partner), Owen “Kit” Smith ’11 (partner), and Mark Flibotte ’12 (head of marketing and creative).

After the spring sports seasons were canceled in early March, StringKing repositioned itself as a major supplier of masks and surgical gowns for health workers. Within a day of setting up a web

page to supply personal protective equipment (PPE), StringKing had requests for 200 million masks. Utilizing a network of suppliers and manufacturers on the West Coast and in China, StringKing was supplying nearly 450,000 PPE items every day by late April.

Among the customers using StringKing PPE on the front lines is Augy Kerschner ’11, another former Bowdoin teammate, now a resident emergency room physician in New Jersey. “Our hospital was running extremely low on PPE,” said Kerschner, “to the point where my program director was trying to personally buy masks for our department. I reached out to Kit at StringKing when I heard what they were trying to do and ended up getting a muchneeded delivery of sixty-five boxes of masks.”

Above: Former Bowdoin lax teammates Kit Smith ’11, Jake McCampbell ’11, Jeff Cutter ’09, and Mark Flibotte ’12 wearing StringKing masks on the manufacturing floor of the company’s Gardena, California, headquarters, where the lacrosse equipment manufacturer pivoted to producing PPE for frontline health providers.

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For its eighth annual Celebration of Out Seniors, the Sexuality, Women, and Gender Center (SWAG) invited seniors, student allies, alumni, staff, and faculty to join a festive, funny, and moving online gathering. Special guests included trustee Dee Spagnuolo ’96, Emmy Award-winning comedy writer Matt Roberts ’93, and Assistant Professor of Sociology Theo Greene. People Zoomed in from across the country, there was powerful conversation, ten seniors were applauded for their accomplishments, and “we raised a glass to all of the classmates who couldn’t be with us, either because they have yet to be able to come out, or they are out but not able to be out where they are living now,” said Kate Stern, SWAG director and associate dean of students for inclusion and diversity. The event concluded with a parody song, “And You Will Thrive! Parody for Senior Dinner, COVID-Style,” written

by Roberts, Stern, and SWAG associate director Rachel Reinke to the tune of “I Will Survive.”

For more, visit bowdoin.edu/news.

PHOTO: STRINGKING

Dine

Maine Crab Breakfast Flatbread Recipe by Isaac Aldrich This flatbread was the winning entry for the 2020 Incredible Breakfast Cook-Off held in South Portland in February to kick off Maine Restaurant Week. It was the second first-prize finish for Bowdoin culinary manager Isaac Aldrich, who also won the contest in 2016.

Serves four to six Preheat oven to 400 degrees. ½ pound applewood-smoked bacon Flatbread sauce: 5 ounces cream cheese 2 eggs 2 teaspoons sugar 2 tablespoons lemon juice ¼ teaspoon kosher salt ½ cup milk To assemble: 3 naan flatbreads 1 red bell pepper, small diced ½ bunch fresh tarragon, finely chopped ½ pound fresh Maine crabmeat 1 cup candied or sweet sliced jalapeños* *Jalapeños may be purchased, or see our recipe online at bowdoin.edu/magazine to make them in advance.

Cut the bacon into three- to four-inch strips and place them in a single layer in a skillet; brown over medium-low heat until crisp and set aside. While the bacon is cooking, combine all ingredients for the flatbread sauce in a medium saucepan and cook gently over low heat, whisking occasionally, until well combined and smooth. Add additional milk if the sauce seems too thick to spread easily.

Place the naan on a cookie sheet or baking tray. Spread a third of the sauce over each piece of naan and top each with a third of the crab, bacon, and red pepper. Bake for 12 minutes or desired crispiness. Remove from the oven and top each with a pinch of tarragon and some candied jalapeños.

Isaac Aldrich is culinary manager for Bowdoin Dining Service, where he works in Thorne Hall. Prior to coming to Bowdoin in 2019, he worked as executive chef in catering companies in Maine and Colorado, and he was executive chef at Sebasco Harbor Resort. He earned his culinary degree at New England Culinary Institute, and he’s online at @ChefAldrich.

DID YOU KNOW? Maine crabmeat comes from two species—peekytoe (also called rock crab) and Jonah crab. The name “peekytoe” was coined by a seafood merchant in Portland, as a version of what Down East Mainers were calling “picked toe” (in that vernacular, “picked” is a word for “sharp”).

Forward

Librarians, archivists, and circulation staff were available online, twelve hours a day, providing assistance via email, chat, video conferencing, or phone.

Materials were pulled daily and made ready for “takeout” at Hawthorne-Longfellow’s front door.

Left something behind in a study carrel? The circulation department tracked it down!

Did You Know?

Going Above and Beyond Bowdoin librarians get creative in the face of COVID-19.

Illustration by Rose Wong WHEN THE ANNOUNCEMENT was made over spring break that the College would be transitioning to remote learning, Library staff started planning immediately for how they would best be able to continue to support students and faculty. Existing services were reimagined, new opportunities implemented, and all aspects of the Library— research support, technical services, the digital initiatives group, collections, interlibrary loan, the media commons, circulation, and special collections—stepped up, pitched in, and pulled off some impressive feats.

For more about the Library, visit library.bowdoin.edu.

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Research librarians joined classes— synchronously and asynchronously— to teach sessions on conducting research and assist students and faculty more directly.

Publishers increased open access to e-book, e-journal, and streaming content more than ever before.

Overdue books? Not a problem. Loan periods were extended, overdue charges waived, and UPS mailing labels were provided to students so they could easily ship books to campus.

Special Collections & Archives documented the College’s response by saving the official COVID-19 website and related emails and setting up a community oral history and journaling project.

The Library managed the process for eighty-five students who submitted honors projects online.

Purchasing of digital versions of needed materials began immediately. When digital wasn’t an option, staff scanned and emailed book chapters and articles from the Library’s collections.

Bowdoin was among more than 150 libraries nationwide that formed a group to pool resources in support of the massive transition to online learning and teaching.

Forward Alumni Life

On the Shelf The Lady’s Handbook for Her Mysterious Illness: A Memoir SARAH RAMEY ’03

(Doubleday, 2020) In this harrowing, defiant, and darkly funny memoir, Ramey recounts the decade-long saga of how a seemingly minor illness in her senior year of college turned into a condition that destroyed her health but that doctors couldn’t diagnose or treat. Worse, as they failed to cure her, they hinted that her devastating symptoms were psychological.

Zoom, Zoom!

The Seventh Power: One CEO’s Journey into the Business of Shared Leadership KEVIN HANCOCK ’88, P’17

Sailing Under John Paul Jones: The Memoir of Continental Navy Midshipman Nathaniel Fanning, 1778–1783

(Post Hill Press, 2020)

Edited by LOUIS ARTHUR NORTON ’58

(McFarland, 2019)

No Option but North: The Migrant World and the Perilous Path Across the Border

An Elegant Woman: A Novel

KELSEY FREEMAN ’16

MARTHA McPHEE ’87

(Ig Publishing, 2020)

(Scribner, 2020)

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The videoconference company Zoom has enjoyed explosive growth since it became the go-to communications platform for many families, friends, and businesses during the lockdown. There are Bowdoin backgrounds you can use on Zoom—and then there’s real Bowdoin background at Zoom.

IN DECEMBER 2019 Priscilla (McCarthy) Barolo ’07, head of

communications at Zoom Video Communications, went on maternity leave. She returned in April to a company that was barely recognizable. Millions of people were turning to Zoom as an essential tool for working and socializing from home during the pandemic. “In the space of four months, we went from 10 million daily meeting participants to 300 million, and became an incredibly high-profile company,” Barolo said. “There is no precedent here for what we’re doing, and there is both tremendous noise and tremendous opportunity around the company.” Zoom stock has nearly tripled since the start of the year, and by mid-May the company was valued at nearly $50 billion dollars.

While Barolo’s rise with Zoom may appear meteoric, it’s a fairly traditional story about preparation leading to opportunity.

After Bowdoin, where she majored in sociology, Barolo worked in the nonprofit sector in Boston before moving back to her native California to pursue an MBA. “In 2013, while still in my graduate program, I found a role at a teeny tiny new startup called Zoom. I began as a jill-of-all-trades marketer and slowly built up my expertise as the company grew.”

ILLUSTRATION: SWITCHED DESIGN

Nate Richam-Odoi ’20, the first Bowdoin running back to earn All-NESCAC honors in team history, was the recipient of this year’s Most Outstanding Male Athlete Award from the Bowdoin athletics department. His 830 rushing yards last season placed him fourth on Bowdoin’s all-time single-season list, and his 2,186 career yards land him the fifth spot in the Polar Bear record book.

Game On

AWARDS SEASON In lieu of its annual All-Sports Awards Ceremony on the first day of the spring reading period, Bowdoin’s Department of Athletics celebrated its 2019–2020 academic year with virtual awards, announced over the course of a week on its website and social media channels.

Among the awards handed out were to seniors Nate Richam-Odoi (football, Most Outstanding Male Athlete); Maddie Hasson (women’s basketball, Lucy Shulman Award for Outstanding Female Athlete); Kara Finnerty (field hockey and women’s lacrosse, Sidney J. Watson Award for Outstanding Multi-Sport Athlete); Eric Mah (baseball, Frederick G. P. Thorne Award for Outstanding Male Leadership); and Samantha Roy (women’s basketball, Anne L. E. Dane Award for Outstanding Female Leadership).

Olivia Ware, women’s basketball, was awarded the Wil Smith ’00 Community Service Award. Elle Brine, field hockey and women’s lacrosse, was recognized as the recipient of the Society of Bowdoin Women Award. Caroline Shipley, women’s cross-country and track and field, and Jack O’Connor, men’s lacrosse, received the Academic Achievement Award.

PHOTO: BRIAN BEARD

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Forward

24,000

500

100

volunteers from across the Bowdoin community helped by packing contents of dorm rooms, staffing a helpline, storing items for students, and providing rides to the airport.

3,150 boxes were used.

(The College purchased the entire stock of three nearby U-Haul stores.)

pounds were shipped by the Campus Mail Center (680 packages, each weighing about 40 pounds).

students had not left campus for spring break.

350

5

students could not make it back to Brunswick and had to rely on friends and volunteers to pack and ship their belongings.

days—the time it took Campus Services to process and ship everything. That amount of material would normally require four weeks to move.

264

rolls of packing tape were used by Campus Services to seal boxes for shipment (totaling 12.75 miles—more than twice the height of Mt. Everest).

800 students returned to campus to pack their own belongings.

By the Numbers

All-Campus Teamwork On March 11, 2020, because of the COVID-19 health crisis, the College made the decision to complete the semester through remote learning and told students they would not be returning to campus after spring break. An immediate issue became the logistical challenge of ensuring that some 1,700 students were able to retrieve their belongings. Through a Herculean effort, staff and volunteers completed this task—exacerbated by the fact that the majority of the student body was away at the time—within a week. “I’ve been working at Bowdoin close to thirty years,” said Chris Taylor, assistant director of campus services, “and one thing I learned early on is that the generosity of this community can never be overestimated.”

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ILLUSTRATION: DAVID PLUNKERT

Staff

Sound Bite

“The most interesting people are the ones who fail. And I don’t think that’s only true in the arts and the humanities either; I mean, science is all about failing.”

—PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR ANTHONY DOERR ’95, H’17 DURING A LIVESTREAM CONVERSATION WITH A. LEROY GREASON PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH BROCK CLARKE TO CELEBRATE DOERR’S 25TH REUNION.

Molly Safford sets the tone at the café.

One More Cup of Coffee Bowdoin students might be centennials, but plenty of them dig the Smith Union Café’s classic rock ‘n’ roll.

Dining Service’s Molly Safford, who runs the café, keeps classic hits station 107.5 FM playing throughout her shift. “A lot of students have complimented me for my music,” she said, “and asked me for my playlist!”

Safford grew up in Freeport and Brunswick with music as a constant part of her life. “Listening to the radio while riding in the back seat of my parents’ car, flipping tapes over on my very first Walkman, sitting in my cousin’s bedroom and playing The Doors albums on her record player.”

While she loves songs from the ’60s to the early ’80s, Safford says she appreciates all music. Her teenage girls have even softened her to current pop.

Safford first started working in dining at Bowdoin in 1997, when she was a high school sophomore. She’s been working full time since 2001 and took over as acting café manager last fall.

Her favorite parts of the job are “the fast pace, the hustle and bustle,” and her regulars. The café typically serves between 400 and 600 people a day.

These days, she’s missing the café routine and her team of student workers.

“They’re exceptional, bright, and they pick right up on our fast, friendly expectations,” she said.

Safford especially exemplifies the friendly aspect of her role. “You never know if someone woke up and heard the worst news of their life,” she said.

“So, I always smile and tell them to have a nice day. It’s a way to acknowledge students’ feelings and set the tone.”

Listen to “Molly’s Café Playlist” on the Bowdoin College Spotify channel.

PHOTO: BOB HANDELMAN

Maine

FOREVER MAINE For the 200th anniversary of Maine’s statehood, the US Postal Service issued a new “Forever” stamp featuring a painting by American painter Edward Hopper (1882–1967).

Painted during the first of nine summers that Hopper spent in Maine, Sea at Ogunquit (1914) captures Maine’s iconic rugged coastline. In 2011, the Bowdoin College Museum of Art organized the first comprehensive exhibition devoted to Hopper’s artistic production in Maine, including Sea at Ogunquit. The exhibition drew nearly 44,000 visitors to the Museum over its run from mid-July until October 16 that year.

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Forward Campus Life

Alumni Life

The award-winning Proclamation Duo

Cue the McKeen Center One of the first things the McKeen Center for the Common Good did once the extent of the pandemic’s threat became clear was to reach out to local nonprofits to ask how the Bowdoin community could help. At the same time, many students and alumni contacted McKeen Center staff to ask how they could pitch in. So, in a communal effort—with the McKeen Center serving as a kind of clearinghouse—Bowdoin students, staff, faculty, and alumni came up with many ways to help during the COVID-19 crisis. Three examples were: Senior Call-in Program: Volunteer students, staff, and faculty were paired with isolated older adults in the Brunswick area to check in on them regularly by phone.

Read-Alouds for Young Children: Students, staff, and faculty were invited to record themselves reading their favorite children’s book to post on the websites of Coffin Elementary and Harriet Beecher Stowe’s school libraries.

Maine Students Blood Drive: Addie Browne ’16 worked with Bowdoin students in the Prehealth Society to run a statewide blood drive to increase declining donations. “If students can get out there and donate, it is one of the ways they can help, and it is one of the ways we can come together as a community,” said club coleader Diego Villamarin ’20.

For more of the McKeen Center’s programming, visit bowdoin.edu/mckeen-center.

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Cooking with a Conscience After two years of prep work, Chris Burrage ’08 brought his direct-to-consumer cookware firm, Proclamation Goods, to market, and almost instantly bagged a design award.

WITH A BUSINESS BACKGROUND in consumer products, a flair for design, a love of cooking,

and a commitment to the common good, Chris Burrage ’08 combined many important elements of his life into Proclamation Goods. He and cofounder Tony Leo launched the online cookware supplier in November 2019 after two years of perfecting products and building a supply chain. Just two months later, the Proclamation Duo picked up a worldrenowned 2020 iF Design Award for kitchen products.

The idea behind Proclamation Goods is “to cook more with less” by replacing a standard many-piece cookware set with a versatile two-piece “anti-set” that is nontoxic and ethically produced in the US. The company’s motto is “cookware with a conscience.”

Burrage majored in economics and government, but also has fond memories of art classes with renowned sculptor John Bisbee. During his four years at Bowdoin (where he met his future wife, Lindsey Bruett ’09), Burrage said he developed a set of ethical values he has taken with him into the business world. “The Proclamation Goods ethos isn’t far from the Bowdoin ethos of the common good,” explained Burrage. “It’s important to focus on the good food movement, and, as we get more success, we’ll reinforce our commitment to issues like reducing food waste, improving farm workers’ rights, and ensuring food access for those who don’t have it.”

After Columbia Business School, Burrage joined the mattress company Casper, where he ended up as general manager. With more people turning to home cooking during the 2020 pandemic, Burrage’s mission with Proclamation Goods is to reach consumers who want to get creative in the kitchen while also making a difference.

ILLUSTRATION: VIRINAFLORA; PHOTO: PROCLAMATION GOODS

On Stage

Under a Bright Blue Sky In a normal year, Saturday of Memorial Day weekend would unfold with predictable rhythm: chairs in place, staff at their stations, faculty gathering regalia, and then everyone descending, first in a trickle and then as a crowd, on the Quad.

The weather couldn’t have been better, with a temperature perfect for sitting in the sun in academic robes and a sky the brightest blue it could be.

President Rose and Eduardo Pazos Palma, director of the Rachel Lord Center for Religious and Spiritual Life, spoke from the terrace as in any year. But instead of to a crowd, they spoke to a camera, with members of the class watching from afar, all over the world.

What was the same, though, was the joy. The livestream started with a slideshow of photos sent in by members of the class, and it showed them taking advantage of everything this place has to offer. There was a video of greetings and congratulations from faculty and staff. Families might not have been able to shake hands with professors and coaches and deans, but they could see the inspiration and support they gave. There were so many smiles.

And the celebration ended with the same achievement that it always does— the walk across the terrace will wait, but the Class of 2020 became Bowdoin’s newest graduates as each one of their names rolled across the screen.

President Rose, with a small audience of his wife, Julianne, and Bowdoin staff, speaks to the Class of 2020 in a livestreamed event to confer their degrees and celebrate their accomplishments.

PHOTO: FRED FIELD

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Forward

Campus Life

e-VENTS Groups across campus coordinated an array of online activities during the latter half of the spring semester so that students and other members of the College community had opportunities to get together and blow off some steam.

Virtual Escape Rooms: This pop culture phenomenon is about cooperating with team members to advance to a new physical room or space. More than 1,400 students, faculty, staff, and alumni demonstrated their adaptability—and ingenuity—as they transitioned to an online version of the challenge requiring clue discovery, puzzle solving, and intrigue.

Literary Chat: Pulitzer Prize-winning author Anthony Doerr ’95, H’17 and A. Leroy Greason Professor of English Brock Clarke engaged in a livestreamed conversation to celebrate Reunion Weekend.

Stovetop Tips: Chef, recipe developer, and blogger Lidey Heuck ’13 led a cooking demonstration.

Beautiful Music: In addition to performing a virtual concert for hundreds of viewers in April, pianist George Lopez recorded a special improvisation of the alma mater for the Class of 2020.

See this lovely piece set to images of campus at bowdoin.edu/news.

Bowdoin Log: Head Baker Joanne Adams demonstrated how to make the famed dessert.

Art Class: Artist Jillian Demeri ’86 taught children to draw.

Quarantine Cooking Challenge: A New York Times-bestselling author and an Emmy Award-winning star of Netflix’s hit series Queer Eye, Antoni Porowski is the show’s food and wine expert.

He shared with Bowdoin community members his lifelong passion for food during two live online events in mid-May. Trivia Nights: A regular favorite in Magee’s Pub, the virtual iteration proved to be a popular way to unwind at the end of each distance-learning week.

Some of the College’s virtual programming is ongoing. For a list of upcoming live offerings available to the Bowdoin community, and to watch a selection of archived events, visit bowdoin.edu/live or Bowdoin’s YouTube channel.

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While George Lopez, Robert Beckwith Artist in Residence and director of the Bowdoin Orchestra, performed a piano concert to an empty hall in April, hundreds of people tuned in online to hear him play a variety of music, from Bach to Rachmaninov, to jazz and new age pieces. “It was a program of musical offerings designed to be an uplifting journey through all the emotions we’re experiencing during this time of crisis,” Lopez said.

PHOTO: DENNIS GRIGGS

On View

Campus Life

Making Progress From Here: The Campaign for Bowdoin Just weeks after the February public launch of Bowdoin’s $500 million comprehensive campaign, the COVID-19 pandemic put all College events and fundraising efforts on a new footing.

The campaign has added more than $33 million in gifts and pledges since the launch, and it is clear that the campaign priorities—focused tightly on financial aid and academic resources—are precisely where they need to be, both now and in the interest of securing the College’s future. Most heartening, Polar Bears everywhere have thought of Bowdoin and our students and asked: how can we help?

PHOTOS: (POLAR BEAR) MICHELE STAPLETON; (EXHIBITION) DENNIS GRIGGS

“Electroknit Dynamaxion,” 2019, machine-knitted cotton on wood panels and documentary materials, by Cat Mazza, part of the Fast Fashion/Slow Art exhibition at the Museum of Art, with a digital version online.

VISIT FROM HOME When the Museum galleries went dark in March to help contain the coronavirus, the Bowdoin College Museum of Art (BCMA) lit up its online spaces.

Museum staff were determined to continue their mission of delivering art, history, ideas, and culture to the public. Indeed, the pandemic calls for an even greater engagement from the art world, argued BCMA codirector Anne Goodyear.

“It is incumbent upon artists and museum staff, as human beings and as cultural advocates for visual art, to do what we can do for our audiences at home who may be looking for exposure to art, and solace and sustenance through art,” she said.

The Museum already has a vast online collection (bowdoin.edu/art-museum) and has since March expanded its range of digital exhibitions and programs. Website visitors can now explore a new show on the arts of Central and West Africa, curated by the students in the history course “The Powers of Central African Art.” And virtual visitors can interact with the Museum collections—and help make them more searchable—by using a crowd-sourced tagging program to add thematic keywords to artworks.

As it waits to reopen safely, the Museum is planning additional interactive live events with artists, as well as more e-exhibitions, including a guided virtual tour of Rufus Porter’s Curious World: Art and Invention in America, 1815–1860, a digital version of the Fast Fashion/Slow Art exhibition, and a new Young Learner’s Resource Center.

“Electronic portals have a flexibility that steel and marble don’t have,” Goodyear said.

“In this moment of cultural crisis, we have extraordinary resources at our fingertips to connect the world with individuals and artists whose visions can inspire us.”

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Column

Through Fear to Empathy Approaching what would have been his 50th Reunion, Lee Rowe ’70 tells of lessons learned over nearly as many years as a doctor. As his colleagues now fight for their patients’ and their own survival, those lessons have never mattered more.

“THE FUTURE OF HUMANITY is held in the hands of those who are willing to learn with empathy for all people.”

I wrote those words to a Bowdoin classmate last year, approaching the end of my clinical career and reflecting on nearly fifty years as a physician. I was considering the tremendous impact by my medical school professors, who nurtured our medical profession as a global force to improve the lives of humanity. They had helped to forge a union of the humanities and sciences, which resonated powerfully with my undergraduate experience at Bowdoin. My professors instilled in me over a half century ago the desire to live life in the pursuit of knowledge and, though sometimes hard, to do so joyously.

For nearly forty years, I served a blue-collar neighborhood in a river district in northeast Philadelphia, Port Richmond. The Polish, Irish, and German immigrants who lived there filled three Catholic churches on Allegheny Avenue for weekly mass and provided labor for factories that are now gone.

Over time, Port Richmond witnessed the protean effects of demographic change, with an accompanying increase in poverty, homelessness, and violence. During those years, I played many roles, among them chief of surgery of Northeastern Hospital—a community institution vital for emergency care as well as many specialties, including my own field of otolaryngology/ head and neck surgery.

Life in the neighborhoods, especially for the working poor who do not qualify for Medicaid

and who cannot afford private insurance, is especially difficult. Many of the children I cared for were receiving government assistance through CHIP (Children’s Health Insurance Program) and SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program). Our community still had pockets of elderly Eastern Europeans who clung to their traditions, as well as police and firemen who were required to live within the boundaries of the City of Philadelphia. In addition, scattered like millet seeds among the growing barrios were millennials who were gentrifying city blocks.

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This was their community, and it became mine. Over the past several years, when morning would come on the avenue, I would pick up trash, discarded needles, and, periodically, human waste. I would rouse rough sleepers off the porches of the three row homes that served as our offices across the street from the hospital. I started to identify with and share their concerns.

As a surgeon, I dealt with facial and neck traumas, obstructed airways, and life-threatening hemorrhages, among other maladies. I learned

ILLUSTRATION: ANNA & ELENA BALBUSSO

The art of medicine is the art of healing.

It demands empathy—taking on the burden of another person’s suffering, but not succumbing to it. to compartmentalize my fears and maintain a surface layer of poise and courage. I knew from decades of rushing into emergency and operating rooms in the middle of the night that fatigue was not an option. In order to survive, you must maintain a willingness to not give up, to be imaginative and inventive, to turn the world topsy-turvy if necessary.

My own son, Christopher, was born with cystic fibrosis, a fatal genetic disorder that causes progressive loss of lung and pancreatic function.

When he was born, Chris’s life expectancy was about twenty years. I was told by his lung specialist, “Don’t worry. Stay focused on your own field. Leave Chris’s care to us.” Ten years ago, while I was in the operating room performing a surgery, I received a phone call that my son had died. There was no time to cry—I had to finish two more scheduled surgeries.

Chris had recently been hospitalized for yet another lung infection and had been discharged.

Two nights later, he died in his sleep. But I knew in my heart it wasn’t his disease that killed him. It was an accidental overdose of opioids that he had been taking for chronic pain, for which all his physicians, myself included, bore responsibility.

Driving back to Philadelphia from Los Angeles in my son’s car with his ashes, I had never felt lonelier or more filled with grief. I had no travel companion, the radio was broken, and I had no words—I was voiceless.

When I started my career, I was afraid to tell my patients that they had cancer. How do you look into someone’s eyes and tell them that the lump in their throat is cancer, and they will need their voice box removed? The fear and isolation in their voices challenged me to be honest, listen to their needs, and guide them

through treatment choices. Sometimes, sadly, there are no remaining choices.

The art of medicine is the art of healing. It demands empathy—taking on the burden of another person’s suffering, but not succumbing to it. This is at the heart of our basic principles, whether we are doctors or newly minted Bowdoin graduates.

When I began writing this piece, the pandemic that has now changed our lives was a faraway occurrence, left to the World Health Organization and our federal government to consider.

That has changed in one breath. My colleagues are now fighting a war where they can’t see the enemy. They do not have the protective barriers to keep the invading army out of their patients’ lungs—or their own. Fear and the specter of death crowd hospital hallways. Physicians worry they will have to decide who will receive a ventilator and who will not. They are fatigued and fearful. They send otherwise healthy young people to an intensive care unit who die suddenly twenty-four hours later. This shakes all of us. Our collective hope lives in empathy.

Empathy is the fruit of the well-rounded life fused with our practical understanding of the humanities and the sciences. It is the progeny of our liberal arts education. It requires daily practice.

The most important thing I’ve learned as a physician is to listen. Listen to those who are in pain. They will tell you everything you need to know. Learn patience. If we listen to a person’s story, it can connect to our own life’s narrative.

Understand that every one of us needs to let go of something from their past. When we are trying to imagine someone else’s life, we are connected to them. Through the silence of listening, we can give peace to our own hearts and minds.

The pandemic is a worldwide calamity that we need to confront together with equanimity and empathy. Now is the time to listen in a nonjudgmental and uncondescending fashion, and to help people—with courage and hope.

Caregivers and their patients who together encounter their fears of death and failure will through their shared empathy become a source of life for others.

When I originally wrote this piece, it included the anticipated joy of reunion, a time to greet old friends and enjoy their fellowship. I never thought that instead of rekindling memories and sharing stories I would be thinking about the value of dying well and with dignity. But here, in the face of a scourge that terrifies people with the most frightening aspect of dying—the fear of dying alone and not being able to say goodbye—I accept that time is infinite. There will always be time for reunion.

Now is the time for us to reflect and take stock of what we learned at Bowdoin—and beyond. Life is both devastatingly tragic and amazingly beautiful. Now is the time for telling those we love how much their lives mean to us.

Living in the moment is not a platitude. We are incredibly strong, and the love for our lost ones will never die. Hope will survive, and so will we.

We need to listen and to confront our fears with poise and courage. We need to learn to embrace empathy for all human beings and maintain a zest for a life of inquiry. The art of medicine is learning to balance the competing and complementary messages of the humanities and the sciences. In these and all other challenging times, the art of life sustains us.

Time, whether a half century or a pandemic moment, can be transformational and from it may slowly emerge the voice of wisdom.

Our Bowdoin experience began a lifetime of learning, but without empathy, there would have been no wisdom. Without wisdom, we cannot heal others—or ourselves. The future of humanity is the empathy for others that we hold in our hands.

Trustee emeritus Lee Rowe ’70 is associate clinical professor of otolaryngology and head and neck surgery at the Sydney Kimmel Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia.

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In the earliest days of the pandemic’s sweep into the US, you could be excused for feeling a little bit safe in Maine, removed as the state was from spots of COVID-19’s deadliest surge. But even in those early days, Bowdoin alumni in Maine were planning, preparing, and getting in place to tackle not just the virus but the effects it would have on Maine’s industry, children and families, and our most vulnerable populations. These local examples—neighbors fighting to keep others safe—symbolize what we know are similar stories, and similar acts, by Polar Bears everywhere.

Finding Our Way Set in the Bowdoin Pines near Whittier Field, these portraits were inspired by Heather Perry’s Six Feet Apart project, which includes Perry interviewing her subjects by mobile phone as she photographs them. Without daycare, parents brought children along, adding to the particular energy of the moment.

Opposite page: Ben Martens ’06

BY KATIE BENNER ’99

PHOTOGRAPHS BY HEATHER PERRY

WHEN FISHERMEN IN MAINE first noticed that sales

in Asia had slowed, few Americans had heard of the novel coronavirus. Some had heard about a mysterious virus in China or read news reports when authorities locked down Wuhan, home to eleven million people, in an attempt to stop its spread. But the problem seemed like just another sad news story happening someplace far away.

But Ben Martens ’06, executive director of the Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association, was learning all that he could about the new coronavirus. Members of his organization rely heavily on Asian customers who buy lobster and monkfish. As prices dropped, he wondered how severe and long-lasting the slowdown would be, and he sought new buyers who could get the industry through a hard couple of months. But he thought that an epidemic “couldn’t happen here in the United States, in Maine.”

Just thirty miles down the coast, Dr. Dora Anne Mills ’82, chief health improvement officer at MaineHealth, had been receiving increasingly urgent updates about the burgeoning virus all winter. She and her colleagues hoped that the virus would be contained overseas, but over the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend, they prepared their eleven hospitals for a public health emergency.

MaineHealth created a way to flag patient files for symptoms of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, and created protocols for safely treating potential coronavirus cases.

They posted signs about fevers and coughs at the entrances to all their facilities, and they began to order more protective gear and testing equipment for MaineHealth’s 23,000 employees.

“By early February, I was working on coronavirus probably at least half of my time, and by the end of February, it was all my time,” said Mills, who, prior to MaineHealth, was director for public health for the State of Maine and director of the Maine CDC for fifteen years.

Martens and Mills had an early look at a health care and economic crisis that has paralyzed much of the world. When the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the fast-spreading coronavirus a global health emergency at the end of January, few Americans understood how severely it would affect their lives. But, as it tore through large swaths of the country, the gravity

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Audra Caler ’05, town manager of Camden, and her sons, Theo, five, and Asher, two. “At this stage, Maine has been fortunate,” she said. “We’ve had good leadership. People have been proactive. The Maine CDC has been wonderful in terms of the guidance they have provided.”

of the situation became clear—the virus would spark the most serious health and economic crisis that politicians, educators, social workers, business owners, and medical professionals have faced in generations.

Many of the leaders who fought to keep Maine safe were Bowdoin alumni, whose response to the virus was swift and humane and guided by expertise. And their guidance will continue to be needed as the state’s quarantine lifts to help revive the economy.

“The closing down was the easier part,” said Mills. “The opening up will be harder.”

The new coronavirus came to America early this year, showing up first in Washington state, where politicians hoped it would be contained.

But the virus was exceedingly contagious. Public health officials watched with dread as it spread through Europe in February and the death toll in China topped 1,000 people.

The nation’s first responders heard about how quickly the virus had spread in Washington and how severely ill people had become. Some noted that Italy’s reported cases grew exponentially, from just a handful to more than 150 in a matter of days, and that officials had locked down towns and canceled events. They grew alarmed.

“A lot of our awareness started with our emergency services and the fire department,” said Audra Caler ’05, the town manager of Camden, Maine. “They just knew it was happening. They’re connected with other departments across the country, and they were aware early on that this was something they’d have to prepare for.”

Not every town and city heeded early warnings, but Caler decided to plan for a possible epidemic. “In February, we started to think, okay, this will directly affect all of us,” she said.

Along with the fire department, the police department, and the town’s financial managers, she identified areas that could be hard hit by a virus, like Camden’s three elder care facilities.

“Our fire chief is also our emergency management director, and he worked with the nursing homes early to outline plans and make sure they had the resources they needed to respond,” she said. (As of late May, none of those facilities had experienced a severe outbreak.)

Homebound people would also need extra help, so Camden modified a police program,

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“Here they were, making this most challenging decision to close, and yet they were calling me to ask how they could help.”

“Good Morning, Camden,” which it used to check in on the town’s elderly residents. Officers would now check in on more people and see if they needed essential supplies.

Caler’s apprehension grew when seasonal residents returned to town months earlier than usual to escape potential coronavirus hot spots.

Camden’s finance director began to procure more personal protective equipment, or PPE. First responders created new emergency response procedures that would protect them from exposure to the virus.

The State of Maine was preparing, too. On March 2, Governor Janet Mills convened a coronavirus response team led by Dr. Nirav Shah, the director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention, and commissioners who oversee public health and safety, education, veterans affairs, prisons, transportation, labor issues, finance, and emergency management. She also had conversations with her sister, Dora, about what was happening in the medical community. The picture did not look good. Nine days later, President Trump banned visitors from most of Europe. Stock markets fell. And the WHO deemed the coronavirus a global pandemic.

IN MARCH, THE WORLD CHANGED, SHARPLY AND SWIFTLY. In the beginning, some offices closed when employees were thought to have the virus, but life mostly proceeded as usual.

Tasha Graff ’07 attended a 250-person retirement party for her father on March 7 at the

—DORA ANNE MILLS ’82

Museum of Science in Boston. “We are so lucky no one got ill there,” she said. Guests nervously talked about the virus. Hardly anyone shook hands. Hand sanitizer flowed.

By the time Graff got back from Boston, panic buying had begun around South Portland, where she teaches high school English. Lines were longer, and shelves were emptier. News reports said that the virus could wreak havoc in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York City. While Maine seemed relatively safe, school administrators had started to hold meetings about the virus. She hoped that they would remain in session until the April break, when they could come up with a “plan B.” Several New England colleges moved to online learning. Martens, who lives in Brunswick, had heard that Bowdoin was thinking about closing the campus, and he “knew that the threat had moved to a new level” when it finally happened.

He ramped up his outreach to Maine’s congressional delegation, and his association made a bigger push to get health information to fishermen, many of whom were in demographics that were most impacted by the virus.

“I realized that my high school would close down sooner than later,” Graff said. “This was not something we wanted to be behind on.”

Caitlin Civiello ’10, an emergency room doctor at Mid Coast Hospital, flew to Florida to see her in-laws on the day that the NBA said a player had tested positive for coronavirus and it was suspending the basketball season.

Her hospital director asked her to return to Maine immediately. While Civiello was at the airport on her way home, Pen Bay Medical

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Center, where she picks up shifts, asked if she could work the following morning. The first patient in Maine had tested positive for the virus, and everyone would be in meetings related to the pandemic.

“I’d read about the virus spreading in Washington state and Italy and China, but I didn’t think it would affect me yet,” Civiello said.

“I wasn’t paying close attention to the medical aspect of the virus. It was still foreign to me and scary to walk into.”

Pen Bay had been asking outpatient doctors like Kendra Emery ’00 to sign up for inpatient privileges and to think about how the virus would change their work. The hospital opened an acute respiratory center to care for patients with respiratory complaints and to conduct drivethrough testing. Emery was tapped to lead it.

At the end of the week, President Trump declared a national emergency. Over the weekend, Governor Mills declared a civil state of emergency and recommended that classroom instruction and nonurgent medical procedures end as soon as possible.

Graff’s school emailed the faculty to say that they would immediately transition to remote learning. She had left her papers, laptop charger, and the book she was teaching on her desk. (It would be weeks before she saw the inside of her classroom again.) “The email said we’d have two staff days on Monday and Tuesday and then we’d start remote learning on Wednesday,” she said. “It felt surreal.”

Stephen Smith, the chief executive of L.L. Bean, asked Dora Anne Mills to call in to the store’s management team meeting. “I thought

Dora Anne Mills ’82 is chief health improvement officer at MaineHealth.

“I started medical school in 1982, and that was the beginning of the HIV/AIDS epidemic,” she said. “Some of my first patients were HIV/AIDS patients.

We didn’t know what was causing it.

There was a lot of fear.”

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he’d ask about what precautions they should take in the store,” Mills said. Instead he asked how the company could help her address the pandemic.

“Leon Gorman was the president for many years and went to Bowdoin,” Mills said. “He would have been so proud.”

They decided that the store could use its connections in Asia to buy masks, and that Mainers who made their outdoor equipment could make protective gear instead. Two days after the call with Mills, L.L. Bean closed its stores, but it would pay some of its employees to pack boxes for the Good Shepherd Food Bank.

“Here they were, making this most challenging decision to close, and yet they were calling me to ask how they could help,” Mills said.

The governor’s emergency declaration set off a wave of cancellations: St. Patrick’s Day parades, community gatherings, celebrations, weddings, and more. Restaurants and bars closed their dining rooms. Maine soon banned gatherings of more than ten people. Nonessential businesses closed. Maine saw 4,900 people file for unemployment the week of March 15, the highest weekly total since the Great Recession, according to News Center Maine.

Maine’s COVID-19 cases soon surpassed one hundred, and the US said that it had more confirmed cases than any other country in the world.

CITY HALLS, LIBRARIES, AND SOCIAL SERVICE AGENCIES IN PORTLAND HAD CLOSED. Many of the volunteers who gave their time to help vulnerable people had stopped leaving their homes. As resources for the poorest disappeared, the Preble Street Resource Center decided that it must keep its shelters, soup kitchens, and other essential operations going.

“Our clients are poor, and they are often thought about last,” said Mark Swann ’84, the executive director of Preble Street. “We wanted to make sure we were thinking about them first.”

Preble Street’s emergency planning group asked the CDC, health care experts, and colleagues around the country how to operate during the shutdown and keep everyone safe.

Staff received a 50 percent pay increase for hours worked at essential programs to help offset the

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Mark Swann ’84 is the executive director of Preble Street Resource Center in Portland. “It’s been the hardest two months of my career,” he said. “No question about it. But, we are home to a lot of people—we’re a safety net— and it was critical to stay strong and stay open.”

“Anyone doing this work around the country, we’re kind of holding our breath.”

—MARK SWANN ’84

new dangers and demands they faced, even though no one knew how Preble Street would offset the cost. Employees in finance, development, administration, and case management worked from home.

Similar organizations on the West Coast had turned their soup kitchens into takeout operations to stay open, and Swann intended to do the same. “This is the busiest soup kitchen in northern New England,” he said. “We had to plan for deliveries, change the cooking schedule, and ramp up our supply of to-go containers at a time when every restaurant was buying more. It all had to shift overnight.”

After the shift, Preble Street’s largest soup kitchen distributed about 300 meals a day from its facility and delivered 900 more to the YMCA, sober houses, and other shelters, as well as directly to people living on the streets—more than the 1,000 meals a day it served before the pandemic.

Demand continued to rise. Preble Street served 68,000 meals this March, 25 percent more than the previous March. It served over 100,000 meals in April, an 85 percent increase over April 2019. “The world is upside down,” Swann said.

Staff at the shelters spaced beds farther apart and set up handwashing stations. Upon the recommendation of infectious disease experts, they started to perform temperature checks and to log visitors in order to track and trace sick people.

In the midst of the upheaval, the state of Maine asked Preble Street to open a new shelter, underscoring the virus’s immediate and severe impact on the economy. During the Great

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Caitlin Civiello ’10, an emergency room doctor at Mid Coast Hospital, and her nine-month-old daughter, Cameron. When it’s finally time to leave the hospital, Civiello showers there, changes her clothes again when she gets home, and washes her hands another time before she picks up Cameron. “I can’t distance from Cameron, so when I’m at home I wash my hands a lot,” she said.

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Recession, the biggest increase in shelter numbers happened more than a year after the economy tanked. “It is really, truly a last resort to be homeless,” Swann said. “People will do anything they can—go further into debt, sell off their assets, move in with others to spread the rent burden—before they end up at our door.”

And yet the need was so great that Preble Street set up fifty emergency beds in a gym at the University of Southern Maine. The state also rented out a hotel for homeless people and group home residents who tested positive for the virus. “Anyone doing this work around the country, we’re kind of holding our breath,” Swann said.

The coronavirus pummeled the country all through the spring. By April, nearly 10 million

Americans had lost their jobs, and 30,000 new COVID-19 cases appeared each day. With no coordinated procurement at the federal level, states were left to compete with one another to buy protective masks, face shields, gloves, and other medical equipment. The bidding drove prices higher, just as state budgets were in precipitous decline.

Andrew Mountcastle ’01 used a 3-D printer for his work at Bates, where he teaches biology.

After the pandemic struck, engineers he knew online talked about how to print badly needed protective equipment, like face shields and parts for respirators. “It’s a little bit of the wild West,” Mountcastle said. “Lots of engineers are working on different designs, and it’s unclear which, if any, have been tested in a clinical setting.”

He asked peers with 3-D printers at Bowdoin and Colby to help him produce protective equipment, and, within weeks, the group delivered batches of face shields to LincolnHealth in Damariscotta. They took in more orders for first responders, who sometimes receive protective gear after hospitals and medical staff. Their printers ran around the clock.

“I’m fortunate to be in a position to be able to help health care workers and first responders in my state in this way, but, at the same time, I feel like they deserve better,” Mountcastle said.

“It’s infuriating that they are relying on me, with a 3-D printer, to protect them from this dangerous virus.”

Hospitals began to burn through more protective equipment than usual to keep patients

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and medical workers safe from the virus. For each shift at Mid Coast, Civiello is met at the entrance by a staffer who pumps sanitizer into her hands and gives her a mask. At the hospital’s “PPE store,” she picks up new items that she can’t reuse from her previous shift.

She now wears a gown, a scrub cap, a mask, eye protection, and a face shield when she works.

She dons a special N-95 respirator mask only when she sees a patient who is suspected of having the coronavirus.

Civiello said that the new layers of protective gear changed her interactions with patients, who can no longer look into the faces of their doctors and nurses for reassurance. She often apologizes for not being able to show her face.

Patients have been understanding.

Emery agreed that the extra equipment and drive-through appointments have changed how doctors can provide comfort. “What we say always matters, but right now it’s essential to use really appropriate and thoughtful and mindful language to ease anxiety and concerns,” she said.

Quarantine immediately made many people feel isolated and alone. Work and school became more difficult. Live classes were unrealistic for Mountcastle because his students were spread across different time zones.

Graff and her colleagues decided that their top priority was to “do no harm.” A book she had recently assigned that would usually be processed in group discussion suddenly seemed too heavy for students to read in isolation while they dealt with the shocking and difficult shift.

And she felt it more important to connect with her students than to teach new content.

“The amount of pressure put on public schools is immense,” Graff said. “We’re the place where students get two meals a day, social work services, health care, and vision checks. Now everything is happening beyond my classroom.”

Child abuse reports dipped after the pandemic began, in part because teachers are some of the main reporters of abuse. “Because my assignments can include writing about what’s going on, I can still get a little bit of an inside view into a student’s life,” Graff said. “I can make a referral if I find that someone is hungry or living in unstable housing. But it’s trickier now that I can’t lay eyes on the kids.”

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Ben Martens ’06, executive director of Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association, and Kalyn Bickerman-Martens ’07 have two children (including Micah, pictured with Ben in the table of contents). “A friend told me to think of this as a marathon,” he said. “But, if we want to get to the other side of this, we can’t pace ourselves right now.”

“It’s been an education process to explain why they might not make the same money over the summer as they usually do.”

—BEN MARTENS ’06

A large percentage of Graff’s school district receives free or reduced school meals, and those students immediately faced the threat of going hungry. Administrators quickly built five remote sites in South Portland, where anyone under the age of nineteen can get breakfast and lunch for as many people as they need. “We have seen a huge uptick in people accessing those meals,” she said.

Problems emerged as the pandemic created more stress at home. Some students didn’t live with an adult who could help with their schoolwork; others lived with adults who had lost their jobs. Graff and her colleagues decided not to give letter grades. “I’m not going to give a student a D on an essay and then send them to their bedroom alone.”

BY THE END OF MAY, MORE THAN 40 MILLION AMERICANS HAD FILED FOR UNEMPLOYMENT. The country faced an unprecedented level of uncertainty as politicians struggled to balance public safety and economic concerns.

Martens had spent all spring rallying support for the fishing industry, which relies on a combination of overseas markets and restaurants for most of its sales. He had kept in constant contact with Maine’s congressional delegation and with fishing associations in Alaska, Massachusetts, and California. He worked around the clock to make sure that Congress allocated money for fishermen in the first phase of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act,

the legislation created to get money to small businesses and the unemployed.

“Our delegation was fighting for Maine, and it goes a long way for us to know that,” Martens said.

It was initially difficult for him to persuade fishermen to participate in the complicated financial rescue programs. The spring is always slow, and many hoped things would pick up later in the year. “It’s been an education process to explain why they might not make the same money over the summer as they usually do,” said Martens. The association also began to offer mental health resources as the general sense of stress and unease grew.

The economic picture has pressured governors across the country to reopen the businesses, schools, and other services that closed in March.

Governor Mills issued her plan to gradually restart business activity and tourism—hopefully without sparking a problematic outbreak.

There is reason for hope. Maine so far has among the lowest numbers of recorded COVID-19 cases in the country, and one of the lowest death rates, according to state data compiled by The New York Times. “We’ve been very fortunate,” Emery said. “Midcoast Maine has been pretty aggressive in its social distancing policies. The only vaccine we have right now is staying home.”

Hospitals are encouraging patients to return for nonemergency care. “We’re not so busy that we can’t protect every patient that walks through the door,” Civiello said. “You don’t need to be scared to see the doctor.”

There is much we don’t know about the new coronavirus, including the likelihood of a winter surge and whether immunity follows infection.

We know that the virus will spread after social distancing eases and people travel again, but we don’t know how much. And we don’t know when we’ll have an effective vaccine or a treatment.

So much uncertainty can be overwhelming.

The enormity of the economic decline and how the pandemic will end are both unknown.

But, in a message written in April to her Bowdoin Class of 1982, Mills asked her classmates to “find the strength and inspiration to keep moving forward” as they grieved the loss of their pre-pandemic lives, of their loved ones, and of their jobs.

“I think back to the ‘Offer of the College’ and realize how its words resonate brightly and provide inspiration,” she wrote. “I think back to classroom discussions on Father Zossima’s exhortation in The Brothers Karamazov to love beyond all else, to moonlit walks across the Quad with newfound friends, and to time volunteering with classmates to help immigrants settle into Brunswick.

“No pandemic can take them away from us— our love for each other, our memories, and our pursuit of the common good.”

Listen to audio clips from interviews conducted during the photo shoot at bowdoin.edu/magazine.

Katie Benner ’99 is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist for The New York Times who recently joined the College’s board of trustees.

Heather Perry is a photographer based in Bath, Maine. Find her Six Feet Apart project on Instagram at @heathfish or at sixfeetapartproject.com.

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Student-athletes from Bowdoin’s cross-country and track teams develop other-level perseverance to train and compete as runners.

Recreational running has various advantages and meanings for individuals, especially in the midst of a pandemic that has much of the country homebound. With many of us managing stress and emotions more than ever, we ask: Why run—and why run now?

Why We Run

BY ALISON WADE ’97

ILLUSTRATIONS BY MARK FRUDD

E

EARLY IN HER RUNNING CAREER, Amanda (Allen) Nurse ’09 was running a 5K in South Portland, Maine. Approaching a hill in the last half mile, Nurse was overtaken by another runner, who told Nurse she was sandbagging (running below her ability) and encouraged her to sprint to the finish together with her. Nurse recognized Joan Benoit Samuelson ’79, the 1984 Olympic marathon champion, and she did what a runner does in such situations: she found another gear.

“To this day, I think about that all the time.

Joanie was one of the first people who believed in my running ability,” Nurse said.

The encounter was one of Nurse’s first lessons in mental toughness, a lesson that distance running repeats to those under its tutelage. As April Strickland, a visiting assistant professor of anthropology at Bowdoin and a runner, put it, “Even when it’s difficult and even when you want to stop, you’re often capable of much more than you think you are.”

At February’s US Olympic Marathon Trials in Atlanta, Georgia, on a hilly, windy course, Nurse finished ninety-fourth in 2:43:35. On her way to the starting area, she received a text message from Samuelson. It read: “Go U Bear! Run the race you have worked so hard for today.

Running with you from Maine.”

“It’s crazy to think that, in such a relatively short amount of time, running has become such a huge part of my life,” said Nurse, who played lacrosse at Bowdoin. “If you had asked me when I was at Bowdoin if I would ever have been a competitive marathon runner, I would have laughed.”

The accessibility and efficiency of running leads many into the sport who, like Nurse, had never imagined themselves as runners. The barriers to entry are low compared to other sports.

No special facilities or teammates needed. Some runners find that running not only changes their fitness, it also changes their self-perception.

THE MENTAL ROUTES TO PEAK PERFORMANCE Though the act of running is a simple one, the sport is not easy. Racing is about getting the most out of oneself and becoming comfortable with discomfort. Bowdoin’s distance runners have used a variety of strategies to run their best.

Modern sports psychology was in its infancy when Samuelson competed at the Olympic Games, but she’s famous for her mental toughness. “I remember saying to my coach right before the Olympics, ‘Whoever wants this race the most is going to win,’” she said. “I’ve always considered my mental abilities in the sport to be as strong, if not stronger, than my physical abilities.”

Coby Horowitz ’14 began using visualization techniques more seriously in his running at Bowdoin, and he believes it gave him a big advantage over his competition. “I didn’t have to worry about running the race, because I’d already done it in my head ten or fifteen times; I’d already thought of anything that could happen,” said Horowitz, who ran a recordsetting 4:00:41 mile as a senior at Bowdoin, and then a 3:59:55 two years later.

Nathan Alsobrook ’97 ran for Bowdoin and now serves as the College’s head Nordic ski coach. “I started off my career focusing on the technical sides of coaching, and I thought of the mental game as a little frosting on the cake.

Now, I see that the mental aspect is actually the cake, and everything else is just the frosting. It is so much more hugely important than I ever would have dreamed when I started coaching twenty years ago.”

As a runner, he used a lot of “macho toughguy stuff” for motivation. Think clenched knuckles and gritted teeth and imagine a drill sergeant screaming in your face. “I know now that that’s not enough, and it’s maybe even counterproductive,” said Alsobrook, who still runs and is a competitive age-grouper.

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While there’s no doubt that running one’s hardest is painful, ask Bowdoin runners about the pain, and you’re more likely to hear about gratitude. Caroline Shipley ’20, who was part of Bowdoin’s national championship distance medley relay (DMR) team in 2018, appreciated Bowdoin’s director of track and field and head cross-country coach Peter Slovenski’s emphasis on joyful running. Instead of thinking about being tough when races became challenging, she focused on being thankful for the opportunity to compete, enjoying her races as much as possible.

Leading into a pivotal race in Bowdoin’s cross-country season last fall, Shipley joked with her teammates that when they hit a key spot on the team’s home course, they had to “engage party mode” in the final stretch.

On race day, while many of her competitors were undoubtedly focusing on digging deep and being tough, Shipley found herself motioning with her arm as she came around the corner as if she were actually “engaging party mode.” She finished that race stronger than any cross-country race she had ever run. What began as a joke became somewhat of a mantra to the team, because they found it worked.

When Sean MacDonald ’19 was in high school, he approached running from a place of seriousness, telling himself he had to perform well, or else. For MacDonald, that tactic was ultimately counterproductive, and he stopped enjoying the process. Arriving at Bowdoin, MacDonald made an agreement with himself: Approach running in a healthy, productive, and enjoyable way, or don’t do it. Fortunately, Bowdoin was the perfect place for him to do that.

MacDonald became known for smiling late in a race, when others might be grimacing. “I was just enjoying having the ability to go out there and compete. I was just grateful,” he said.

The pain was still there, but thinking about his family, teammates, and gratitude made it easier to handle. He was not one of the cross-country team’s top seven runners his first year, but in the process of learning to run with joy, he transformed himself into an All-American by his senior year. As a result of his mental shift, he says, he saw his academic performance and his relationships improve, too.

“Most of my deep thinking and creative thinking is done when I’m out running. More so now, given the challenges out there.”

—JOAN BENOIT SAMUELSON ’79

KEEPING THE JOY IN RUNNING The first time Laurie McDonough ’98 saw Coach Slovenski, he jumped off the balcony at Farley Field House onto a high-jump mat wearing a Batman costume. She assumed he was an older student pretending to be the coach, but, no, the masked man was very much Coach Slovenski.

Slovenski, who was a college decathlete and pole vaulter, has been at Bowdoin for thirty-three years, and he’s built a program like no other.

The cross-country team’s list of non-running activities has included canoe races, Nerf battles, running with horses at Popham Beach, singalongs, talent shows, and jumping off Burnett Road Bridge in Freeport, at the mouth of the Little River. One of the team’s favorite traditions is the annual “blindfold run.” Runners are driven from campus into the countryside wearing blindfolds so they can’t tell where they’re going. Once they arrive at the destination, the blindfolds are removed, and the team has to run—and navigate—their way back to campus.

(Slovenski trails in a team vehicle, and if the runners have not made it back to campus after running a set distance, he picks them up. No one has been seriously lost—yet.)

During last fall’s apple orchard run down a muddy trail, the apparently ageless Slovenski joined the team for one particularly gnarly stretch. “It was just this hilarious image of Coach Slovenski leading the charge through this absolute madness of a forest in the middle of wherever we were in Maine,” recalled Shipley.

What does any of this have to do with becoming a better runner? Slovenski thinks of it as “keeping the joy” in running, and the activities are designed to offset the pressure of distance running—because the training and racing can be very demanding.

“All the special events we do have a role in our curriculum to make us faster runners.

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Talent shows, canoe races, bonfires, and our other traditions teach some combination of how to prepare, have poise, and come through in the clutch. A season of running for Bowdoin is going to include challenge, high standards, exhaustion, pain, recreation, education, and humor,” said Slovenski.

Team traditions are such a fundamental part of the Bowdoin cross-country and track and field programs that when LJ Que, who became the head coach of women’s track and field a year ago, broke out a guitar and began singing with Slovenski during her first year as an assistant coach, team members asked her if that was part of her job interview. “I don’t know if any other coaching duo can say that they have guitar jam sessions in their offices,” said Que.

“It really is a happy place,” said Claire Traum ’21. “After a long day of working hard in classes and in the library, at practice I’m guaranteed to have a blast—interesting conversation, a great workout—and leave sweaty and content.”

Traum, another member of Bowdoin’s 2018 national championship DMR team, talks about rushing out of class to get to the field house so that she wouldn’t have to do push-ups for being late to practice, and being met by teammates playing tug-of-war and having handstand contests.

Though Horowitz is one of the most successful runners in Bowdoin history, he says that when he talks with his former teammates now, they’re more likely to talk about the fun they had participating in team “shenanigans” than their athletic accomplishments.

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RUNNING AS A LIFELONG SPORT On March 12, five Bowdoin competitors, four of them seniors, were in North Carolina getting ready to compete at the NCAA Indoor Track & Field Championships when they received the news that all remaining NCAA contests were canceled.

It was an unprecedented and heartbreaking end to the four seniors’ collegiate running careers.

To provide some temporary relief, they went out into the parking lot of their hotel with Coach Que and screamed at the top of their lungs.

Though it might provide little consolation at present, a silver lining for those runners is that they’re not done running. Ask any of the many alumni and members of the Bowdoin community who call themselves runners today.

It’s a lifelong sport.

Shipley found herself motioning with her arm as she came around the corner as if she were actually “engaging party mode.”

Danielle (Raymond) Triffitt ’97 spent four years competing in a wide range of events as a member of Bowdoin’s cross-country and track and field teams. She now runs ultramarathons.

“I’m happy when I’m out in nature, seeing new places,” said Triffitt. When she ran the Western States 100-Mile Endurance Run last year, three of the crew members who supported her along the way were Bowdoin classmates, and two of the three were her former teammates.

Emily LeVan ’95 was inducted into Bowdoin’s Athletic Hall of Honor in 2008 as a field hockey and track and field standout. In the latter sport, she specialized in sprinting. It wasn’t until after graduating that LeVan decided to try running marathons, because the new challenge appealed to her. “It’s a physical challenge, certainly, but in many ways, I think it’s more of a mental challenge,” said LeVan. It turned out LeVan was good at marathoning, too. She eventually worked her personal-best time down to 2:37:01 and represented the US at the 2005 World Track & Field Championships.

LeVan is a nurse practitioner in an emergency department, stressful work even under normal circumstances. “I actually prioritize running or some kind of physical activity in times like these,” she said, “because I recognize that, at least for me, it’s such an important piece of keeping me healthy and centered and happy.”

Running appears to be experiencing a surge in popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic.

While that’s partly due to accessibility to a means of exercise, it likely also has something to do with what running does for the mind.

Dr. Mitchell Greene, a clinical and sports psychologist based in Haverford, Pennsylvania, says that many people are attracted to distance running for the fitness benefits it provides, and they’re often surprised by its therapeutic benefits.

“There just seems to be this shift in perspective when you come back from a run,” said Greene. “As I like to say, ‘My problems are still there, but they just don’t feel as heavy as they did before I ran.’”

Dr. David Raichlen, a professor of biological sciences at the University of Southern California, says the mood boost and reduced anxiety associated with running likely has to do with endocannabinoids, which he describes as the endogenous form of THC, the active ingredient in marijuana. Raichlen said they probably work synergistically with endorphins, which have historically gotten most of the credit.

“I think of endocannabinoids as being these anxiety-reducing neurotransmitters that give you feelings of reward, but also calm you down,” said Raichlen.

Raichlen’s research has shown that the greatest boost in endocannabinoid levels tends to come when one is working at an intensity that corresponds with running for most people.

Janet Lohmann, Bowdoin’s senior vice president and dean for student affairs, played field hockey for Stanford, but she took up running when her children were young, partly to get some time to herself. “Right now, I run for the sake of getting settled,” she said. “I think better when I run. I problem-solve better when I run.

My emotions are better when I run.”

Samuelson said that she has trouble focusing and being productive until she’s done her run. “Once I’ve run, I’m able to really tackle anything that comes my way during the course of the day,” she said. “I find that most of my deep thinking and creative thinking are done when I’m out running. More so now, given the challenges out there.”

Running can be a solo pursuit or a team effort. Biology professor Barry Logan no

longer runs, because of an injury, but he ran collegiately for Cornell University and competitively for many years after. When he thinks back on his running, he thinks of the meaningful relationships that he formed through the sport. “There’s something extraordinary about a common physical purpose, working hard at something with somebody, shoulder to shoulder, that’s bonding. You’re both facing in the same direction. There isn’t a demand for ceaseless conversation, like if you were sitting at a café table, and a pause might feel like it had to be filled,” said Logan.

Running also tends to bring together people who otherwise wouldn’t necessarily cross paths.

“That’s one of the incredible possibilities of running socially—it can be a great leveler. It has potential to override the ways we separate from each other,” Said Wes Adams ’87. “It doesn’t matter if you’re twenty-five or fifty-five when you’re doing a track workout together. You’re just both working as hard as you can. That’s one of my favorite things about it.”

Though Samuelson has been more of a solo runner for most of her career, she always had races to look forward to where she would celebrate with friends and other runners beyond the finish line. For now, all of the races she had planned to run have been canceled, but she appreciates that she still has the ability to get out and run.

“It’s a gift to be able to run right now. It’s a gift to know the sport as intimately as I do and to be able to look forward to that time every day.”

Alison Wade ’97 ran cross-country and track at Bowdoin and has worked in the running industry for twenty years. She is publisher of Fast Women Newsletter and a frequent contributor to Runner’s World magazine.

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BY MICHAEL BLANDING

THE STR ANGE TALE OF SEARLES HALL A robber baron, a widow, and a bruising court battle all led to the unlikely naming of Bowdoin’s most eccentric building.

Opposite page: A young Mary Frances Sherwood, ca. 1850; Edward Francis Searles, ca. 1900; and Mark Hopkins, Mary’s first husband, who died in 1878.

Opening spread: Bowdoin’s Mary Frances Searles Science Building, named for a woman who had no connection to the College, houses physics, mathematics, and computer science.

YOU’LL STILL HEAR THE STORY occasionally when you’re walking through the Quad. A student tour guide, perhaps, will pass by Searles Hall, a fantasia of towers and spires painted a salmon pink, and say that the money to construct the building had been left to the College by a family patriarch by the name of Searles. The rest of the family, however, had been cut out of his will, and so his descendants built an edifice to be as ugly as possible, choosing the lurid shade to shock posterity.

It is an amusing tale of intergenerational spite, with two glaring problems: First, many think the building is quite beautiful, and second, it’s not true. In fact, the real story behind Searles Hall is much stranger than a simple tale of disgruntled heirs. It’s a story that involves one of the country’s richest robber barons, spiritualist séances, a May-December romance, and a distinguished early Bowdoin grad. At its center is the woman for whom the building is named: Mary Hopkins Searles, who never set foot on Bowdoin’s campus, much less saw the building that bears her name. “The truth is actually stranger than the fiction,” says John Cross, the College’s secretary of development and college relations, and self-dubbed “unofficial historian.”

“It’s much more complicated and interesting.”

The saga properly starts clear across the country, with Mark Hopkins, a bright-eyed entrepreneur who followed the “forty-niners” out to California to profit off the Gold Rush.

Instead of panning for treasure himself, he set up a hardware store to cater to the prospectors, and made himself a fortune. Five years into the endeavor, he returned back east to Great Barrington, Massachusetts, to woo (and win) his childhood sweetheart and first cousin, Mary Frances Sherwood, a schoolteacher’s daughter with a sharp mind and confident air, bringing her back to Sacramento as his wife.

While the Civil War raged in the East, Hopkins and three associates, C. P. Huntington, Charles Crocker, and Leland Stanford—the so-called Big Four—invested in the Central Pacific Railroad Company, the western half of the first transcontinental railroad. By the time it was completed in 1869, all four tycoons were filthy rich. While Hopkins was famously miserly (it’s said he could “squeeze 106 cents out of

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every dollar”), his wife persuaded him to spend some of his money on a grand forty-room mansion atop San Francisco’s Nob Hill. Before they could move in, however, Hopkins died in 1878, leaving Mary with a fortune of $21.7 million (more than half a billion in today’s dollars).

The couple had had no children of their own, but they had taken in Timothy Nolan, the son of a former dockhand who had drowned, and raised him as their own. By the time of Hopkins’s death, Nolan had risen to the position of treasurer of the railroad company, and he now cared for Mary, who formally adopted him as Timothy Hopkins—the closest thing she had to an heir to the great fortune. “He had every expectation that he would inherit the estate,” says Cross.

That calculus changed, however, in the spring of 1883, when Mary met Edward Searles, an interior decorator she hired to deck out the Nob Hill mansion. A dashing man with a flowing moustache who went by his middle name, “Frank,” Searles too was a self-made man. He came from a poor farming family in Methuen, Massachusetts, and worked in a cotton mill as a boy, then taught music in Bath, Maine, before eventually earning a job as an interior decorator at the upscale Herter Brothers in New York—the Vanderbilts’ own preferred firm.

Searles traveled to California for his health and earned a dinner invitation to visit Mary.

The wealthy widow was immediately smitten.

She hired Searles on the spot to oversee the decoration of her Nob Hill palace and then worked intimately with him on the construction of another mansion back home in Great Barrington. Despite being twenty-two years his senior, Mary proposed marriage to Searles within months. He initially demurred, but after bonding over more building projects, the two finally married in New York City in 1887.

Searles was forty-six; Mary, sixty-eight.

Almost as soon as they were married, Mary changed her will to divide the fortune equally between her new husband and adopted son, Timothy. Searles put the wealth in a trust managed by his New York law firm, Stillman and Hubbard, while he and his wife embarked on a six-month “grand tour” of Europe, and then more building projects—including a monstrous palace on Block Island, Rhode Island,

OPENING SPREAD PHOTO: MICHELE STAPLETON

Pressed on whether he married her “for her love or her money,” Searles conceded that it was a bit of both. with three levels of white marble columns and a soaring cupola. That home was designed by architect Henry Vaughn, best known for constructing Washington’s National Cathedral. The couple called it White Hall, but local residents came to know it as “Mansion House,” or more derogatorily, “Searles’ Folly,” and the public beach now at the site of the former house is known as “Mansion Beach.”

The Searleses completed the house in 1890 to the tune of $1 million but only lived in it for a few months before Mary became ill with dropsy and heart disease, and she died on July 24, 1891.

In her obituary, The New York Times called her “one of the wealthiest women in America.” When her will was read, Timothy Hopkins was in for a

shock. Sometime during her four-year marriage to Searles, Mary had changed it to read: “I give, devise, bequeath all my property, real, personal, and mixed of whatever kind and wherever situated, to my said husband: Edward F. Searles.”

Hopkins was left with nothing. In fact, Mary had intentionally included a clause reading, “The omission to provide in this will for my adopted son, Timothy Hopkins, was intentional and not occasioned by accident or mistake.”

Hopkins immediately sued, claiming the will was a fraud. The trial commenced in Salem, Massachusetts, in September 1891—and simultaneously it was tried in the press, with newspapers mostly siding with Hopkins, who, they implied, had been swindled out of his rightful

PHOTOS: (PORTRAITS OF MRS. MARK HOPKINS (MARY SHERWOOD) AND MARK HOPKINS) UC BERKELEY, BANCROFT LIBRARY

inheritance by a “fortune hunter” who came to California to prey upon a feeble old woman.

During the trial, some witnesses contended that the will was a forgery that Mary never personally signed; others argued she signed it under duress. The most bizarre accusations came from the son of the Hopkins family’s former physician, who said that he had seen Mrs. Searles participating in séances in which she was communing with the dead. Searles had been an enthusiastic initiate in her “mystic circle,” he said, and manipulated messages from the beyond to turn her against her adopted son.

For his part, Searles admitted that he had taken part in séances in their Great Barrington home but contended he had never done

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anything to coerce Mary into changing the will.

In fact, he “admired her very much,” he told Hopkins’s lawyer. Pressed on whether he married her “for her love or her money,” Searles conceded that it was a bit of both. But asked which motive was stronger, he said, “love.”

Searles was aided by the steady testimony of Thomas Hamlin Hubbard, Class of 1857, the partner in the law firm that he had tapped to manage Mary’s fortune. Hubbard was the son of a former governor of Maine who had graduated from Bowdoin along with his brother John.

Despite coming from privilege, when the Civil War broke out, both Hubbard boys enlisted; John was killed, but Thomas rose to become a general. Afterward, Hubbard went to Wall Street, where he had a successful legal career, including managing the Hopkins fortune.

When Hopkins’s lawyer called that trust into question, Hubbard defended the arrangement, detailing the many productive ways he’d invested her money. While he had nothing to do with the will, he noted that Mary had always been of sound mind and judgment in financial matters.

In October, the judge delivered his verdict: the will was valid, and Searles would receive the entire fortune. Hopkins immediately appealed to the Supreme Court, but he withdrew his claim a few months later, in March 1892, after the two sides came to a settlement. In the end, Hopkins received $3 million, along with fair market value for the Nob Hill home. Searles, meanwhile, got the bulk of the fortune, now valued at more than ten times that amount.

It’s at this point in the story that Searles Hall enters. After the trial, Searles offered to pay Hubbard handsomely for his services. Hubbard declined, however, asking that Searles take the money to endow a new science center at his alma mater instead. “It reflects very well upon Hubbard and his loyalty to Bowdoin,” says Earle Shettleworth, Maine’s former state historian.

“Considering he’d been successful in the law case, instead of choosing for himself, he chose for the College.”

Searles agreed, presenting the gift to the College on June 21, 1892, on the conditions that the College use his favorite architect, Henry Vaughan, and that construction cost no more than $60,000. At the time, Bowdoin’s campus

PHOTO: (SEARLES DOOR) MICHELE STAPLETON

had been a long line of buildings, starting with the Federal-style Massachusetts Hall. Now, suddenly, the campus became a quad, with the simultaneous construction of Searles Hall and the Walker Art Building (which was done in the grand neoclassical Beaux-Arts style of domes and columns typical of the period). “They are absolute contemporaries, and yet there are no two buildings so different architecturally,” says Shettleworth.

For Searles, however, Vaughan harkened back to the English Renaissance, incorporating elements of Elizabethan and Jacobean architecture in a style called Jacobethan. Originally done in yellow Perth Amboy brick, the façade that faces the Quad is dominated by two large bays of four windows each, topped with Dutch gables and flanked by crenelated turrets. In the center of the building, a stately entrance sits between two narrow octagonal towers, with a spindly cupola rising above it. The other side of the building, however, is done in a completely different style, with a U-shaped space between a Federal-style façade. “It really is a striking building,” says Cross.

Inside, the building was just as ambitious, consisting of three self-contained units, one each

This page: The Hopkins house in Nob Hill, San Francisco. Searles donated the house to the University of California in 1893, and it became the Mark Hopkins Institute of Art. It was destroyed in the fire that followed the San Francisco earthquake in 1906.

The Mark Hopkins Hotel is built on the site.

Opposite page: The front door of the Searles Science Building, surrounded in its trademark painted brick.

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Right: Searles Castle in Windham, New Hampshire, completed in 1915.

It is a one-quarter copy of England’s Stanton Harcourt Manor.

Bottom left: The Searles Mansion on Block Island, Rhode Island. The site is now the popular Mansion Beach.

Bottom right: The Searles Science Building cupola.

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PHOTOS: (SEARLES CASTLE) COPYRIGHT VINCENT ROJO/NUTFIELD GENEALOGY BLOG; (SEARLES CUPOLA) BOB HANDELMAN

A high-profile dispute for the Hopkins fortune played out among his heirs, eventually leading to exhuming his body to make sure he wasn’t offed by foul play. for physics, biology, and chemistry. While it made traveling between departments awkward, the design was intentional, in part to provide a firewall between the buildings should a fire or explosion occur in one of the labs. The labs themselves were state-of-the-art for the time. “It was really a world-class facility,” says Dale Syphers, professor of physics and department chair, who has taught at Bowdoin for thirty-three years.

Among its other innovations were “constant temperature rooms” built with an airspace between the walls to avoid large variations in air temperature, and an “optical room” with light-blocking shutters to create total darkness for optical experiments. In the main physics lecture hall, a hole in the floor allowed professors to suspend a model of a geyser, complete with a hose and heating coils, into the laboratory below. “At the start of the lecture, you’d talk about how Old Faithful happens, while you kept measuring the temperature,” Syphers says.

“Then all of a sudden it would blow, and water would hit the ceiling a good eighteen feet up.”

Ultimately, the price tag was double what Searles had intended. The college, however, was thrilled about its new acquisition. “Never was an institution more in need of such a building, and never was a building more perfectly adapted to meet that need,” President William DeWitt Hyde said in the dedication ceremony in the chemical lecture room on September 20, 1894.

Searles didn’t attend the ceremony, but General Hubbard spoke for him, saying he “deems this building a fitting memorial to a noble woman who, herself the daughter of a teacher, was always interested in the case of education; who, to the end of her life, was a diligent student; who understood the worth of a well-trained mind and the worthlessness of life’s tinsel and display.”

After the trial, Hubbard went on to endow the Hubbard Memorial Library, also designed

by Vaughan, to fill out the end of the Quad. He also helped fund the dash to the North Pole by Robert Peary, Class of 1887, and rumor has it, he got Searles to contribute to the endeavor as well. After the trial, however, Searles became a recluse. Perhaps stung by all the negative publicity, he hid out behind the gates of his estate in Methuen, Massachusetts, pouring his money into more and more elaborate building projects. He decked out that residence with pillars of pink Himalayan marble, a 2,000-piece chandelier, and a three-story pipe organ. He built an even more elaborate home in New Hampshire, modeled after a medieval castle, down to the front door, which literally came from Windsor Castle in England. Searles died in 1920 at age seventy-nine—and once again, a high-profile dispute for the Hopkins fortune played out among his heirs, eventually leading to exhuming his body to make sure he wasn’t offed by foul play.

Searles Hall, however, has lived on. Just a few years after its dedication, Bowdoin professors conducted some of the first experiments with X-rays in the building, including arguably their first medical use. Years later, sex researcher Alfred Kinsey, Class of 1916, worked late into the night in the Searles biology wing, categorizing and mounting bird specimens. By the middle of the century, the building had started showing its age, and in 1954 it underwent extensive renovations, including removal of the walls separating the three departments, creating a twisting maze of crooked corridors connecting floors that didn’t quite match up.

Rumors about Searles Hall’s original bricks also began around that time. Over the years, portions of the original soft yellow brick eroded with the New England spring thaws, to be replaced in spots with hard red brick instead. In order to bring some unity to the structure, the College

painted the entire building over in 1954 in its current shade—to the chagrin of some amateur architecture critics. “That started the myth that a family was bound by the will to build the building, and it was designed to be ugly,” Cross says.

Eventually, biology and chemistry departments vacated the building, and math and computer science came to join physics. In 1999, the building saw a second major overhaul. An inspired $9 million renovation by Cambridge Seven Architects added a 2,000-square-foot glass-and-granite atrium to enclose the U-shaped back side of the building, with a series of ramps to connect all of the floors into one cohesive whole. More communal space for interdisciplinary work was added as well, along with audiovisual and computer technology to make it state-of-the-art once again.

In the process, the geyser was removed from the physics hall and placed into storage, and the entrance into the attic—where students once held keg parties and found their way onto the spine of the roof—was closed off. Giant murals of animal species that once covered the walls of the biology building were also demolished, except for one: a giant whale on the wall of a classroom where a huge set of blackboards was to be installed. “So the construction workers wrote on it, ‘Save the Whale,’ and they did,” says Syphers.

“It’s currently still there behind the blackboard.”

Just so, perhaps, the ghost of Mary Frances Sherwood Hopkins Searles lives on somewhere in the building, awaiting some spiritualist to wake her. When they do, they can tell her the strange story of how her fortune has indirectly inspired generations of scientists over the past 125 years— and still contributes to one of Bowdoin’s most unusual backstories.

Michael Blanding is a Boston-based investigative journalist and a New York Times best-selling author.

BOWDOIN MAGAZINE SPRING/SUMMER 2020 | CLASSNEWS@BOWDOIN.EDU 45

Dean Whitney Soule talks about challenges to the admissions world brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, and how effects will be felt for years to come.

Admissions in an Upended World What was the biggest challenge of this admissions season?

Transferring the warmth and beauty of the College and our environment—the energy of the Bowdoin personality—into something virtual.

Every year we have thousands of kids applying who haven’t visited, and many of them enroll.

So there is some inspiration there. For students counting on a visit to make a decision and can’t now, though, that’s a different kind of gap.

These students are finishing high school in incredible circumstances. Are you concerned about their ability to finish strong?

The students we admit are likely to finish strong anyway; it’s their disposition toward learning that made them really attractive to us in the first place.

This is the year when every admissions office needs to be humane. There was no preparation for anybody—teachers, administrators, students, and families—to figure out how to do this.

And it will be uniquely different for every student. Our objective is to have a good understanding of how they completed the year and confidence that they stayed committed.

Is the impact here mostly on rising seniors?

Any student in high school right now is challenged in ways nobody thought they would be.

This is embedded in the experience for students who will be our applicants for years. One thing rising seniors may not be thinking about is getting information from colleges. In a typical year, 2,000 students would have met with us or visited by now, and in doing that they register and get on our mailing list. If they’re not doing that, they’re likely not signing up. It’s the same for students who couldn’t take the tests this spring.

Colleges, including Bowdoin, source and are able to contact great candidates by searching through those big lists, and there are many fewer names now.

Students can learn a lot from websites, but not about admissions programming specifically for them. This is true for any school. Students might have been passively getting onto lists before and now need to do that actively. They don’t realize they’re not hearing from us because we don’t know who they are.

Do you think this makes people appreciate a place like Bowdoin more?

It’s not a stretch to say that people are missing contact with other people. All of us are. I think people are becoming aware of how essential human interaction and friendship and relationships are. But the truth is that we don’t know what the virus is going to demand of all of us.

Some say they want to wait until things are “normal.” But waiting for “normal” isn’t the right focus. If you’re a student, the focus should be, do you want to be on a pathway that puts you closer to graduating on to your next chapter?

And, with inspired teachers and staff figuring out new ways of connecting the Bowdoin community and connecting students to one another, we’re on it. We’re not throwing up our hands and saying, “This isn’t what we do.”

Going forward, will you focus on how applicants dealt with this?

Already we’re reading applications contextually.

This is a monster challenge that is hitting everybody. There is not a right way to respond.

But it does give us the opportunity to look for things that matter and always have at Bowdoin.

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Empathy and awareness of others. Intellectualism and curiosity and motivation. But I wouldn’t want students to think we’re judging how they or their families responded to this. The degree of trauma in students’ lives and experiences will be so vastly different.

Do you have any other advice for students?

There is so much anxiety around students trying to figure out what they have to do during high school to be attractive to us—and by “us” I mean admissions officers. They wonder if they have enough or the right things. What are their activities? How much leadership do they need?

Do they need to volunteer? They’re looking to show their abilities relative to what they think we want to see. We’ve always reminded students to do things important to them; that’s how we best get to what we need to know. Don’t manufacture a high school experience. Maybe activities you cared about you can’t do anymore, or you have new interests based on what’s available. The important thing is living the life in front of you.

Students need reassurance that education is worth it—and it’s also really necessary; we can’t have a gap in educating people. We have admitted them into something that might look different than what they thought, and it will be robust and full and interesting and challenging, even if it’s not what they were expecting. Because we’re still here. All the people who were behind the thing they wanted in the first place are still the same people.

Whitney Soule is Bowdoin’s dean of admissions and student aid.

For more from this interview, visit bowdoin.edu/magazine.

PHOTO: HEATHER PERRY

Whispering Pines

Being on Tap Echoes of the 1918–1919 flu pandemic resonate today.

RIGHT FROM THE START, 1918 was a year of turmoil and

challenges at Bowdoin. President William DeWitt Hyde had died in June of 1917, and Acting President and Dean Kenneth Sills, Class of 1901, was faced with coal shortages and burst pipes on campus in a brutally cold winter, departures for military service by faculty and students, a medical school that accounted for much of the College’s budget deficit, and governing boards that were in no hurry to select Hyde’s successor.

After the United States declared war in April of 1917, the War Department sent an Army officer to initiate military training at Bowdoin. That summer, the First Maine Heavy Artillery trained on campus at “Camp Chamberlain,” using the dorms and Sargent Gym as barracks. Passions for the war ran high among students in 1917–1918. Sills’s inauguration at the 1918 Commencement drew attention away from the fact that only thirteen seniors received their diplomas, the one-seventh of the class not already in the military.

Under an agreement with the government, Bowdoin formed a Student Army Training Corps (SATC) and a Navy unit in September. Students received thirty dollars a month (an Army private’s pay), and the government covered the costs of uniforms, room, and board. Of the 365 students enrolled at the College, two hundred were in the SATC, seventy-seven in the naval unit, and eighty-eight were either under the age of eighteen or did not meet the physical fitness standard. Daily life adjusted to the new arrangement: “Reveille” at 6:40; an hour of drill before 9:30 Chapel; classes

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in military science, international affairs, and hygiene and sanitation; room inspections; two hours of evening study; and “Taps” at 10 p.m. Professor Marshall Cram observed that “the student body rose earlier and went to bed earlier than it had been known to do before or since.” The SATC experiment was short-lived and lasted until the signing of the armistice in November.

Against this backdrop the 1918–1919 flu pandemic arrived.

A largely unnoticed three-day fever in the spring, it returned in September as a killer that did not discriminate between soldiers and civilians, or among Allies, Central Powers, or neutral nations. An estimated fifty million people perished worldwide. Fort Devens in Massachusetts was the site of a significant outbreak in September. The hospital, built for two thousand patients, was overwhelmed with eight thousand flu cases and high mortality; among the dead was Leonard Gibson, of the Class of 1913.

In a pattern familiar in 2020, communities passed ordinances about wearing masks in public, in-home quarantines, and the closing of schools, churches, theaters, and stores.

The Portland police chief announced that anti-spitting laws would be strictly enforced. Bowdoin contributed to a Red Cross fund to support construction of a temporary hospital in hard-hit Lisbon Falls. Then, as now, there were arguments over local versus state jurisdiction and public health versus commercial interests, and there were some “band-played-on” denials by officials on the severity of the threat.

The Orient of October 15, 1918, remarked that “while the epidemic of influenza has spread over the country, Bowdoin has been fortunate indeed in escaping serious results among the students.” There was no October 22 Orient because the flu struck the printing company. College Physician Frank Whittier reported that thirty-nine students had been treated for influenza at the Dudley Coe Infirmary. In a second wave in December, two students died there of “pneumonia, following influenza,” a phrase that was repeated in the fall 1918 obituaries of nearly two dozen alumni and Medical School alumni. Of the twenty-nine names on the base of the World War I Memorial flagpole next to Hubbard Hall, nine belong to those who died of the flu while in military service.

Sills used to say that it was “more important to be on tap than to be on top”—that being of service was more important than achieving personal gain. As Bowdoin’s president through the 1918 flu pandemic, two world wars, and the Great Depression, Sills had seen firsthand the spirit of students and alumni in the face of adversity. His words have particular resonance today.

John R. Cross ’76 is secretary of development and college relations.

ILLUSTRATION: ERIC HANSON; PHOTO: TRISTAN SPINSKI

Connect ALUMNI NEWS AND UPDATES

MAINE FOUNDERS Following fast-paced careers based in New York City, Scott Budde ’81 and Charlotte Cole ’82 moved to Portland, Maine, for a city vibe with a smaller feel. While their careers remain demanding, they recently traded the relative bustle of Portland for a peony farm in bucolic Alna, about fifty miles up the coast, where their dog, Casco, is right at home.

Scott Budde ’81, CEO of Maine Harvest Federal Credit Union Our big-picture goal was to become one of Maine’s cornerstone institutions that are building a stronger, healthier, cleaner local food system.

Maine is tight-knit, and that has worked to my advantage in starting Maine Harvest Federal Credit Union. We’re giving Maine’s small farms and food producers another source of competitive financing for land and equipment using deposits from folks who share our vision. The number of acres in Maine under organic cultivation is increasing rapidly, and we’re doing well at attracting and training young farmers.

Charlotte Cole ’82, Executive Director of Blue Butterfly Collaborative I cofounded Blue Butterfly with my sister, Suzanne Cole ’89, with a mission to help producers in low- and middle-income countries develop quality children’s educational media. It extends the work I began at Sesame Workshop. Our signature project, developed by a Haitian team based in Port-au-Prince, is Lakou Kajou, a Creole-language animated video series for young primary-grade children.

I learned to walk at Bowdoin—literally. My father (Taylor Cole ’45), who was a high school teacher, was a participant at a weeks-long conference at Bowdoin for math educators. A baby at the time, I spent the summer months in residence in Brunswick, and that is where I took my first steps.

For more of our interview with Scott and Charlotte, visit bowdoin.edu/magazine.

PHOTO: ARTIST_CREDIT

Connect Richard Geldard ’57

1955

Reunion

Joe Tecce: In January, a gift was made to The Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences at Boston College (BC) in honor of Tecce, associate professor of psychology at BC and lecturer in neuropsychology at Boston University School of Medicine. The gift was made in Tecce’s name by a former student in admiration for Tecce’s positive impact on the student, BC and its community, and broader society. “The gift came at an opportune time,” Tecce said.

“Retirement.” From the Boston College advancement office.

Catching Up

AN EXAMINED LIFE Writer Richard Geldard ’57 defines his central theme by Socrates’s notion that an unexamined life is not worth living.

THE RANGE OF EDUCATIONAL INPUT I EXPERIENCED BETWEEN TWO CONTRASTING DECADES in our country’s experience profoundly

influenced my own development. In the dimly remembered fall of 1953, we members of the all-male Class of 1957 arrived in Brunswick, found our rooms and mates, were chosen by a fraternity, and settled in. What we did not know at the time was that those four years would mimic a singular normality in American culture and character. The next decade, the Sixties, would become famous as the beginning of another era that would change America forever. Those two decades would define my formal education, from Bowdoin to The Bread Loaf School of English at Middlebury, and then to Stanford for a doctorate. As I look back now, that education was a sequence of influences and impressions but not a time of personal control and self-knowledge. Fortunately for me, the influences were from gifted and important sources. In my Bowdoin years, members of the faculty like Athern Daggett ’25 and Frederic “Tilly” Tillotson H’46 were important, especially Tilly, because the central focus was my four-year tenure as a member of the Meddiebempsters, under the absolute perfect pitch of director and arranger Terry Stenberg ’56.

For more of our interview with Richard, visit bowdoin.edu/magazine.

50 BOWDOIN MAGAZINE SPRING/SUMMER 2020 | CLASSNEWS@BOWDOIN.EDU

1963

Andrew “Sandy” Allen: “Joan Benoit Samuelson ’79 and I are neighbors. Both of us run year-round.

I have seen Joan running on the back roads near Flying Point and Wolfe’s Neck [Freeport, Maine] for many years but have seldom encountered her on my runs except in passing.

During my run on October 20, 2019, I had a most memorable experience with Joan that I decided was unusual, informative, and, for me, exciting enough to write up and, with Joan’s permission, submit for publication.

The piece was published in the Maine Sunday Telegram on May 3, 2020, and titled ‘A Morning Run with an Olympian.’” Read the piece in the Columns section at pressherald.com.

1968

Charles Adams: “Several years ago, we built a home here in Cumberland [Maine]. Some friends stopped by and gave us a house-warming gift of a birdhouse—a parody of a Bowdoin fraternity. I didn’t get around to putting it up until last spring, and even though it’s in a high-traffic area on our front porch, a pair of

black-capped chickadees promptly moved in. Housing is in short supply here in Cumberland County, and they knew a bargain when they saw it. While the boreal chickadee is making a run at the position of Maine state bird, the black-capped still holds the title. In these difficult times, it’s a pleasant reminder of my four years at Bowdoin, even though it was more than fifty years ago.”

1969

Rick Davidson recently published Catamount Unleashed (Beech River Books, 2020), his third mystery/thriller set in northern New Hampshire.

“Near a remote lodge, an Abenaki curse is reactivated and the terror of a man-killing catamount is released into the otherwise idyllic environs.

A ruthless attempt to suppress all information about the mountain lion threatens the guides at the lodge and their guests, but help comes from an unlikely source.” From the publisher.

1970

Reunion

Wayne Sanford: “Depending on your point of view, our class ended its time at Bowdoin with a bang (strike) or a whimper (no caps and gowns). Now, fifty years later, our Reunion plans have been shelved for social isolation. Somehow, it seems like destiny. We are now working with the College on plans for a 50th Reunion like no other. Last summer, I carved a burl collected by Jeff Cross into a bowl for Jeff Emerson. With the pandemic shutdown, I have lots of time for carving. Custom orders gratefully accepted!”

1974

Mario Brossi: “Greetings from the DMV (DC, Maryland, Virginia), where I have retired from my career as honorary consul of Switzerland.

PHOTO: ALEC EMERSON

Remember

The following is a list of deaths reported to us since the previous issue. Full obituaries appear online at: obituaries.bowdoin.edu

Rexford D. Knowles ’55 January 23, 2020

Ted. W. Verrill ’71 March 3, 2018

Douglas L. Morton ’55 March 8, 2020

William J. Hagan Jr. ’78 March 25, 2020

Donald R. Maxson ’45 February 13, 2020

Henry M. Eubank Jr. ’57 January 14, 2020

Todd M. Greene ’89 February 26, 2020

Walter W. Harvey ’46 November 12, 2019

Paul Z. Lewis ’58 April 3, 2020

GRADUATE

Ralph A. Hughes ’47 April 2, 2020

Walter H. Moulton ’58 April 26, 2020

Frank T. Gutmann G’64 March 2, 2020

Kenneth M. Schubert ’47 February 28, 2020

Francis D. Pervere ’58 March 27, 2020

Helene D. Popper G’64 January 30, 2020

Milton A. MacDonald ’49 March 18, 2020

John H. Moses Jr. ’60 February 5, 2020

FACULTY/STAFF

Gordon F. Linke ’50 March 24, 2020

Roger D. Skillings Jr. ’60 January 15, 2020

Gerard J. Brault February 5, 2020

Robert B. Mason ’50 May 1, 2020

Richard C. Fisk ’61 November 2, 2019

Duane Paluska January 28, 2020

Charles W. Wilder ’50 January 27, 2020

John S. Moore ’61 February 10, 2020

Mary H. Thomas February 4, 2020

Fred A. Carlson Jr. ’51 May 2, 2020

Patrick J. O’Brien ’62 April 15, 2020

Dorothy E. Weeks April 5, 2020

Warren W. Strout ’51 April 19, 2020

John W. McCarthy Jr. ’64 November 20, 2019

HONORARY

Henry M. Baribeau Jr. ’52 March 11, 2020

Peter W. Downey ’65 May 3, 2020

Eavan Boland H’04 April 27, 2020

John D. Bradford ’52 February 14, 2020

David E. Babson ’66 May 2, 2020

Henry C. Cobb H’85 March 2, 2020

John B. Malcolm Jr. ’54 January 12, 2020

Hardy J. Margosian II ’66 February 22, 2020

David C. Driskell H’89 April 1, 2020

Edward F. Spicer ’54 January 9, 2020

John R. Roberts ’71 April 18, 2020

Kenneth Paigen H’02 February 15, 2020

PHOTO: ARTIST_CREDIT

Bowdoin obituaries appear on a dedicated online site, rather than printed in these pages.

Updated regularly, the improved obituary format allows additional features that we can’t offer in print, specifically the ability for classmates, families, and friends to post photos and remembrances.

BOWDOIN MAGAZINE SPRING/SUMMER 2020 | CLASSNEWS@BOWDOIN.EDU 51

Connect Although I was unable to join my classmates for our 45th, I look forward to our 50th Reunion. Having all this time to spend at home meant that I dusted off my legal chops and am now serving on the advisory board of a drone company based in Maryland. Maybe I can arrange a flyover for our Reunion.”

1977 Fixed Income for Life During times of uncertainty and market volatility, fixed income can provide a measure of stability and a sense of security. Establishing a charitable gift annuity at Bowdoin is a meaningful way to make a campaign gift that will benefit both you and the College.

If you are between the ages of sixty-five and ninety years old, a $20,000 one-life, immediate-payment, cash-funded charitable gift annuity offers 85–90 percent tax-free income—depending on your age and the timing of your gift. Consider these examples:* Age

Rate

Payment

Charitable Deduction

65

4.2%

$840

$6,026

70

4.7%

$940

$7,304

75

5.4%

$1,080

$8,524

80

6.5%

$1,300

$9,442

85

7.6%

$1,520

$10,820

90

8.6%

$1,720

$12,453

*Assumptions: Calculated using a 0.06 percent IRS discount rate. Calculations are for illustration purposes only and should not be considered legal, accounting, or other professional advice. Actual benefits may vary depending on the timing of your gift. $10,000 is the minimum gift for a charitable gift annuity at Bowdoin.

For a personalized illustration and to obtain more information, contact Nancy Milam or Liz Armstrong in the Office of Gift Planning at giftplanning@bowdoin.edu or 207-725-3172. bowdoin.edu/gift-planning

T H E C A M PA IGN FO R BOWDOI N

52 BOWDOIN MAGAZINE SPRING/SUMMER 2020 | CLASSNEWS@BOWDOIN.EDU

Sarah Dickenson Snyder published her third collection of poems, With a Polaroid Camera (Main Street Rag, 2019). Find it, and more of her work, at sarahdickensonsnyder.com.

Peter Getzels: “PBS SoCal announced the presentation of its coproduction Voices from the Frontline: China’s War on Poverty, written and hosted by renowned China expert Robert Lawrence Kuhn. The documentary is produced by a joint US–China production team, led by award-winning director Getzels.

With unprecedented access to travel in China, the film explores the country’s poverty alleviation programs, while interviewing villagers and local officials along the way.” From a Yahoo Finance article, April 15, 2020.

Peter Moore: In February, while attending the Colby Carnival Nordic ski race to cheer on his son, Ian, who skis for UVM, Peter J. Moore introduced himself to Bowdoin parent David Moore, who had flown in from Minnesota to cheer on his son, Peter J. Moore ’23!

1979

During the initial stages of the COVID-19 lockdown, Howard (Andy) Selinger wrote a piece for the opinion section of The Connecticut Mirror—a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization reporting on government policies and politics.

Selinger, who works as chair of the department of family medicine at

the Frank H. Netter MD School of Medicine at Quinnipiac University, addressed the challenges of practicing medicine for patients who were sheltering at home and how he and his colleagues learned to deliver care via remote telemedicine. Recalling changes in technology during his thirty-three years as a physician, he emphasized the importance of personal contact and sharing space with patients. And while he acknowledged the benefits of current innovations, he closed with an appeal to providers to “never allow it to replace or voluntarily substitute for the humanity and relationships that develop from being physically in contact with one another.” From a Connecticut Mirror online opinion piece, April 17, 2020.

1980

Reunion

In April, Libby Van Cleve was featured in a New York Times article chronicling fifty years of Yale University’s Oral History of American Music (OHAM), of which she has been the director since 2010. OHAM preserves and archives the stories of major voices in American music in their own words. The archive has grown to encompass recordings of nearly 3,000 interviews. In addition to her work with OHAM, Van Cleve is also currently involved in the project Alone Together: Musicians in the Time of Covid, an ongoing series of Zoom interviews with composers and musicians focusing on their personal and creative lives while isolating during the current COVID-19 outbreak. From a New York Times article, April 23, 2020.

1981

Charlotte Agell was honored with the Lupine Award for her book Maybe Tomorrow?—a story about loss, healing, and how to

be a friend. The award has been presented annually by the Maine Library Association since 1989 to honor a living author or illustrator who is a resident of Maine or who has created a work whose focus is Maine. From mainelibraries.org.

John Blomfield: “Bob Stevens, Peter ‘Coop’ Cooper, Chuck Redman ’82, and I all attended a sixtieth birthday party for Bill McLaughlin ’82 on the Cape in January. Lynn Pellegrino ’84, Bill’s wife, arranged the surprise event, which surprised no one, including Bill. Otherwise the party was an enormous success. Also in attendance were Martha Stuart ’84, Karen Kinsella ’84, Bill Conroy ’84, and Tom Jones ’84.”

Glen Snyder: “Scientists studying so-called flammable ice in the Sea of Japan have made a startling discovery—the existence of life within microscopic bubbles.

The microhabitats are grown by microbes within tiny bubbles of oil and water found in sheets of frozen gas and ice and offer a tantalizing clue as to the potential for life on other planets. Snyder, who works at Meiji University in Japan and who led the five-year study, recently had his results published in Scientific Reports, a journal serving the research community by publishing its most significant discoveries—findings that advance knowledge and address some of the greatest challenges faced by society today.” From a University of Aberdeen, King’s College press release, February 5, 2020.

1982

Sarah Bronson: Riding to the Top Therapeutic Riding Center in Windham, Maine, and the Maine Medical Research Institute will participate in a study, along with the University of Colorado, into why

horseback riding benefits children with autism. Bronson, a physical therapist who serves as executive director of Riding to the Top, sees the study as “a wonderful opportunity for Riding to the Top’s certified instructors, volunteers, horses, and many new clients to be involved in groundbreaking research that will provide more objective data as to the specific physiological changes that occur during therapeutic riding, lending further support to the work that we do.” From a Portland, Maine, Mainebiz article, March 3, 2020.

John Lynch: “Maintaining our social distance, working from home (Falmouth, Massachusetts), and waiting for the Falmouth Country Club to reopen. Taking stock of all of our blessings. Thirty-plus wonderful years with Heather, building three hair salons (Muse), one ice cream store (Holy Cow), and employing seventy kids. Working for Biogen in Cambridge, still in the arts, writing and recording music—the latest, ‘Ascension,’ is on Spotify. Also thinking of a few of my favorite professors.

Elliot Schwartz’s Electronic Music, which taught me about composition and synthesizers; Melinda Small in psychology, who taught me how to enter statistics on a VAX; and visual arts professor Gerard Haggerty, who taught me how to explore visual arts. They all opened a lot of doors for me, one after another.

And I am grateful to them.”

This birdhouse, “a parody of a Bowdoin fraternity,” was a housewarming gift for Charles Adams ’68 that promptly became home to a pair of blackcapped chickadees.

Wayne Sanford ’70 hand-carved this bowl, “The Big Kahuna,” from a sugar maple burl collected by Jeff Cross ’70 as a gift for Jeff Emerson ’70.

1983

Catherine Owen Koning coauthored Wading Right In: Discovering the Nature of Wetlands (University of Chicago Press, 2019).

“Traveling alongside scientists, explorers, and kids with waders and nets, the authors uncover the inextricably entwined relationships between the water flows, natural

Left: Peter J. Moore ’23 and Peter J. Moore ’77 met coincidentally at the Colby Carnival Nordic ski race in early February. The younger Peter skis for Bowdoin, and the more experienced Peter’s son skis for UVM. Right: Louisa Moore, Ian Moore, and Peter Moore ’77 posed together in February at the Middlebury Carnival, where Ian wrapped up his UVM skiing career with aplomb—UVM won the carnival and took home the EISA men’s Nordic championships in an undefeated season.

BOWDOIN MAGAZINE SPRING/SUMMER 2020 | CLASSNEWS@BOWDOIN.EDU 53

Connect

Nick Pilch ’83, Reed Hastings ’83, Leo Tinkham ’83, Liz Dahl ’83, Dianne Fallon ’84, David Houston ’84, Jen Clifford, KP Petersen ’83, Jeff Clifford, Susan Abbattista ’83, Bill Songer ’83, and Zak Peterson gathered in March to visit, ski, snowboard, practice yoga, and dine in Park City, Utah.

Warren Turner ’84, Jim Sabo ’92, Peter Kester ’87, Scott Umlauf ’85, Martin Jesiman ’88, Sarah Clodfelter Leite ’91, Francine Turner Briggs ’86, and David Howe ’92—all Alpha Delta Phi alumni—gathered for virtual happy hour several times during their individual quarantines. After a few coincidentally showed up in Bowdoin gear, the others went off to scavenge their closets and captured the resulting team spirit.

Sarah Jarmer Scott ’95, Alison Behr ’95, and Jessi Beadnell ’95, first-year roommates from the fourth floor of Coleman Hall, posed together in August of 1991, then re-created the photo twentyeight years later when they reunited in Oceanside, California, in November 2019.

54 BOWDOIN MAGAZINE SPRING/SUMMER 2020 | CLASSNEWS@BOWDOIN.EDU

chemistry, soils, flora, and fauna of our floodplain forests, fens, bogs, marshes, and mires. Tales of mighty efforts to protect rare orchids, restore salt marshes, and preserve sedge meadows become portals through which we visit major wetland types and discover their secrets, while also learning critical ecological lessons. The United States still loses wetlands at a rate of 13,800 acres per year. Such loss diminishes the water quality of our rivers and lakes, depletes our capacity for flood control, reduces our ability to mitigate climate change, and further impoverishes our biodiversity. Koning and [Sharon] Ashworth’s stories captivate the imagination and inspire the emotional and intellectual connections we need to commit to protecting these magical and mysterious places.” From the publisher.

John Smith “was recognized as one of Forbes’s best-in-state advisors in their annual list for this year. Advisors are selected based on quantitative and qualitative data, including in-person interviews, industry experience, compliance records, revenue produced, and assets under management. Smith is senior vice president for investments at Merrill Lynch in Chicago. He joined the firm in 2009 with more than twenty-five years of wealth management and investment banking experience.” From a Merrill Lynch press release, February 25, 2020.

1985

Reunion

Marc Caron, founding pastor of Prince of Peace Parish in Lewiston, is returning to Maine. He has been appointed as vicar general and moderator of the curia for the Diocese of Portland, in which role he will assist the bishop in the administration and pastoral care of the

diocese, overseeing those who hold offices and minister in diocesan administration. Since July 2016, Caron has been a professor of theology and a member of the priestly formation faculty at Saint John’s Seminary in Brighton, Massachusetts. From a Sun Journal article, March 3, 2020.

1987

NBC Sports Washington’s Joe Beninati has earned another Sports Play-by-Play Announcer Emmy nomination “for his exemplary work as the voice of the Washington Capitals.” From a Capital Emmys news release, May 16, 2020.

Douglas Hatcher and his wife, Lisa-Marie Hatcher, recently published Win with Decency: How to Use Your Better Angels for Better Business (communicate4IMPACT, 2020).

In short, it makes the business case for decency. “We take five human qualities—humility, empathy, vulnerability, gratitude, and generosity—and show readers how to transform those qualities into business skills to create competitive advantage in the 2020s and beyond. We use numerous business examples from companies like Microsoft, Patagonia, Zappos, Chobani, John Hancock, and many more. My experience at Bowdoin and exposure to the idea of the common good have informed my personal and professional trajectory since graduation. I spent six years as senior advisor and speechwriter to Senator Olympia Snowe, who certainly represented this kind of powerful worldview. (Of course, so too did Senators George Mitchell ’54, H’83 and William Cohen ’62, H’75.) One quote Senator Snowe used was from President McKeen’s inaugural address in 1802: ‘If it be true, that no man should live to himself, we may safely assert, that every man who has been aided by a public institution to

acquire an education, and to qualify himself for usefulness, is under peculiar obligations to exert his talents for the public good.’ Relevant then. Even more so now. The idea of the common good serves as an undergirding for this book and approach.”

1988

“RM Davis, Northern New England’s leading wealth management firm, has announced the addition of a new shareholder: John Doughty, vice president and chief investment officer. Doughty is a resident of Falmouth, Maine, and leads the firm’s research efforts. He is chair of the investment committee at the firm and is responsible for investment strategy. He specializes in energy, economics, and geopolitics. Doughty presents regularly on global economic and market trends to business partners and others in the community.” From an RM Davis press release, March 9, 2020.

1989

“Elizabeth Drigotas, a former principal in the Washington national tax office of Deloitte Tax LLP and attorney-advisor in the Office of Benefits Tax Counsel of the United States Treasury Department, has joined New Yorkbased executive compensation and employee benefits law firm Cohen & Buckmann, PC, as senior counsel.

Considered an authority on executive compensation, Drigotas is regularly invited to speak at industry events and write for leading publications.

She is also an active member of the community and serves on the board of directors of Young Audiences and Healthcare for the Homeless.” From a Cohen & Buckmann news release, May 18, 2020.

Lindsay Kallas will be inducted into the Maine Sports Hall of Fame

in September. Kallas won three state singles titles for Falmouth High School and led the school to its first state tennis title in 1983. She earned All-American honors as Bowdoin’s number-one player, then transferred to William and Mary, where she played number-one singles and won two Colonial Athletic Association titles. From a Kennebec Journal article, January 17, 2020.

Todd Remis: “Along with producing independent films the last few years, I’m now also involved with a new TV series, From Scratch, which premiered February 16 on A&E FYI network and aired for ten weeks. From Scratch follows David Moscow (Big, Newsies, Honey) on his adventures making meals from scratch. And by ‘from scratch’ we don’t mean preparing food with basic pantry items—we mean hunting, gathering, foraging, and growing each ingredient to make a meal. We are currently in the planning process for season two.”

1990

THE CAMPAIGN FOR BOWDOIN

“Suddenly I realized that I was building a family at Bowdoin.

And that was part of what gave my life this wonderful mission. I want people who came to Bowdoin, as I did, to be able to find the foundation for their lives.”

—TRUSTEE EMERITUS ALVIN HALL ’74

Reunion

Liz Mulholland, her son Andrew ’21, and the rest of her family were featured in an article highlighting their Valley View Farm in Topsfield, Massachusetts. The dairy farm, which they have been running since 1998, specializes in handcrafted cheeses made from the milk of their herd of forty Nubian goats and aged in a state-of-the-art, temperature-controlled cheese cave created in part by Andrew. Theirs is the only working dairy in Topsfield, supplying products to caterers, specialty food stores, groceries, and restaurants— including the Market Restaurant in Annisquam, Massachusetts, where Amelia O’Reilly ’04 is head chef and owner. From a Coastal Design Magazine feature, December 17, 2019.

A commitment to comprehensive aid helps provide all of our students with a Bowdoin experience, which is so much more than a Bowdoin education. bowdoin.edu/fromhere

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1992

In April, Paul Miller (aka DJ Spooky) joined forces with a team at Climate Strike—a global movement to draw attention to the climate crisis—to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of Earth Day with “a large-scale art, music, and town hall event as a meditation on what fifty years of climate activism means.” Earth Day Live was streamed for twelve hours on April 22, 23, and 24 as part of an effort to promote social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic.

DJ Spooky helped organize several aspects of the event, including segments in which he engaged in dialogues with artists like Amanda Palmer, Michael Franti, and Shep Fairey—friends who share his sense of commitment to music, art, and environmental issues. From a djspooky.com post, April 2020.

Karen Terio: “When Nadia, a four-year-old Malayan tiger at the Bronx Zoo, recently tested positive for COVID-19, Dr. Karen Terio, who delivered the diagnosis, found herself in the media spotlight. This was the first time a big cat was found to have the novel coronavirus, and the news caused many to ask what the wider implications are for both animal and human health. Terio is a veterinary pathologist working to protect the health of wild animals.

She heads the diagnostic lab of the Zoological Pathology Program, part of the College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Illinois.” From a bowdoin.edu/news story, April 23, 2020.

1993

Elissa Boxer recently published a book for readers aged six to twelve, telling a little-known story that tipped the scales for the ratification of the amendment

that gave women the right to vote.

The Voice That Won the Vote: How One Woman’s Words Made History (Sleeping Bear Press, 2020) tells the story of Harry Burn, a young Republican legislator in Tennessee who was affected by a handwritten letter from his mother, Febb, that gently urged him to pass a vote for equality. From a bowdoin.edu/news story, April 27, 2020.

Nate McClennen, vice president of education and innovation at Teton Science Schools, recently coauthored a new book, The Power of Place: Authentic Learning Through PlaceBased Education (ASCD, 2020), “aimed at educators from pre-K through high school [as] a definitive guide to developing programs that will lead to successful outcomes for students, more fulfilling careers for teachers, and lasting benefits for communities.” From the publisher.

James Pilton: “The coronavirus has arrived in Zanzibar. As the head of school at the International School of Zanzibar, we have been preparing for the inevitable school closure and now conduct all learning pre-K–12 online. It is profoundly humbling to know that we are the only school in Zanzibar equipped for such a move and that many thousands of students are not receiving any education for the next few weeks and months. During this global pandemic, my thoughts and best wishes are with students and families around the world.”

1994

Christopher Heuer, associate professor of art history at the University of Rochester, recently published Into the White: The Renaissance Arctic and the End of the Image (Zone Books, 2019). In it, Heuer “uses five case studies to probe how the early modern

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“Now at least we know for certain that a tiger can contract this novel coronavirus, so it’s likely there are other big cats out there who are infected.”

— VETERINARY PATHOLOGIST KAREN TERIO ’92 ON NADIA, THE BRONX ZOO TIGER THAT SHE DIAGNOSED WITH COVID-19, THE FIRST SUCH FINDING IN A BIG CAT

Arctic (as site, myth, and ecology) affected contemporary debates over perception and matter, representation, discovery, and the time of the earth—long before the nineteenth century romanticized the polar landscape. In the far North, he argues, the Renaissance exotic became something far stranger than the marvelous or the curious, something darkly material and impossible to be mastered, something beyond the idea of image itself.”

From the publisher.

1995

Reunion

Darcie McElwee Leighton, an assistant US attorney, “was inducted as a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, one of the premier legal associations in the country.

McElwee’s induction, with three other new inductees from Maine, brings the total membership of Maine lawyers in the college to just twentyseven. She is the fourth female attorney in Maine to be selected for

membership in the college, and she is the first Maine prosecutor to be selected.” From a wagmtv.com news story, March 9, 2020.

1996

Tina Satter, Obie-winning writer and theater director and artistic director of the New Yorkbased company Half Straddle, was on a roll when the world went into lockdown. She was preparing to take her acclaimed play Is This a Room—a dramatized transcription of a real-life FBI interrogation— on a national and world tour for two and a half months, traveling to Australia and Europe, as well as throughout the US. Though the tour was canceled, she soon received other exciting news: she is a recipient of a 2020 Guggenheim Fellowship for drama and performance art. From a bowdoin.edu/news story, May 3, 2020.

Jonathan Chapman: “‘Summer Slugger,’ a baseball-themed digital education course focusing on math

ILLUSTRATION: ERIC HANSON

and literacy skills, is available for free for the thousands of kids studying at home during the coronavirus shelter-in-place orders, in a partnership between Major League Baseball and EVERFI, a Washington, DC-based communityengagement platform company founded by Chapman.” From a cleveland.com article, March 27, 2020.

1997

Lei Shishak has published her fourth cookbook, Beach House Dinners: Simple, Summer-Inspired Meals for Entertaining Year-Round (Skyhorse, 2020). “Dinner is the most home-cooked meal of the day.

We gather in the kitchen, open up a great cookbook, and see what ingredients we have in our pantry.

Our devices are off, work is done for the day, and we get ready to make and share an amazing meal.

Shishak’s straightforward and hassle-free recipes celebrate these moments.” From the publisher.

1998

Susan Faunce “has been elected as revitalization governor from Maine for the American Association for Justice (AAJ) Board of Governors.

She is an attorney with Berman & Simmons in Maine. The mission of the American Association for Justice is to ensure that victims of negligence or wrongdoing have full access to justice in the court.” From a Berman & Simmons press release, March 19, 2020.

1999

Jen Malia, associate professor of English at Norfolk State University, didn’t know that she was autistic when she graduated from Bowdoin. Malia, who also has two autistic children, wouldn’t be diagnosed until her late thirties.

Two of her essays were published in the New York Times’ ‘Understanding Autism’ special edition magazine this spring, and she recently published a children’s picture book, Too Sticky!

Sensory Issues with Autism (Albert Whitman & Company, 2020).

“When Holly finds out the next science class experiment is making slime, she’s worried. Holly has sensory issues because of her autism and doesn’t like anything sticky! With help from family and her teacher, Holly receives the support she needs to give slime a try.” From the publisher.

2001

Bree Candland “of Mt. Ararat High School in Topsham was named Sagadahoc County [Maine] teacher of the year. Finalists for the annual Maine Teacher of the Year award will be announced in October.” From a Portland Press Herald article, May 17, 2020.

“International law firm Perkins Coie announced that David Fentin has been promoted to partner.

Based in the Seattle, Washington, office, Fentin is a member of the technology transactions and privacy law practice.” From a Perkins Coie press release, January 2, 2020.

Andrew Mountcastle, a biology professor at Bates, helped arrange an initiative with colleagues at Bowdoin and Colby to 3-D print visors for face shields to protect Maine’s emergency personnel from the COVID-19 virus. From a Sun Journal article, April 3, 2020.

Lovey Roundtree Oliff: “I was the first African American woman to be voted as a select board member of the town of Exeter, New Hampshire. I was sworn into office on March 16, and jumped right into business discussing the plans for COVID-19 and the effects of the pandemic on the Town of Exeter.”

Katie Fahey ’97 hosted a Kappa Sig reunion at her house in Concord, Massachusetts, in the fall. Pictured: John Wihbey ’98, Dan Hart ’95, Tyler Post ’99, Ben Wells ’96, Josh Latham ’96, Mike Sinclair ’97, Ryan Ravenscroft ’99, Scott Silverman ’94, John Beede ’95, Ryan Dunn ’97, Justin Harrison ’98, Toby McGrath ’99, Dave Best ’96, Brian Fitzgerald ’99, Lauren Fitzgerald ’99, Steve Kerrissey ’98, Dave Morales ’97, Laura Sunderland Kinney ’95, Katie Stein Fahey ’97, Warren Mobley Fagan ’95, Tim Ryan ’98, Ria Moralda Hart ’98, and Tina Ormrod ’99. Missing: Mike Nakashian ’98.

Jen Malia ’99 and her children, Noelle, Nick, and Holly, proudly hold Jen’s new book, Too Sticky!, about an autistic girl’s trials and triumphs in science class.

Lovey Roundtree Oliff ’01 and New Hampshire Senator Jon Morgan celebrate at a thank-you gathering following Oliff’s election to the select board in Exeter.

She is the first African American woman to hold that position.

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Connect Zully Hatch ’11

2006

Kala Hardacker Hamilton: “Last year, Ben and I teamed up with the Shepards, Birchbys, and Eichleays to form the small but mighty ‘Cub Club,’ with a mission to gather new and gently used items for the Portland Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) chapter to help support families in our community with children aged from birth to five.”

2008 Catching Up

COLLEGE SUCCESS When Zully Hatch ’11 left Camden, New Jersey, in 2007 on a bus headed to Brunswick, Maine, she didn’t know what to expect—what attending Bowdoin meant and what impact it would have on her life.

BEING INVOLVED IN DIFFERENT ACTIVITIES ALLOWED ME TO HAVE DIVERSE EXPERIENCES ON AND OFF CAMPUS. My favorite was volunteering for an alternative spring break trip at Safe Passage in Guatemala sophomore year. It was my first time traveling abroad, and going to Latin America was life-changing.

AFTER GRADUATING, I WANTED TO GIVE BACK, so I participated in a one-year service fellowship at a charter high school in Chicago.

I went into education blindly and found gaps in learning and experiences that I wanted to fill, so after three years at the school, I went to the University of Chicago’s School of Social Service Administration and focused on nonprofit management. iMENTOR IS A NATIONAL COLLEGE SUCCESS MENTORING ORGANIZATION that provides one-on-one mentoring to high

school students. I’m program director of our Chicago region.

When Chicago Public Schools closed, it became a race to contact students and find out how to support them. I have an eleven-month-old, and working from home has been hard.

She has become an expert contributor in Zoom meetings.

For more of our interview with Zully, visit bowdoin.edu/magazine.

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Krystal Barker Buissereth, executive director and head of financial wellness at Morgan Stanley in New York, was recently pictured on the cover of AfricanAmerican Career World, and featured in an article as one of the magazine’s annual top AfricanAmerican business leaders. From an African-American Career World article, Winter/Spring 2020.

Laura Belden: “I married Evan Bilheimer (University of Rochester ’09) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where we met during residency.

Evan is now a family medicine attending physician working with Christiana Care Health System and the Delaware Juvenile Detention Centers, and I am completing a fellowship in neonatal-perinatal medicine with Thomas Jefferson University. We were so happy that so many Bowdoin family and friends could be with us to celebrate!”

Sean Sullivan, executive director of the Maine Brewers’ Guild, helped mobilize breweries to donate beer as part of a statewide effort to address the shortage of hand sanitizer. Hand sanitizer is either made from isopropyl alcohol or ethanol. “Maine brewers are taking the beer they have, which contains 4 to 12 percent alcohol, and passing it on to the distilleries that use it as the raw ingredient to distill it into the stronger alcohol required

to produce hand sanitizer,” he said.

From a bowdoin.edu/news story, April 10, 2020.

2011

Natalia Richey: “I am a certified nurse-midwife, and I work at Mass General Hospital in Boston. I was recently interviewed by Telemundo to talk about pregnancy and reassure women that coming to the hospital is the safe thing to do, over giving birth at home without any assistance.”

2013

Ben Hill-Lam and his team at Johns Hopkins AERoFuels Lab decided they had the tools and knowledge to invent a new ventilator that could be used as a backup if hospitals ran low. “A ventilator is just a flow-control system—and all we do is flow control and fluid dynamics,” Hill-Lam said. In three weeks, his lab developed a pumpless ventilator that can run for twenty-four hours on a single twelve-volt battery. From a bowdoin.edu/news story, May 4, 2020.

2014

Elizabeth Owens: “When New York University asked its fourthyear medical students whether some would like to graduate early so they could join hospital staff overwhelmed

by COVID-19 patients, Owens sent back ‘an immediate yes.’ With more than fifty of her classmates from NYU Grossman School of Medicine, Owens participated in a ‘stirring, ragged’ graduation ceremony online on April 3, two months ahead of schedule. About a week later, Owens was working as an intern at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan.”

From a bowdoin.edu/news story, April 24, 2020.

Julianne McCullough Hanley: “I married [Dan Hanley] at Dan’s family home five years after our

PHOTO: iMENTOR

Senior Week romance began. We could not be happier to have moved home to Maine this past year to be close to our families. The way life should be!”

Lester C. Pearson: “I currently work as an enrichment coordinator and kindergarten assistant at St. Therese Catholic Academy in Seattle, Washington. When I am not working at the school I am a painting artist, and I also started an art collective called the Fun(D)-A-MenTal Family (FUN Fam). The collective is composed of men and women, black and brown. We create art, talk art, and curate art shows and provide a platform for underrepresented artists to showcase to our community.”

2016

Bill De La Rosa “is the first Bowdoin alumnus to receive a Clarendon Fund Scholarship to study for a PhD at the University of Oxford.

De La Rosa plans to attend Yale University Law School after earning his PhD to study criminology or, more specifically, the convergence of criminal law and immigration law.”

From a bowdoin.edu/news story, April 10, 2020.

Olivia Stone is a first-year medical student at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, in the concurrent primary care population medicine master’s track.

“I chose this path because I think it’s likely I’ll head into a primary care specialty,” she said, “and the program’s goal is to supplement the MD curriculum with public health knowledge tailored toward leadership in primary care. ‘Population medicine,’ as a term, describes the actions taken by health care providers and others to improve a population’s health.” Read her full interview at bowdoin.edu/news.

2017

Brendan Civale and Amanda Spiller lived on the first floor of Coleman Hall as first-year students and bonded over their love of music.

They took quite different paths after graduation: Civale, a math and economics double major who also minored in music, moved to New York City and worked in investment banking for two years. Spiller, a sociology major, moved to Mexico to teach English. Their friendship continued over the distance, and when they both found themselves living on the West Coast last year, they decided to collaborate on an original song. Before the country went into lockdown, they were able to record and produce their track, “Home,” which they released in April and which is available on all streaming services. From a bowdoin.edu/news story, April 29, 2020.

2019

Kinaya Hassane has been hired as the graphic arts department curatorial fellow in support of Imperfect History: Curating the Graphic Arts Collection at Benjamin Franklin’s Public Library at the Library Company of Philadelphia, an independent research library concentrating on American society and culture from the seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries. From a Library Company of Philadelphia press announcement, March 9, 2020.

Sophia Lubrano and her sisters, Georgia and Amelia, partnered with the nonprofit Positive Tracks to host a virtual road race in April. The sisters drew interest from around the country for their Sweat2Support event, the proceeds of which will benefit the Washington, DC-based Center for Disaster Philanthropy and its COVID-19 Response Fund. From a Valley News article, April 16, 2020.

Ben Hill-Lam ’13 and his three-person team at Johns Hopkins University’s Advanced Engine and Rocket Fuel (AERoFuels) Laboratory typically focus on testing rocket fuel for space exploration.

They’ve responded to the COVID-19 public health crisis by designing a prototype for an easy-to-make ventilator.

Lester Pearson ’14 poses with a few of his paintings at an art show hosted by the Fun(D)-A-MenTal Family, a collective he started in Seattle, Washington, as a platform for underrepresented artists to showcase their work.

Olivia Stone ’16 is a first-year medical student at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University.

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Celebrate

1. Carina Sandoval ’10 and Ben Gershman (Indiana University ’10) were married on September 28, 2019, on the beach in Breezy Point, New York. Pictured: Colin Matthews ’10, Elizabeth Jones ’09, Tasha Sandoval ’13, Ben and Carina, Kirsten Davey ’10, Tana Krohn ’10, and Michael Krohn ’09.

2. Jeffrey Goodrich ’12 and Katherine Doble ’13 were married on September 7, 2019, in Prout’s Neck, Maine. Pictured: Peter Hastings ’19, Carrie Goodrich ’17, Kim Dempsey ’14, Ben Berg ’12, Michael Croteau ’15, Daniel Jeong ’12, Marie Buckley ’80, Sam Love ’12, Amy Collier ’12, Jeff and Katie, Colin Kennedy ’12, Susan Newhouse ’78, John Ottaviani ’79, Charlie Randall ’79, Susan Ricker ’80, Chuck Goodrich ’79, Becca Centanni ’13, Jean Daley ’80, Danny Schmoll ’13, Katie Sansone ’13, Richard Nerland ’12, Chelsea Gross ’13, AJ Freedman ’12, Tim Farley ’12, Sarah Fiske ’13, Madison Whitley ’13, Ben Stein ’12, and Michael Hendrickson ’13.

3. Kara Kelley ’10 and Jonathan Karl ’10 were married on January 11, 2020, at Puritan and Company in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Pictured: Maggie Brenner ’10, Clare Ronan ’10, Samantha SchwagerDowning ’10, Kara and Jonathan, Caroline Ferrari ’10, Bryce Spalding ’10, Jayme Woogerd ’07, Shavonne Lord Vautour ’10, Emily McKinnon ’10, Sarah Lord ’10, and Lauren Coven Barrasso ’10.

4. Michael Mitchell ’11 and Kaitlin Raymond ’11 were married on September 7, 2019, in Stockton Springs, Maine. Pictured: William

Skarinka ’10, Peter McGrath ’79, Lissa McGrath Millett ’83, Alison Coleman ’09, Angela Viani White ’11, Elyse Terry ’11, Rachel Eveleth ’11, Kaitlin and Michael, Catherine Mitchell-Crossley ’09, Katie Stewart ’12, Julie Hewitt Coleman ’11, Andrew Coleman ’11, Brian Wu ’11, Robert Fisher ’11, Peter Braunohler ’11, Samuel Epstein ’11, Bryce Lednar ’11, Tanu Kumar ’12, and Timothy Anderson ’11. Not pictured: Kristen Raymond ’08.

5. Julianne McCullough ’14 and Daniel Hanley ’14 were married on September 21, 2019, in Falmouth, Maine. Pictured: Caroline Handy ’14, Olivia Rotenberg ’14, Megan McCullough ’10, Aaron McCullough ’07, Robert Welch ’10, Chelsea Gold ’13, Meg O’Connor ’16, Louise Johnson ’14, Chelsea Bruno ’14, Becky Krakora ’14, Morgan Woodhouse ’14, Will Horne ’14, Connor Handy ’13, Brian Durkin ’13, Call Nichols ’12, Jordan Smith ’14, Kyle Lockwood ’14, Griffin Cardew ’14, Daniel and Julianne, Sean Hanley ’76, Dylan Hannes ’14, Katie Riley ’14, Molly Popolizio ’14, Becky Stoneman ’14, Serena Jonas ’22, Max Rosner ’13, Lucy Morrell ’13, Carolyn Lawlor ’13, Pat Lawlor ’13, Peter Mumford ’17, Pierce King ’13, Keegan Mehlhorn ’12, Tim Hanley ’15, Mikey Vitousek ’07, Sether Hanson ’13, Tom McCabe (retired Bowdoin staff), Jason Archbell (Bowdoin staff), and Dan Claypool ’77.

Island, Maine. Pictured: Micah McKay ’09, Sophia Seifert ’09, Joho Strom ’09, Tommy Wilcox ’09, Matt Eshelman ’09, Jeremy Bernfeld ’09, Maddie Bedecarre ’09, Alix Platt ’76, Kelsey Borner ’09, Peter Hamberger ’12, Nick Simon ’09, Jeremy Ross ’09, Becca Spiro ’09, Alex von Gerichten ’09, Rachel Donahue ’08, Chris Burrage ’08, Nick and Frances, David Milliken ’78, Hannah Hughes ’09, Linzee Troubh ’09, Hayley Wilcox ’09, Aurora Kurland ’09, Jessica Korsh ’09, and Lindsey Bruett ’09.

7. James Dickinson ’11 and Catherine Carman (University of South Carolina ’12) were married on October 19, 2019, in Washington, DC. Pictured: Danny Chaffetz ’11, David Gruber ’11, Mason Smith ’11, Adam Marquit ’11, Erin Walder ’11, Edward Gottfried ’11, Seth Walder ’11, James and Catherine, Jack Burkhardt ’11, Kaye Verville ’11, Tim Anderson ’11, Emily Graham ’11, David Shaeffer ’11, and Matt Leopold ’11.

8. Robin Transgrud ’06 and Dominic Silvia were married on September 7, 2020, in the Brazilian Room, Tilden Regional Park, Berkeley, California. Pictured: Erik Morrison ’06, Avery Ash ’05, Dominic and Robin, David Duhalde ’06, Matt Thompson ’06, and Jonah Popp ’06.

6. Frances Milliken ’09 and Nick Platt (Sewanee ’12) were married by the groom’s sister, Mary Hartley Platt ’07, on August 24, 2019, in Northeast Harbor, on Mount Desert

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9. Maina Handmaker ’11 and Richard Joyce ’13 were married on September 14, 2019, at Six River Farm in Bowdoinham, Maine.

Pictured: Amberlee Gustafson ’08, Nate Johnson ’09, Willy Oppenheim ’09, Francis Joyce ’13, Sam Howe ’11, Charles Stern ’09, Sol Rheem ’15, Marie Sears ’09, Nadia Celis (Bowdoin faculty), Maina and Richard, Genie and Nat Wheelwright (retired Bowdoin faculty), Susan Tananbaum (retired Bowdoin faculty), Paul Franco and Jill Pearlman (Bowdoin faculty), Will Cogswell ’11, Caitlin Callahan ’11, Emily Guerin ’09, and Annie Chisholm ’09.

10. Laura Belden ’08 and Evan Bilheimer (University of Rochester ’09) were married on September 14, 2019, at the Ridgeland Mansion in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Pictured: Anna McManus Hayes ’83, Jeff Gorodetsky ’81, Emily Skinner ’08, Katie Hayes Ozarowski ’06, Clara Cantor ’08, ZZ Cowen Piven ’08, Brittany Harvey ’08, Debbie Theodore ’08, Anne Riley Moffat ’08, Rogan McCally ’08, Charlie Ticotsky ’07, Evan and Laura, Pat McManus ’81, Dan Hayes ’81, Doug Belden ’81, and Betsy Putnam Belden ’80.

11. Louisa Oakes ’13 and Franklin Farrington Reis ’14 were married on August 24, 2019, at Louisa’s family home in Edgartown, Martha’s Vineyard. Pictured: Liza Lepage ’13, Julie McCullough Hanley ’14, Dan Hanley ’14, Peter Woods ’13, Dylan Hannes ’14, Peyton Kelley ’13, Phil Cuddeback ’13, Sam Patterson ’14, Will Horne ’14, Gus Vergara ’13, Brooke Phinney ’13, Helen Conaghan Renninger ’13, Alexandra Fradin ’13, Kurt Lukas Herzog ’13, Emma

Stanislawski ’13, Franklin and Louisa, August Kerschner ’11, Katie Farrington ’89, Matthew Marr ’13, Molly Clements Fisher ’13, Simon Bordwin ’13, Lidey Heuck ’13, and Julia Graham ’13.

12. Katherine Armstrong ’08 and Alexander Martin (Bates ’08) were married on September 21, 2019, on Squam Lake in New Hampshire.

Pictured: Emily Hurst ’08, Kerry Brodziak ’08, Michaela Wallin ’08, Nate Lovitz ’08, Kat Whitley Fuller ’08, Mark Fuller ’08, Phil Wilson ’08, Julie Endrizzi ’09, Alexander and Katherine, Laura Armstrong ’12, Nellie Connelly Thornton ’08, Rachel Cram Halliday ’02, Sara Holby ’08, Hanne Wieschoff Pomerantz ’08, Chris Burrage ’08, Alison Spencer ’08, Kori LaMontagne ’08, Lindsey Bruett ’09, Liza Cohen ’08, Garrett Gates ’08, Carrie Roble ’08, and Eddie Hunter ’08.

13. Kyle Petrie ’06 and Shanna Mann (University of Southern California ’06) were married on November 23, 2019, in Piru, California. Pictured: Nick Ordway ’06, Christi Gannon ’06, Kyle, Taneesha Phillips, Andrew Hippert ’08, Jillian Bradley, Shanna, Jordan Fliegel ’08, Tim Lane ’09, Kyle Jackson ’09, Kevin Bradley ’07, Antwan Phillips ’06, and Darian Reid-Sturgis ’09.

14. Christian Adams ’09 and Erin Connell (Columbia University ’13) were married on September 7, 2019, in Somesville, Maine. Pictured: Tom Wilcox ’09, Kelsey Borner ’09, Jeremy Bernfeld ’09, Stephen Majercik (Bowdoin faculty), Eric Harrison ’09, David Leinen ’09, Louisa Cannell ’13, Jeremy Ross ’09, Christian and Erin, and Julia Jacobs ’10.

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15. Ali Ragan ’16 and Matt Mathias ’14 were married on July 27, 2019, in New London, New Hampshire. Pictured: Emi Gaal ’15, Jackie Sullivan ’15, Matt Collins ’15, McKenzie Kessel ’16, Emma Patterson ’16, Ali and Matt, Luisa LaSalle ’14, Emily Carr ’14, Viola Rothschild ’14, Ali Fradin ’13, Clare Sutphin ’14, Nora Biette-Timmons ’14, Peter Davis ’14, Simon Brooks ’14, Grant White ’14, Bryan Hurley ’15, Andrew Madlinger ’14, Sarah Freeman ’15, Thomas Lilly ’14, Stephan Danyluk ’14, Charlie Rollins ’14, Sam Patterson ’14, Charley Allen ’14, John Swords ’15, Max Staiger ’13, Emma Stevens ’18, John Lagasse ’16, and Filipe Camarotti ’14.

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BY EDGAR ALLEN BEEM P’13

MORE MEDICAL WASTE

CLEANER AIR

Matthew Klingle, associate professor of history and environmental studies, is concerned about the impact the fight against COVID-19 will have on the environment. “I’m waiting to see whether all the gloves, gowns, and face masks overwhelm the business of biomedical waste,” said Klingle. Hospitals produce 29 pounds of waste per staffed bed in a day, which translates to close to five million tons of medical waste a year in the US. In Wuhan, China, the volume of medical waste at the height of the pandemic rose from 44 tons to 270 tons per day. Klingle fears the medical waste stream will have both an environmental and a social impact. “This pandemic has shined a bright light on preexisting inequalities,” said Klingle. “Waste is generally deposited in places where costs are low and life is cheap.”

Jeff Crawford, director of the Maine Department of Environmental Protection’s Bureau of Air Quality, confirms that a roughly 30 percent reduction in vehicle traffic on Maine’s roads, due to the pandemic, has resulted in somewhat cleaner air. That drop in traffic equates to reduced air emissions of pollutants by 1,088 tons per year and 91 tons per month.

Experts gauge side effects— good, bad, and imagined— of social distancing on Maine’s natural world during the COVID-19 pandemic.

QUIETER EARTH Newspapers and magazines ranging from The New York Times to National Geographic have been reporting that seismologists are finding the earth much quieter in regions that have adopted stay-at-home measures. John Ebel, senior research scientist at Boston College’s Weston Observatory, manages the seismic array for the Northeast. Ebel said seismographs on campuses are sensitive enough to pick up ground vibrations from students walking to and from class. “It all depends on where you are,” said Ebel. “We have a station at Peaks-Kenny State Park [on Sebec Lake in Dover-Foxcroft] that is always very quiet. There, there’s been no change at all.”

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PAYING ATTENTION “There is some wish fulfillment here,” observed biologist Nat Wheelwright, Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Natural Sciences Emeritus. “The world is quiet-seeming as we all slow down, but I’m not hearing more bird song as there is less noise. Road kill may be down, but drivers are speeding up. So many people are just paying attention to nature in ways they never did. People are noticing things that were always there.”

LASTING EFFECTS Kate Dempsey ’88, Maine state director for The Nature Conservancy, and Nicholas Wolff ’89, climate change scientist for The Nature Conservancy, cautioned against looking for silver linings in the human response to the novel coronavirus.

“One thing we can say for sure: Any lasting impacts on nature and climate will depend on whether we see lasting changes in human behavior. Will we start traveling less? Will we seek out food and goods from our local communities, rather than shipping them around the world? Will we hold conserved natural lands and waters in new esteem, knowing how critical they have proven to us throughout this crisis? Will we choose to increase our investments in renewable energy, despite the temptation of low oil prices, and reinvest in healthy oceans, rivers, and lands? The answers to questions like these will determine the true impact of what we’re going through.

Fortunately—unlike so much about what we’re experiencing right now—those decisions are something we can all control.”

PHOTO: HANNAH WELLING PHOTOGRAPHY

SLOWING DOWN If some of us have learned during this time to pay more attention to our surroundings, we can find rewards for that new skill in Maine’s spring—as in these graceful, unfurling ferns. They may not be the sought-after edible fiddleheads, but they are things of beauty.

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