It’s 9:30 a.m. on Sunday, and the 160th �ֲ���ý Commencement procession has just set off from Alumni Walk. It will wind along campus walkways en route to the Historic Quad and its final destination, Coram Library. 

Jeremy Caron of Lewiston has been waiting in his wheelchair on the Quad for nearly three hours. He got there early to secure a location where he could easily see and greet the �ֲ���ý seniors he’s come to know over the last four years.

For many, Commencement is a whirlwind, one-time visit to �ֲ���ý. But for some like Caron, who choose to attend year after year, it is an annual touchstone, a chance to support the graduates while reconnecting with a community that has shaped their lives and created a lifetime of memories.

Not far from Caron, a trio of octogenarian �ֲ���ý retirees — Judy Marden ’66, her classmate Bill Hiss ’66, and Elaine Freeman — watch the proceedings from a prime perch, the steps of Hathorn Hall. Collectively, they’ve seen around 150 Commencements.

Marden joined the �ֲ���ý Advancement staff shortly after her own graduation, which was held in the Armory a few blocks from campus. (Lore has it that the Armory was an especially stuffy venue because the circus and its elephants had just left town.) By the mid-1970s, Marden had assumed a new position created by President Thomas Hedley Reynolds, “liaison officer for college functions.” A veteran World War II tank commander, Reynolds might’ve pulled the job title from an Army handbook. 

A big part of Marden’s job was to run Commencement and Convocation, plus summer programs, which she did with help from Freeman, a director in Facility Services. Marden also advised the �ֲ���ý Outing Club. 

Decades later, the twin �ֲ���ý events help anchor and give meaning to Marden’s annual trip around the sun. “My year ends with Commencement and begins with Convocation,” she says. “If it did not, it would have no form.”

Ever since Reynolds introduced the tradition, a bagpiper has led the �ֲ���ý Commencement procession. (Reynolds was also responsible for relocating Commencement from the Armory to the Quad.) On Sunday, the piper’s arrival on the Quad reminds Marden and Freeman of a Commencement task back in the day: appearing with goblets and scotch so Reynolds could share a down-the-hatch drink with the piper at the end of the ceremony.

For Hiss, a retired �ֲ���ý admission dean who forged the college’s famed test-optional admission policy, attending Commencement is an act of bearing witness. “Commencement is about �ֲ���ý doing, and continuing to do, what America needs. It’s that simple,” he says. 

Meanwhile, down on the Quad, Caron awaits the procession. He hasn’t missed a �ֲ���ý graduation since 2006, but he’s more than just a Commencement regular. He attends scores of campus events each year, especially Bobcat sports. Which ones? “Every single one,” he says. That’s around 125 contests annually. “I love sports, and I always tell the athletes that I’ll support them through thick and thin,” he says. “I want to celebrate all their hard work and effort.”

By 9:45, the seniors are nearing Caron’s spot on the Quad. The procession route is full of parents standing elbow to elbow taking pictures and the passing grads, seeming to tower above Caron in his wheelchair. But no matter: They spy their loyal fan, break from the ranks, and reach out for a fist bump, handshake, or hug.

That included Zach Rosenthal ’26, a politics and history double major from Chicago who handled game-day operations for �ֲ���ý Athletics as a student worker. Seeing familiar �ֲ���ý faces like Caron’s on Commencement day was “really cool,” he said later. “It’s cliché, but it’s a full-circle moment. You see these people all the time throughout the past four years, and to see them at the final stop of your academic journey is really special.”

Caron was born without the use of his legs. At age 10, he learned to use an adaptive bicycle, and he’s been an avid biker ever since, including riding in the annual Dempsey Challenge for cancer support. Asked to offer advice to seniors, Caron reflects on his own experience. “There are times you have to adapt,” he says. 

Longtime Lewiston resident Ernie Ashton, a retired local elementary school teacher, has been a driver for the Bobcat Express student shuttle for 23 years. Ashton wasn’t shuttling on Sunday, but there’s no way he would miss graduation. “It’s a pleasure to be here year after year. I just love them,” he says. “You watch these kids for four years, and they do such a great job. They keep me young.” 

He likes to talk up Lewiston to his passengers on the shuttle, “places they should see before they leave,” like Thorncrag Nature Sanctuary and Veterans Memorial Park by the Androscoggin River. “And they do.”

This March, Paul Menice retired as head of Campus Safety after 36 years of service to the college. He’s seen and supported students at their best and worst. “Everyone makes mistakes when they’re young,” he says. When he sees students at Commencement, he sees maturity and appreciation. “It’s a highlight, getting hugs and handshakes, and them saying ‘thanks.’”

Another local at Commencement is Russ Dillingham, an award-winning photographer for Lewiston’s Sun Journal. He’s on the job today, but the event tugs at his heart. “I grew up over there,” he says, pointing to Campus Avenue, where there used to be wood-frame residences, replaced in recent years by college buildings like Bonney Science Center and Chu and Kalperis halls.

When he was a child, Dillingham wore corrective leg braces. A �ֲ���ý student who babysat the Dillingham children would bring Russ over to campus for walks. He got stronger, and his legs straighter. “I’m pretty sure that’s why I can walk straight today,” he says. He enjoys covering Commencement. “It’s relaxed, friendly, and joyful.”

On a walkway near Carnegie Science Hall is Peter Slovenski, son of legendary �ֲ���ý track coach Walter Slovenski. Retired after coaching track at Bowdoin for 34 years, Slovenski stopped by to support graduate Zach Jawor ’26 of Lewiston, one of his very best counselors at his Slovenski Camps on Panther Pond in Raymond.

Slovenski remembers being awed as a little kid by towering �ֲ���ý athletes of the day, figures like Howard Vandersea ’63 or Thom Freeman ’63. “As the years go by, as you see more and more students being able to grow into adults at a place like �ֲ���ý, you realize it’s less about individuals. More of a relay race, passing it forward.”

One of Walt Slovenski’s former �ֲ���ý runners, Tom Leonard ’78, is another Commencement stalwart. An accomplished amateur photographer based in North Granby, Conn., Leonard travels around the Northeast each year from his home to photograph Bobcat athletes in action. Commencement is the final meet of the year, as it were. “Today recognizes the fact that all �ֲ���ý students have accomplished something incredibly meaningful,” Leonard says. 

“When I was a student, I don’t know if I appreciated the scene as much as I do as an old person,” he adds. “I mean, my God, look at all these people who helped get these kids to where they are today. And that’s a beautiful thing.”

Charles A. Dana Professor Emeritus of Theater Martin E. Andrucki, a beloved and brilliant teacher and scholar who secured a seat at the liberal arts table for �ֲ���ý theater, died Feb. 8, 2026, at age 80. A faculty member for 47 years, Andrucki was among the longest-serving �ֲ���ý professors in the college’s history.

Raised in the Bronx, N.Y., Andrucki earned a bachelor’s degree in English, magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, from Columbia University and a doctoral degree in English from Harvard University. 

Andrucki’s arrival at �ֲ���ý for the 1974–75 academic year coincided with theater becoming a major for the first time. Yet the department, which at the time housed both theater and rhetoric, was at a low point due to retirements and departures. “It was on the verge of expiring,” recalled Andrucki in 2021. Some at the college were openly questioning the legitimacy of theater as a liberal arts discipline. 

As with other young professors who joined �ֲ���ý in the 1970s and 1980s and helped to build academic programs, Andrucki arrived brimming with gusto; an early student described him as bringing “a fierce intellect and a wise-ass New York City sense of humor” to �ֲ���ý.

The task before him 50 years ago, Andrucki recalled, was to “create a curriculum that emphasized literature and theory and producing serious drama on our stages. We wanted our majors to be broadly educated in theater and drama and to see theater as one of the liberal arts.”

During retirement events in 2021, proof of his success resounded in the words of theater alumni. Theater at �ֲ���ý “equipped me with hands-on experiences I apply nearly every day in life,” recalled Bobbi Bell Birkemeier ’78. “Time management and making deadlines, thinking quickly on one’s feet, improvisation, how to take criticism and direction in a positive fashion, how to direct and delegate, and how to ‘play nicely with others’ in working collaboratively.”

And from his first days on campus, his students felt Andrucki’s intellect and generosity, his lofty standards coupled with a belief in their potential for success. “Marty was completely invested in our work in the classroom and onstage,” Sarah Pearson ’75 said in 2021. “Marty made me believe that anything was possible, and his confidence in me — in all of us — was invaluable and gave me the boost I needed to face the next stage of life.”

“He always seemed to focus on the big picture, the big idea, if you will. Plot. Character. Thought. Diction. Music and spectacle,” said James Lapan ’86. For Amanda San Roman ’17, Andrucki was a “steady and grounding force in my �ֲ���ý experience. His subtle humor, wealth of intelligence, and supportive nature never went unnoticed by anyone he interacted with.”

Andrucki rose swiftly through the academic ranks. In 1975, he was promoted to assistant professor and that year began his decades-long service as department chair. He earned tenure in 1983, was promoted to full professor in 1990, and in 2001 was appointed to a Dana Professorship, one of the most prestigious faculty honors at �ֲ���ý.

Though �ֲ���ý theater was ripe for renewal in the mid-1970s, Andrucki was building on a firm foundation. Two years before his arrival, �ֲ���ý had named its theater on College Street in honor of Lavinia Miriam Schaeffer, who retired in 1972 after leading the �ֲ���ý theater program since 1938.

As Andrucki noted in 2021, Schaeffer was a champion of the Little Theater Movement that emerged in the early 1900s in the U.S., which emphasized authenticity over grandiosity, “aiming to produce challenging drama in an intimate atmosphere,” he said. The vibe always resonated with Andrucki. “Let’s remember Lavinia and those values as we move ahead,” he said in 2021.

At �ֲ���ý, he taught courses on theater history, dramatic literature, directing, and playwriting. He directed more than 50 theatrical productions at �ֲ���ý, in the U.S., and abroad. His directing ranged widely: classical and Shakespearean works such as Antigone, Hamlet, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream; European modern and political theater including Three Sisters, Endgame, and The Caucasian Chalk Circle; American and contemporary plays such as Bus Stop, The Skin of Our Teeth, Eurydice, and Love/Sick; as well as original and experimental projects including his own Marie and the Nutcracker and the radio-play production Radio Waves. 

His can-do spirit inspired his students. In 1981, he scoured local junkyards to find the right prop for a production of Sam Shepard’s The Unseen Hand: a busted-up 1957 Ford sedan, hauled straight into the Schaeffer Theatre carpentry shop, where Andrucki chose to stage the avant-garde play.

Every other Short Term from 1999 to 2019, Andrucki and Kati Vecsey, senior lecturer in theater, led students to Budapest and Prague for the course “Central European Theater and Film,” the college’s longest-running off-campus Short Term program. “And yes, Marty learned to speak and read Hungarian,” said Vecsey, a Hungarian herself, noting the difficulty that English speakers have with the language.

“Marty and I watched many great, and many boring, theater productions together over the years,” Vecsey said. “When we would go to the theater, Marty always made sure to get an aisle seat, to make sure he had a quick way to escape if the show was unbearable.”

Learning Hungarian was just another example of Andrucki’s smarts, streetwise and otherwise. “There was this mysterious skill that fired his intellectual life,” Vecsey said, “a capacity to explore new territories without forgetting the old ones.” Andrucki brought “profound knowledge, wisdom, and humor into every room [he] entered, both as a director and as a professor,” said Maddy Shmalo ’19.

While he could be the smartest person in the room, Andrucki was often the most welcoming. “He seemed an untouchable mad genius to me at times, but at the same time a friend to sit and shoot the breeze with,” Chuck Richardson ’86 said during the 2021 retirement celebration.

A course with Andrucki, recalled writer Elizabeth Strout ’77 during a 2019 visit to campus, was not only one of her favorites, but also influenced her writing as a Pulitzer Prize-winning author of fiction. In the course, Andrucki guided his students through plays by classic American playwrights like Eugene O’Neill and Tennessee Williams. “He loved those people so much that I loved them,” Strout said. 

From reading the plays, Strout learned a valuable lesson about writing authentic dialogue. 

“When you write dialogue in a story or a novel, there has to be a translation between what people are actually saying to the page. You can’t write what people are actually saying, because it’s too boring. You’ve got to translate it to the page in a way that sounds authentic.”

In 1979, Andrucki was named a Mellon Fellow to conduct research into the teaching of theater. In 1987 he joined a directors’ forum at Columbia University, doing advanced studies with Liviu Ciulei, Lee Breuer, Adrian Hall, and others. He was a professor of English at the Harvard Summer School from 1993 to 1996. In 2002, he earned a Fulbright Scholar award for research in Hungary.

He wrote four plays, including Manny’s War. Staged at �ֲ���ý in 2000 in collaboration with The Public Theatre of Lewiston, the play helped a local man, Murray Schwartz, reconcile his feelings of failure as a World War II soldier.

Schwartz, like Andrucki, was a New Yorker transplanted to Maine. He had headed to war with pride as an avenging Jew, and earned a Combat Infantry Badge, a Bronze Star, and three Purple Hearts, but then felt shame when, as a prisoner of war captured during the Battle of the Bulge, he resorted to stealing a fellow prisoner’s bread. “The play caught the inner struggle,” Schwartz said. “Not the generals’ strategies, but the betrayal of the will.” 

As Andrucki wrote in �ֲ���ý Magazine, the play’s opening night at Schaeffer Theatre saw Murray Schwartz “watching his wartime pain, psychological and physical, played out on stage. He was surrounded by family and friends, �ֲ���ý people and Lewiston–Auburn citizens, a full house serving witness to a fellow American’s story.” The play was nominated for the New Play Award of the American Theatre Critics Association. 

Andrucki was a prolific writer. He wrote a series of 15 critical essays published by the Portland Stage Company on topics ranging from love and lying in Sam Shepard’s Fool for Love to the handicap of virtue in Ted Tally’s Terra Nova. Among his hundreds of essays were 108 audience guides as a humanities scholar and dramaturge for two of Maine’s professional theaters, Portland Stage Company and The Public Theatre.

His writing appeared in Modern Philology, Theatre Journal, Text and Performance Quarterly, and The Columbia Encyclopedia of Modern Drama. In the early 1990s, he was host and writer of Wide Angle, a weekly television show on Maine Public focused on Maine filmmakers. 

Not all his writing was theater-focused. In January 1981, he wrote a nostalgic essay recalling his childhood in the Bronx, and the memories of heating a home with coal, a fuel that made a resurgence during that historically cold winter. “It’s the childhood I really had,” he wrote. “For me, the rattling chute and dusty bin, the gritty ashcans and the pungent smell, are all redolent of New York in the last days of its unruffled pre-eminence, when televisions had round screens and no one had heard of the Sun Belt.” 

Heating with coal in his Maine home created a connection with his son, Max, then 3 years old, the young boy being dazzled by the heat that poured forth from a pile of black rocks, “a moment of connection between my childhood and his, a New York memory for my son from Maine.”

When he retired in 2021, Andrucki had served �ֲ���ý for 47 years, a tenure matched only by the late Karl Woodcock, professor of physics. To honor his career, the college’s black box theater was then named the Martin Andrucki Black Box Theater. 

Andrucki treated theater, and his teaching of theater, as both an intellectual discipline and a lived experience. “I teach because I like working in a profession and at a place where intellectual and aesthetic values prevail, where telling the truth, as one understands it, is the objective,” he said, during a retirement event. Drawing on the thinking of the late Princeton scholar and poet Michael Goldman, he went on to explain theater’s power to deliver “total education.”

For students, that meant discovering their “entire being rather than the intellect alone.” Theater, Andrucki said, “engages the whole self,” whether as actor, director, designer, or playwright, in the deepest sense of education: the Latin educare, to lead forth, to draw out what is already present and waiting to be revealed. “Which is what college is supposed to be all about.”

It’s been a century and a half since �ֲ���ý played host to the first football game in Maine.

In 1875, the first game was a roughhouse affair, against Tufts, with a rudimentary set of rules but a purpose that has endured through the years: a chance to compete athletically, with high energy and high ideals, and to create connections and friendships of a lifetime.

To celebrate the sesquicentennial, �ֲ���ý has scheduled a series of events, including on-field festivities, coinciding with the season opener vs. Amherst at 1 p.m. on Sept. 13.

To , here are 15 uniquely �ֲ���ý football moments from 150 years.

Nov. 6, 1875: Maine’s first college football game

Tufts and �ֲ���ý played the first college football game in Maine on Nov. 6, 1875.

As Charlie Clark ’51 wrote in �ֲ���ý Through the Years, the first game was “greeted at the time with some hilarity.” Few �ֲ���ý players knew the rules, and none had played before.

In the days before the game, the �ֲ���ý Student noted student enthusiasm. “Every man who had failed to distinguish himself in baseball seemed possessed with the idea that here was an opportunity to immortalize himself.

“Tall and short, lean and stout, quick and slow, active and clumsy have all rushed into this new game. Shirts have been torn, coats curtailed, boots ruined, and shins bruised; but, never mind, it’s fun and good exercise.”

The bemused tone continued with the Lewiston Evening Journal’s coverage: “Occasionally, 10 or 12 men got into a promiscuous scramble for the possession of the ball…and came forth rubbing their shins and using such phrases as, ‘Gracious juggernaut.’”

The rules as published in the Student: “No one wearing projecting nails, iron plates, or gutta percha on the soles or heels of his boots shall be allowed to play.”

In a history of �ֲ���ý football, Adelbert Jakeman, Class of 1927, noted an ulterior purpose of that first game: “to form an acquaintance with the students” from a fellow college.

Oct. 26, 1889: Football promises to transform a ‘dooryard dreamer’ into a ‘cosmopolitan’

�ֲ���ý played only one football game in the decade of the 1880s, but there was lots of talk both on campus and across the country about how the new college sport could teach lessons in manhood.

On Oct. 26, 1889, the Lewiston Saturday Journal reprinted urging the college to re-adopt the game. Football, the writer said, can knock the “bow-kneed slovenliness” out of a young man, and shake out the “hayseed element,” language consistent with how football was being .

In football, a young man “has got to wake, he has got to stir himself and at the same time he learns something of the universal struggle necessary to gain a foothold anywhere.” The physicality of football, he wrote, “makes a cosmopolitan out of a dooryard dreamer.”

The sole game played in the decade was versus an experienced Bowdoin team, a 62–0 loss. 

Oct. 29, 1898: �ֲ���ý defeats Bowdoin in a historic ‘nerve destroyer’

By the 1890s, football was booming nationwide. In Maine, an historic �ֲ���ý–Bowdoin rivalry was taking root. Bowdoin had easily won the first five games of the series, but �ֲ���ý broke through with a 10–6 win at Bowdoin in 1897. It was the first time Bowdoin had been defeated by a Maine college, which set the stage for high drama in Lewiston in 1898.

With Garcelon Field not yet finished, the 1898 game was played at foggy Lee Park, a circus grounds near campus, with �ֲ���ý upsetting its rivals, 6–0, in a bruising battle before 2,500 fans.

The �ֲ���ý hero was William Allen Saunders, Class of 1899, a guard from Virginia who powered into the end zone for the game’s lone touchdown. Newspapers called it “the fiercest foot ball [sic] ever seen in this state,” and said �ֲ���ý’ “happy farmer boys” celebrated with trolley rides, fireworks, and songs mocking Bowdoin. 

Saunders, who had studied at Storer College in Harpers Ferry before �ֲ���ý, went on to a long career teaching math and science at historically Black colleges.

Nov. 30, 1905: President Chase defends the imperiled sport of football

In the early 1900s, college football appeared  headed toward oblivion. Scandals involving professional ringers abounded, and mass-momentum formations like the “flying wedge” made the game deadly. In 1905, at least 18 people died playing football and more than 150 were injured, according to The Washington Post. 

On Nov. 28 of that year, Columbia University abolished the sport. The university released a list of injuries sustained that year, including broken arms, broken collar bones, a sprained spinal column, a dislocated shoulder, and a “back injured by being jumped on by a Wesleyan player.”

Two days later, �ֲ���ý President George Colby Chase released a statement saying that the . “We have left too much to the well-meaning but undeveloped judgment of students.” At the time, students had a large hand in running their college sports teams. Within a year, new rules at the national level legalized the forward pass, banned the most dangerous formations, and created what would become the NCAA.

At �ֲ���ý, the reforms were welcomed by students. “Ringers, hirelings, and physically perfect ignoramuses, we will leave to those who want them. We want clean, intelligent �ֲ���ý men,” The �ֲ���ý Student reported.

Oct. 28, 1911: A ‘near-riot,’ and accusations of UMaine ‘muckerism’

Adelbert Jakeman’s football history notes a “near riot” after �ֲ���ý upset the University of Maine, 5–0, at Orono, in 1911.

After the game, �ֲ���ý fans, led by the college band, began to parade from the field through the Maine campus. That did not go over well with the locals, who believed that the celebration violated sports etiquette. 

When Maine students “attempted to rush the �ֲ���ý crowd,” the �ֲ���ý supporters decamped to a public street to form their march, “but again they were rushed by the Maine fellows.” Chaos ensued. “The �ֲ���ý line was broken up and considerable damage done to the band instruments in the scrap which followed,” reported the Student. 

Later, �ֲ���ý professor and head football coach Royce Purinton, Class of 1900, told his physiology class that the Maine students were guilty of “muckerism.”

Sept. 26, 1925: The huddle comes to �ֲ���ý

What the conference on the pitching mound is to baseball, the huddle is to football. It’s iconic, and it came to �ֲ���ý football in 1925.

The newfangled approach to playcalling was described as “a congregating of the players in a closely locked group behind the scrimmage line. From this circle, the men jump to their positions and the ball is snapped back and the play put into motion without an audible word.”

Before the advent of the huddle, quarterbacks would yell out plays at the line of scrimmage. Head coach Oliver Cutts, Class of 1896, told the local paper that it would no longer be necessary for a team’s home cheerleaders to hush the crowd while the quarterback yells out the play.

Oct. 1, 1932: �ֲ���ý ties mighty Yale

The score was 0–0 but still made national news, including in The New York Times, under the headline “Ability of �ֲ���ý to Hold Yale to 0–0 Tie Listed Among Saturday’s Surprises.”

“Scarlet-clad gridiron warriors from �ֲ���ý College, Lewiston, Maine, furnished one of the early football surprises of the season here Saturday in holding Yale to a nothing to nothing tie in the opening game of the season for the Elis,” reported a wire story that appeared in newspapers as far away as Miami, Fla.

To celebrate, �ֲ���ý freshmen hauled logs to the top of Mount David, then touched off a bonfire that could be seen for miles around. “Bombs and red fire added to the general conflagration,” the Lewiston Daily Sun said. 

Down below, a crowd gathered at Hathorn Hall. Then, led by the campus band, the throng paraded around campus before heading up Mount David for a party and speeches.

Dec. 7, 1946: �ֲ���ý heads to Ohio for the Glass Bowl

In 1946, �ֲ���ý returned from a three-year wartime hiatus with just 28 players. “Most of the guys were veterans of the war. We had no doubt we would do well,” recalled guard Linden Blanchard ’49.

Led by coach Raymond “Ducky” Pond, the Bobcats rolled to a 7–0 season, outscoring opponents 89–10, and earned a postseason football bid to the inaugural Glass Bowl in Toledo.

The Dec. 7 game was full of pageantry — bands, flags, and even an 18-pound lobster presented to Ohio’s governor. Underdog �ֲ���ý stunned the crowd of 12,000 by scoring first. 

Art Blanchard ’50 was named the game’s MVP, and while �ֲ���ý lost 21–12, the team left Ohio with a unique �ֲ���ý football milestone: the only bowl game played by a NESCAC team.

This video clip shows cheerleaders delivering the huge lobster to Ohio Gov. Frank Lausche at halftime, a gift from Maine Gov. Horace Hildreth.

Nov. 10, 1956: �ֲ���ý sweeps the old State Series for the final time

Before the Colby-�ֲ���ý-Bowdoin rivalry, there was the Maine State Series, with UMaine in the mix. By 1956, Maine had dominated, winning nine straight series games. But in 1956, the Bobcats rattled off five straight wins, including a sweep of the series, to capture their last outright state title before Maine left the league in 1964.

The star was Bob “Spinner” Martin ’57, described by coach Bob Hatch as a player who “did so many things so well.” An All-America selection, Martin led �ֲ���ý in rushing, passing, receiving, punting, and scoring that year — 99 points in all. Teammate Brian Flynn ’57 recalled the grueling two-way play of the era: “If you went in you had to play both ways until you came out.” 

The clincher came with a 38–13 rout of Colby before Maine Gov. Edmund Muskie ’36 and 3,000 fans, capping �ֲ���ý’ last State Series crown.

Oct. 28, 1961: Bob Hatch schemes his way to a huge surprise vs. UMaine

Using an innovative spread formation vs. Maine on Oct. 28, 1961, head coach Bob Hatch surprised the heavily favored Black Bears, delighted the national media, and inspired the campus.

Dubbed the “Popular Halfback” by the Associated Press, the formation had running back Paul Planchon ’64, with a “pair of sticky fingers for catching passes,” lined up like a typical wide receiver. But he wasn’t out wide alone. With him went four linemen. When quarterback Swift Hathaway ’62 took the snap, he could either hand off to a running back behind him or — which he did most often versus Maine — toss a pass to Planchon, who headed downfield with his escort.

The creative play confused Maine, helping �ֲ���ý to a surprise 15–15 tie. (The name “Popular Halfback” was a reference to the Army’s “Lonesome End,” Bill Carpenter, who always lined up near a far sideline and never even came into the huddle.)

Web Harrison ’63, one of Hatch’s players who would go on to coach �ֲ���ý football from 1978 to 1991, recalled the post-game scene:

“In the most genuine display of school spirit I ever witnessed, students lined both sides of the walk from Alumni Gym to the Den, waited for the players to emerge from the locker room, and cheered each player as we walked to the Den.”

1974: A beloved coach coins ‘Great Day to Be a Bobcat’

When Web Harrison ’63 joined the �ֲ���ý football coaching staff in 1974, he would kid around with his friend and fellow alumnus Russ Reilly ’66, who was a trainer and assistant coach.

Harrison, who had seen combat duty in Vietnam with the Marines, would greet Reilly with a version of a Marine Corps saying: “Good afternoon, Russ! What a grand and glorious day to be a �ֲ���ý student, where every day is a holiday and every meal is a banquet.”

That greeting was soon shortened to today’s “It’s a Great Day to Be a Bobcat!” In this video, Harrison shares the story:

Nov. 7, 1981: On and off the field, �ֲ���ý overwhelms its oldest rival

With All-American receiver Larry DiGiammarino ’82 at his best on the field, and fired-up �ֲ���ý students making headlines off the field, the 23–13 victory over Bowdoin was the high point of one of �ֲ���ý’ best seasons ever.

�ֲ���ý swaggered into Bowdoin with a 5–1 record under head coach Web Harrison ’63, who was in the fourth year of a 20–12 stretch and two outright CBB titles.

Before the game, when tailgating �ֲ���ý students resisted extinguishing their barbecue grill, the Brunswick fire department was called in to “hose down the hibachi,” according to The �ֲ���ý Student.

Then, a Bowdoin security officer was pushed aside as students rushed through the Whittier Field gate without paying. A �ֲ���ý student was arrested, but released in time to receive an ovation from the �ֲ���ý student section. 

The �ֲ���ý Student called the sequence of events in Brunswick “overreaction” and called for the end of paid admission. After conferring with his Bowdoin counterparts, Dean of the College James Carignan ’61 told the Student that “they feel the whole thing is very unfortunate. They are most anxious that these kinds of incidents not interfere with our relationship as a whole.”

Feb. 19, 1998: �ֲ���ý appoints Mark Harriman as head coach

With his appointment as head coach in 1998, Mark Harriman took over a team that had won two games and lost 46 over the previous six years. 

When he retired in 2018 with a record of 46–115, Sun Journal columnist Kalle Oakes praised the �ֲ���ý coach under the headline, “Harriman was the hero �ֲ���ý needed.” What his record didn’t explain, said Oakes, was how Harriman created stability and restored pride in �ֲ���ý football.

A few years earlier, Oakes had done something few columnists dare — apologize in print — in this case for snarky comments about �ֲ���ý’ football fortunes. 

In praising �ֲ���ý football and �ֲ���ý athletics, Oakes wrote, “I’ve never met a coach or athlete affiliated with �ֲ���ý whom I didn’t like. They’re shake-your-hand-firmly, look-you-in-the-eyes, give-you-a-thoughtful-answer folks. They have sports and life in perspective. Lord knows we need more of those qualities in this world.”

Oct. 28, 2006: �ֲ���ý football lands in Sports Illustrated in a big, muddy way

On Oct. 28, 2006, Garcelon Field turned into a waterlogged stage as 4.62 inches of rain poured down during the �ֲ���ý–Colby game. Photographer Daryn Slover, on assignment for �ֲ���ý, battled the elements until his lenses gave out — but not before capturing an unforgettable shot: Jamie Walker ’07, of Needham, Mass., dragging a pile of Colby defenders on one of his 43 carries.

The image, sent to Sports Illustrated the next Monday, landed a two-page spread in the magazine’s Football America issue. After four overtimes, Colby’s 22-yard field goal sealed the Mules’ 10–7 win.

Another national spotlight moment in the decade came in 2002, when Sean Atkins ’03 of New York City ran for seven touchdowns and 302 yards in a 48–28 win over Bowdoin. A clip of the performance aired on ESPN. “That’s when it sunk in,” Atkins said of seeing himself on TV. But any glory, he said, “belongs to �ֲ���ý College and the people who gave me my opportunities.” 

Oct. 9, 2010: �ֲ���ý dedicates major renovations to Garcelon Field

In 2010, a $2.6 million, donor-funded makeover turned 1899’s Garcelon Field into a truly 21st-century campus landmark. “It’s awesome,” Brendan Murphy ’11 of Sandwich, Mass., a lineman and senior tri-captain, told the Sun Journal. 

“And it was all donor-funded. It’s a good feeling that people stepped up to show what �ֲ���ý athletics means to them, specifically football.”

The renovation installed a new FieldTurf surface; an aluminum grandstand for 1,500 (with stadium seats at midfield); an expanded press box; and four Musco light towers that finally brought true night games to �ֲ���ý. 

The upgrade did more than freshen football’s home. It also opened the door to all-year, day-and-night play on the field. With men’s lacrosse moving to Garcelon, the venue hosted its first-ever playoff game, an NCAA first-rounder, and soon became a year-round stage for big moments, practices, and pick-up traditions alike.

Sept. 28, 2024: A historic road victory vs. head coach Matt Coyne’s alma mater

In-state football rivalries have taken center stage ever since �ֲ���ý began playing football in the 1800s. But in recent years, a rivalry with a NESCAC foe 350 miles away has gained traction.

On Sept. 28 of last year, �ֲ���ý defeated previously unbeaten Wesleyan  — the alma mater of head coach Matt Coyne, who was appointed �ֲ���ý head coach in 2022. The road win was �ֲ���ý’ first against the Cardinals since 1981.

Like the crowds of yesteryear that boarded trains from Lewiston to places like Brunswick, New Haven, or even Toledo, Ohio, �ֲ���ý believers turned out in force to support the Bobcats in Middletown.

“We had a huge number of traveling fans down there,” Coyne recalled. “The environment was unbelievable. We’re sitting there, and it’s louder on our side than on Wesleyan’s. 

“All the parents, the alums, everybody I’ve heard from over the last 24 or 36 hours, hundreds of texts. It’s really awesome and it’s a testament to these kids’ work ethic and what they’ve put into this program.”

Earlier this year Golf Digest was looking for college golfers to star in a video that would showcase how a new Adobe tool could be used by lovers of the sport.

There are 1,300 men’s and women’s college golf programs in the U.S. but typically the talent pipeline for pro golf — and its preeminent publication — runs through powerhouse NCAA Division I schools such as Oklahoma State, Stanford, and Wake Forest.

For this video production though, Golf Digest turned to Division III and �ֲ���ý College. To demonstrate the creative reach and user-friendly qualities of Firefly, Adobe’s generative AI tool, Golf Digest followed members of the �ֲ���ý men’s and women’s golf teams as they explored its potential applications to build idealized golf holes.

Shot in Lewiston and Auburn on a single day in May, the result is a that debuted this month, starring many �ֲ���ý golfers adorned in Bobcat-merch, the Martindale Country Club, and campus locations that included Pettengill Hall’s Perry Atrium.

�ֲ���ý landed on Golf Digest’s radar through connections with two �ֲ���ý golfers. The first is a current student, Charlie Weinman ’27, a politics major from Rye, N.Y., whose father, Sam Weinman, is the publication’s digital editorial director. 

But Sam Weinman’s connection to �ֲ���ý predates his parental one. For Golf Digest in 2018, he profiled a teenage golfer, Sam Gerry ’24, who at that time was by drawing on his own experience. Gerry went on to attend �ֲ���ý and play golf. Over that time, Weinman followed his progress. Then, when Charlie Weinman was first considering �ֲ���ý, he got a campus tour from Sam Gerry.

During Golf Digest’s brainstorming sessions for the Adobe project, the idea of using a small-college team came up. Weinman said his colleagues “knew that Charlie was having a great experience at �ֲ���ý.” They included Stina Sternberg, an executive with Warner Bros. Discovery Sports who leads video and branded content for the publication and who ultimately made the call to select the Bobcat team for the Adobe project.

Watch the Golf Digest video:

Filming day was May 20. Production started at �ֲ���ý’ historic home course, Martindale Country Club in Auburn, then shifted to campus, where the golfers used Firefly to imagine, design, and create realistic visual images of their own golf holes — all in front of a production team capturing their every move.

The weather was familiar Maine “spring” weather: cloudy skies, north winds gusting to 20 mph, and a temperature that barely reached 50 degrees. The day’s first scene focused on one of the course’s signature holes, the par-3 9th hole, a precipitously downhill hole that plays 180 yards from the white tees.

From a storytelling standpoint, it was the perfect place to begin. Since the course opened in 1921, the elevated tee has felt magical. “Climb to the very crest, keep your eyes on the ground until you reach the summit, and then turn around and drink it in,” exhorted the Lewiston Sun Journal in its review of the new Auburn course. (Today Martindale Country Club is owned by Nick Glicos, whose son Evan graduated from �ֲ���ý in 2024 with an economics degree.) 

Atop the windy hill, the film crew assumed their positions on the 9th tee. Down below, the �ֲ���ý golfers were gathered on the green. “Action,” said supervising producer Michael Sneeden, and three handheld cameras captured video, and a drone tracked the action from above, as the golfers completed a cinematic walk up the steep hill. There, they met Derek Duncan, Golf Digest’s architecture editor and host of the podcast Feed the Ball. 

With cameras rolling, Duncan offered a historical primer on golf course design. He explained the history and legacy of Charles Blair Macdonald (1855–1939), who studied classic U.K. holes and brought their strategic brilliance to his U.S. designs. “Macdonald had a set of what he considered his ‘ideal’ golf holes, and he worked to design courses from those holes,” he said, referring to Macdonald’s concept of “template holes,” basic layouts that could be tweaked and adapted for any terrain or setting, but that would always be playable, fun, and challenging for all golfers.

“That’s what you will do with Adobe Firefly,” Duncan said. “You’ll use inspirations from holes that you’ve played, some from your own hometown courses, and from your travels. Think about what you like and don’t like about those courses.”

He asked them to look down at the 9th green, which has Beech Hill Road passing right behind the hole. The hole’s design reflects strategic course design: To help the golfer keep the road behind the green out of play, there’s a generous, safe landing area in front of the green.

“You don’t want a road to be part of a hole’s strategy, unless you’re talking St. Andrews,” Duncan told the golfers, referring to the famed Road Hole, where a road behind the green and along the right side of the fairway becomes a critical part of a golfer’s decision-making.

From the 9th tee, the production team and the �ֲ���ý golfers moved to the 12th, a straight 484-yard par 5 where a right-handed golfer could slice the ball into the Little Androscoggin River that runs alongside the fairway. 

As Duncan walked the 12th fairway and talked with the �ֲ���ý golfers, the 16-member production team — camera and audio operators, drone specialists, producers, directors, and executives — moved in a loose orbit around them. The video team came from IMG Media, based in London, with freelance professionals capturing audio.

Duncan asked what made the hole challenging. “It’s just so straight,” said one �ֲ���ý golfer. As they advanced down the fairway, team captain Will Phillips ’25 of Portland, Ore., took note of Duncan’s approach to the course, which was instructive beyond golf. 

“It’s the way he walks a golf course: He walks slow, and he takes time to look at all the undulations in the green, to look at where a good miss might be off the tee.” (A “good miss” is a shot that misses the golfer’s intended mark but doesn’t find deep trouble.) “He takes his time to gather in what is all around him before he makes any remarks or gives his opinion.” 

For Phillips, the morning exercise at Martindale turned the typical golf experience inside out. Like other individual sports, golf demands an inward focus. But like only a handful of other sports, such as skiing or running cross country, golf’s playing venue changes dramatically with each match, which tests the golfer’s ability to stay focused, block out distractions, and make smart decisions under pressure.

“We just came off our season,” explained Phillips. “Practice, practice, practice, and play, play, play. You work to get comfortable with yourself in your own head. You find little techniques to stay on it mentally.”

But as Phillips walked the Martindale golf course with Duncan, he realized that to view the course as a creative course designer, he needed to step outside “the player mentality and into the designer mentality, and visit the game of golf without having to be completely locked in, dialed in, and focused on yourself.”

His teammate, Henry Ehrlich ’26, also from Portland, Ore., was similarly struck by how Duncan invited the group to shift their thinking. Duncan asked the golfers to imagine how any given hole might be different, and how that would affect someone’s experience. 

“When you’re on the course as a golfer, it’s such a mental sport. It’s so easy to get in your own head,” Ehrlich said. “Thinking about the way the course is constructed and how everything’s laid out isn’t something that’s always at the top of your mind.”

“You gave us gold. You blew all of us away with your engagement, enthusiasm, smart questions and answers, and, yes, design skills.” — Stina Sternberg, Warner Bros. Discovery Sports

For example, said Ehrlich, when he’s on Martindale’s 9th tee, “minus wind, I’ll hit the same club no matter what. I know where I’m going to be, because I’d rather be short in that collection area than be long.” (That’s an example of the “good miss.”) “When you realize that the hole is designed for that purpose, that it’s how you’re supposed to play the hole, the architecture makes more sense.”

At its heart, a liberal arts education teaches students to ask the question “why,” and that played out even during the experience of starring in an advertising product. Mehar Nijjer ’27, a psychology major from Chandigarh, India, said that her mindset on the tee would typically be focused on tactics. “Hit the ball to this target, avoid that hazard.”

Now, she has “why” in mind. “I’m thinking much more about strategy and the architect’s intended path. I ask questions like, ‘Why is this bunker here? What is the best angle of attack to this green, and why?’ It’s no longer just about hitting a good shot but about hitting the right shot for the situation, based on a deeper understanding of the hole’s design.”

Her teammate Isabelle Meltzer ’28 of Summit, N.J., agrees. “A big part of scoring in golf is being good at course management — taking into account shot shapes, risk vs. reward for certain shapes, and where to place balls on the green. Walking the course gave me more things to think about when it comes to where I want to be on a green or fairway in a competition.”

After the morning at Martindale, everyone headed back to Perry Atrium in Pettengill Hall where the �ֲ���ý golfers broke into groups and used what they saw and heard from Duncan to take a crack at designing their own golf holes using Adobe Firefly. 

During a break in the afternoon shooting, Michael Sneeden, the project’s supervising producer, was asked what the �ֲ���ý students were bringing to the project. He used the example of a Venn diagram, how a series of circles might explain a video project that uses volunteer student talent.

Sneeden rattled off the circles of need. One, of course, was being top-flight golfers “at a great college.” Then being available and willing to give their time, the ability to “take physical direction as we move the cameras around,” and, finally, the ability to speak on camera, “thoughtfully, respectfully, and intelligently.” 

Like other Adobe products such as Photoshop and Illustrator, Firefly enables users to create and enhance visual content. It uses generative AI, which means users can produce images, including text effects and other visual attributes, by typing a text description. The �ֲ���ý students also used Firefly Boards, a collaborative tool to help with the overall ideation.

Phillips’ team took a crack at designing a variation of the par-3 12th hole at Augusta National Golf Club, home of the Masters. First, they used Adobe Fresco, a free drawing tool, to make rough sketches, then used Firefly to make the hole look real, with lush greens, swaying trees, and a vivid water hazard fronting the green. They didn’t touch the iconic green, but instead imagined new tee boxes. “We gave them four new options, differing yardages, which creates more or less of a battle with that traditional angle across the green.” 

Meanwhile, Nijjer found inspiration from across the country, designing a dogleg-right par 5 that features stunning redwood trees sometimes found on northern California courses like Northwood Golf Club in Monte Rio. “We felt this provided a unique and scenic element that is not often seen in golf course architecture,” she said. “A key element was ensuring the hole was accessible and engaging for golfers of all abilities.”

That’s what the Golf Digest team wanted to see. “The engagement from the �ֲ���ý golfers comes a lot from the fact that they’re so genuine,” said Sneeden.

Since 2021, NCAA student-athletes can profit from their name, image, and likeness (NIL) through endorsement deals and other business ventures. At the Division I level, this means millions going to top athletes.

“They’re making a ton of money, which means they often already have media training by the time they get to college,” said Sneeden. 

What the Golf Digest team found at �ֲ���ý was golfing excellence among the men and women on the golf team. “They’re going to be professional in their fields, just not professional golfers. They gave us their honest opinions, not something manufactured.”

Or as Stina Sternberg put it in a thank you note to the golfers: “You gave us gold. You blew all of us away with your engagement, enthusiasm, smart questions and answers, and, yes, design skills.”

Jay Burns recently retired from �ֲ���ý Communications and Marketing after a 32-year career that included many titles and ended with senior editorial director. He edited �ֲ���ý Magazine for much of his career at �ֲ���ý and will continue to contribute to the college’s publications as a freelancer.

The incoming Class of 2029 arrives on Aug. 28, just 76 days from now. Mindful of that fact,  we asked these �ֲ���ý seniors — during Commencment weekend in their waning hours as resident experts on all things �ֲ���ý — to tell us what the newbies should explore when they get to campus.

They said:

Eat at a Somali restaurant on Lisbon Street, and venture downtown for a walk along the Androscoggin River to explore “all the natural spaces in Lewiston.” And…

Find beauty in the greenhouse atop Carnegie Science Hall, or cheer until you’re hoarse at Alumni Gym during a rivalry game. Venture off campus, to Portland for a Tandem breakfast sandwich or to Brunswick for Gelato Fiasco — ripe mango is one senior’s favorite. And…

Try out WRBC, the �ֲ���ý radio station, and host your own show. Visit the Ronj for late-night coffee and conversation. Join a club, meet people, and things together that you really enjoy. And…

Discover the quiet coastal beauty of �ֲ���ý–Morse Mountain. Get involved in the community as a middle-school mentor. Or just wander — as one senior put it — into “uncomfort” to find purpose and maybe a �ֲ���ý major along the way. And…

Join Outing Club trips for unforgettable adventures. “Some of my best memories was just going out and having adventures.” Take advantage of the peer tutoring available in the Learning Commons. “It’s helped me many, many times.” And…

If if you enjoyed singing, performing, or playing an instrument in high school, keep up with it, regardless of your major: It can help you fully express yourself. And, finally…

Don’t forget the people. “Be friends with everybody. �ֲ���ý is a great place with great people.”

At the start of her �ֲ���ý Commencement address, Angela Duckworth asked President Garry W. Jenkins to hold her phone, to avoid potential distractions.

Then, Duckworth asked Jenkins to give her his phone. And then she asked everyone in the audience to hand their phones to their neighbor — again, to avoid distraction.

There was a message to the unusual exercise. A psychologist and author of the bestseller Grit, Duckworth focused on the power of “situation modification”: how we can use “physical distance to create psychological distance,” especially the proximity of our phones to our selves.

It’s what successful people do, she said. “Achieving what you want out of life has to act in one way or another. [S}uccessful people rarely rely on inner fortitude to resist temptations in the heat of the moment.”

Instead, they find ways to avoid temptations or distractions altogether. “Successful strivers…deliberately design their situations in ways that make wise choices easier.”

Here are 12 tips from Duckworth’s talk about how to pursue situation modification to live more mindfully:

1. Use physical distance to create psychological distance

“If you don’t like how your phone grabs your attention, directs your thoughts, triggers your desires, then push it away. On the other hand, if you want something to take up more of your conscious awareness — art, poetry, a really good novel — keep close, as close as possible.”

2. Out of sight, out of mind 

“When you need to focus deeply — put your phone in another room. Out of sight is out of mind.”

3. Change your sky-to-screen ratio 

“Get up and walk out the door. The blue canopy above, even on this cloudy day, while it has no marketing department, no fancy algorithm designed to keep you hooked — but whoa, what an awesome alternative to the glowing blue rectangle in the palm of your hand.”

4. Don’t let your phone ruin dinner 

“When you’re having dinner with people you care about… agree to keep your phones off the table, ideally in a zipped pocket where your habit of reaching for it will be interrupted.”

5. Keep it out of reach behind the wheel 

“Each year, distracted driving causes nearly 800,000 accidents, more than 300,000 injuries, and more than 3,000 deaths.”

6. Move your phone out of the bedroom 

“Don’t keep your phone in your bedroom. As , if the last thing you stroke before bed and the first thing you caress in the morning is your phone, you are not moving in the right direction.”

7. Try intentional listening 

“When you decide, deliberately, that you want to listen to something on your phone, look up the Ezra Klein podcast featuring the British author Zadie Smith.”

In the interview, Smith told Klein that the thought of having a phone, and being subject to intrusions and expectations of social media, was intolerable: “I cannot imagine what my mind would be, what my books would be, what my relationships would be, what my relationship with my children would be.”

8. Reclaim your attention

“Situation modification isn’t about abstinence. It’s about intentionality. It’s about creating space between stimulus and response, between notification and reaction. And it’s about reclaiming your attention.”

9. Be aware of digital junk food

“More and more, people are turning to chatbots for life advice, for companionship, and even for love…. [But] chatbots may be the equivalent of social junk food — providing short-term gratification at the cost of long-term nourishment.”

10. Design your life for connection 

“Starting today, maintaining your friendships will require more deliberate effort. You’ll need to schedule time, travel distances, and prioritize showing up for the people who matter to you. All that becomes infinitely harder when your default response to free time is to dive into your phone.

11. You worship what you sit next to 

“One of my closest friends… removed the flatscreen TV from the family living room. [Her] boys complained, but she reminded them of the Hindu proverb her own mother had passed on to her: ‘You worship what you sit next to.'”

12. Remember: how we spend our days… 

“When you make your choices, remember what : ‘How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.’”

Among the 504 seniors at Sunday’s �ֲ���ý Commencement will be these 13, each of whom recently shared what they’ll miss most about �ֲ���ý, from professors attending their theater shows to unexpected joy found in Commons, while offering advice to the incoming Class of 2029.

In this collection of candid reflections (“Try everything — and then pick what makes you smile”), paired with striking and heartfelt photography by Phyllis Graber Jensen, the spirit of the �ֲ���ý Class of 2025 comes alive.

Alexandra Long

A mathematics major from Newtown, Pa., Long played varsity basketball and was an internship peer advisor with Purposeful Work, with academic interests in the intersections of data science and storytelling. 

On the heart of the �ֲ���ý experience:
“The thing I’m going to miss most about �ֲ���ý is the community. In the spaces I’ve worked, played sports, and learned supportive people were everywhere.”

On values lived out:
“Community has always been my number one value, and that’s a huge reason I came to �ֲ���ý. I’ve been able to live that out in the choices I’ve made and the relationships I’ve built.”

On advice to new students:
“Extend yourself to make meaningful and authentic relationships — they will last. People are the most important.”

Izzy Beck

A politics major from Montclair, N.J., Beck was a Purposeful Work peer advisor, coxswain on the men’s varsity rowing team, summer Admission intern, and completed her honors thesis investigating the development of the unitary executive theory in contemporary American politics. 

On what she’ll miss most:
“What I’ll miss the most about �ֲ���ý is the proximity I have to professors who are at the tops of their fields and excited to share wisdom with their students.”

On the �ֲ���ý vibe:
“�ֲ���ý students are interested in and enthusiastic about the many things they do.”

On academic advice:
“Take one random class each semester that just sounds interesting. You might uncover a passion you didn’t know you had.”

Emma Gay

A double major in anthropology and classical and medieval studies from Herndon, Va., Gay was president of the ski club, a member of the �ֲ���ý orchestra, and was an Admission senior fellow.

On what she’ll miss most about �ֲ���ý:

“In short, the people. I have been lucky enough to meet some of the most amazing people across campus that have helped me become the person I am today, and I’m going to miss all the smiling faces and joy that people spread around campus.”

On unequivocal support:

“From the faculty to staff to students, I have been able to succeed in all aspects of my life because of the support I had, and will continue to have after �ֲ���ý. These people, who have been with me through so many ups and downs, have taught me so much, and I will forever be grateful.”

On advice for incoming students:

“Take advantage of the offerings to get to know your fellow classmates — but don’t be afraid to say ‘no’ and take time for yourself during a really crazy transition period when it can become very overwhelming.”

Caroline Bibbens

A politics major from Claremont, Calif., Bibbens was an Admission senior fellow and a volunteer at Lewiston public schools.

On building lasting friendships:
“From day one, �ֲ���ý helped me feel socially comfortable. My first-year roommate is still my best friend, and I met five more on my AESOP trip who are still my closest friends today.”

On what she’ll miss most:
“It really feels like a second home. I’ll miss walking around campus and seeing the faces of all the people I’ve built such close friendships with.”

On finding community far from home:
“Coming from so far away, I was nervous at first, but �ֲ���ý is such a supportive and welcoming place. The friendships I’ve made here have meant everything.”

Kendall Jones

A double major in biochemistry and theater from Plymouth, N.H., Jones worked as a stage manager (including carpentry work) for many �ֲ���ý plays, also handling social media for the theater and dance department, and was an organic chemistry teaching assistant and summer Admission intern.

On professors who show up — literally:
“Almost all of my professors have come to my theater shows. My biochemistry professors know I’m in theater, and all my theater professors know I’m in biochemistry. They’re like, ‘Are you surviving biochemistry?’ You get hands-on learning — and a friend for life.”

On what she’ll miss most:
“I’m going to miss walking across the Quad and waving to everyone — even the people you just skateboard past every day. And I’ll miss my professors. They were such a big part of my time here.”

On how to make the most of �ֲ���ý:
“Try everything — and then pick a few things that really make you happy and smile. It makes the whole experience feel so much more full.”

Max Good

A double major in economics and Hispanic studies from Shaker Heights, Ohio, Good was a men’s squash captain, a member of the entrepreneurship club Bobcat Ventures, and a member of the Jewish Student Union.

On time well spent:
“I’ll miss walking into Commons intending to grab a quick bite but instead staying for hours chatting with friends until the next meal.”

On what Commons represents:
“It’s a space that brings together all kinds of �ֲ���ýies who pursue a plethora of passions.”

On everyday joy:
“At �ֲ���ý I get to hang out with friends every day for no purpose other than enjoying each other’s company.”

Maddie Kemp

A double major in politics and in art and visual culture from Bethesda, Md., Kemp is one of the �ֲ���ý rowing captains, regularly contributed to �ֲ���ý theater with her poster designs, and was a collections intern for the �ֲ���ý College Museum of Art.

On what she’ll miss most:
“The most important thing that’s prepared me to leave �ֲ���ý — and that I’ll miss the most — is the community of people I have. It’s a really wonderful group that I know I can go to for anything.”

On being ready for the world:
“I feel really well prepared to interact in a larger global community because I’ve spent so much time working in these smaller families, essentially.”

On advice to incoming students:
“You’re more prepared than you think. There are challenges beyond your wildest imagination — and you’re totally ready to take them on.”

Luke Dai

A double major in economics and psychology from West Hartford, Conn., Dai was a member of the varsity cross country and track teams, an Admission senior fellow, and a Purposeful Work peer advisor, and he interned with the Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition.

On the meaning of place and memory:
“I’ll miss the Russell Street track. When I think about my time at �ֲ���ý, I think about my experiences with my teammates. We’ve put a significant amount of work on this track, and it means a lot to me.”

On belonging and shared purpose:
“It gave me a sense of community and belonging. My coach always told us, ‘Run for each other, not just for yourself,’ and I really embodied that. My fondest memories were just competing with my friends and just going to practice with them every day. That’s why this track means a lot to me.”

On how athletics shaped him:
“Being a student-athlete at �ֲ���ý taught me discipline, time management, and motivation. It allowed me to be part of a greater purpose than just myself.”

David Nimura

A psychology major from New York City, Nimura was an Admission tour guide, a member of the men’s Ultimate team, and an Outing Club member who led the front country trip program while also officiating and coaching youth sports in Lewiston.

On what he’ll carry forward:
“I’ve really grown as a person, a student, and a caring individual. �ֲ���ý has prepared me to step into something new and has given me friendships and mentors I’ll cherish forever.”

On the little things that matter:
“You always feel seen at �ֲ���ý — a high five, a hug, a wave. Even if you don’t know someone well, they still acknowledge you. That’s something I’ll never forget.”

On the magic of the everyday:
“You’re never going to have the same day twice at �ֲ���ý. There’s always something unplanned, something surprising, and that’s where new connections are made. Currently standing by the Puddle in my hammock on a sunny day — it’s moments like that when you really understand how special �ֲ���ý is.”

Amanda Zerbib

A psychology major from Larchmont, N.Y., Zerbib was a varsity field hockey player, a Purposeful Work peer advisor, an Admission senior fellow, and a volunteer in Lewiston schools.

On community:
“I think what I’m going to miss most about �ֲ���ý is the genuine small-scale community. It’s hard to replicate once you graduate. �ֲ���ý has done a really great job at creating a genuine community: very safe, warm, and tight-knit.”

On learning and faculty:
“It’s such a unique opportunity to be surrounded by so many intellectual and generous people. I’m going to miss getting to choose from incredible classes and professors who truly care.”

On transformation and discovery:
“There’s so much I didn’t even realize �ֲ���ý was doing around me until senior year. Once you start paying attention, it can lead you onto a whole path of amazing things.”

Nora Fox

A philosophy major from Minneapolis, Minn., Fox was a Purposeful Work peer advisor, an editor for The �ֲ���ý Student, and a philosophy teaching assistant who completed an honors thesis on protecting human dignity and meaningful work from the ethical risks of AI in the workplace.

On faculty connection:
“I’m going to miss my advisor, [Professor of Philosophy] David Cummiskey, a lot. He’s been really instrumental in shaping my �ֲ���ý career. We met every week for my thesis — he always made sure I was understanding the material and learning well.”

On exploring the liberal arts:
“I was on the rowing team for a little. I joined Ultimate. I took classes from a bunch of different departments — and then I finally kind of homed in. You never know what connections you’ll make or what path you’ll find. �ֲ���ý is great at that.”

On work, purpose, and friendship:
“I’m going to miss my coworkers at Purposeful Work, helping other students, and of course, my friends. I just love coming home and having them as support.”

Aneeza Ahmad

A double major in environmental studies and philosophy from Sharon, Mass., Ahmad was a Purposeful Work peer advisor, a leader of the Muslim Student Association, and a violinist in the Small Ensembles Club, and she completed an honors thesis on the concept of a ‘good farmer’ in Maine by centering Wabanaki, white, and Somali Bantu farming perspectives.

On a caring campus:

“At �ֲ���ý, you are surrounded by people who care deeply about you and your success, and you are gifted with the beauty and surprises of Maine’s stunning landscape. You feel, with unwavering certainty, that you are home. That is what I will miss the most.”

On taking a chance:

“Try out that new sport or club, take that fun class outside of your major, have lunch with your professor, even if all of these things make you nervous.”

On the freedom of college life: 

“You are awarded the freedom and support to explore your intellectual and personal curiosities as far as you are willing to chase them.”

Danny Zuniga Zarat

A double major in art and visual culture and in Latin American and Latinx studies from Houston, Texas, Zuniga Zarat exhibited his artwork at this year’s Senior Thesis Exhibition, presenting work in charcoal, performance, and video.

On friendships that became family:
“Some friends became family along the way, and now that we’re stepping into adulthood, that’s going to be the hardest part: from seeing each other every day, to suddenly living our own lives.”

On following the heart through the liberal arts:
“Make use of the liberal arts. Take dance or theater or whatever calls to you. When you’re a senior, you’ll look back and say, ‘I did it because it’s what my heart desired.’”

On what he’ll miss most:
“I’ll miss the community I’ve created. Now that we’re stepping into adulthood, leaving that behind will be tough — but I know we’ll all manage somehow.”

In his retirement, Ralph Sylvester ’50 of Auburn became a familiar and welcoming presence on the �ֲ���ý campus, having breakfast most days in the Den or in Commons with a circle of �ֲ���ý friends.

In November 2023, Sylvester died at the age of 99, but his positive presence will be felt at �ֲ���ý for many years to come, thanks to his bequest of $1.3 million to �ֲ���ý.

Made through Sylvester’s will, the bequest creates two new permanently endowed funds that will leave a legacy of access, opportunity, and community at �ֲ���ý. 

One endowment, the Ralph L. Sylvester ’50 Fund for Financial Aid, will provide need-based scholarships for �ֲ���ý students, with preference for students from Androscoggin and Oxford counties. The second endowment, the Ralph L. Sylvester ’50 Fund for Dining Services, will support professional development for the members of the college’s dining team.

“Ralph was for the underdog, and he was always our champion,” said Christine Schwartz, associate vice president for dining, conferences, and campus events. 

Schwartz learned of Sylvester’s bequest this week while she was handling swiftly shifting details for Commencement weekend — rain was in the forecast. 

She teared up when hearing the news. True, the two hadn’t started out eye-to-eye: Sylvester didn’t mince words when offering feedback on goings-on at his alma mater, including her dining operation. 

“Let’s just say that Ralph and I did not start out in a stellar way,” Schwartz says. “But we became great friends, and I really took in his wisdom.” During COVID, Schwartz and her team delivered meals to Sylvester at his home in Auburn.

In recent years, the two friends often talked about how to create opportunity and advancement for the many members of the Dining Services team. “How do we move people along their career path? How do we, as a college, help our staff members realize that there are many opportunities to either continue on the path you’re on, or to open yourself up to wider opportunities?”

Sylvester was born in Lewiston in 1924 and lived in Auburn for most of his life. Growing up, he was a newsboy for the local paper, graduating from Edward Little High School and entering �ֲ���ý in September 1942. He worked in a local mill to earn tuition money.

Then came World War II. Sylvester joined the U.S. Army in 1943, serving with the 295th Combat Engineers. He landed on Omaha Beach five days after D-Day, when the beach was still covered with the bodies of dead American soldiers, and later fought in the Battle of the Bulge.

After the war, he returned home to Auburn, and returned to �ֲ���ý. War had taken a toll, and he left before graduating, but always remained connected to his alma mater.

He married Elaine Miller in 1949, and worked in local banks and in telecommunications, helping to deliver service to rural Maine. He was a lifelong supporter of public institutions in the Lewiston-Auburn community.

Active in veterans affairs, he supported Honor Flight, a nonprofit program that honors U.S. military veterans by flying them for free to Washington, D.C., to visit the memorials dedicated to their service and sacrifice.

After retiring, he and Elaine started a morning routine of having breakfast at the Den. That was where Peter Steenstra, head coach of �ֲ���ý rowing, met Sylvester. Steenstra liked to head to the Den for breakfast after the rowers’ early morning practice on the Androscoggin River. 

Sitting, eating, and talking with Sylvester and others became a morning ritual. “Being able to chat with someone who had such a vast experience in the world helped me keep things in perspective,” Steenstra said.

In recent years, Sylvester shifted to Commons, where he got to know �ֲ���ý rowers, who would greet the nonagenarian as they returned from the river after practice. 

In April 2023, the �ֲ���ý rowing team chose to honor Sylvester by naming its new shell Ralph Sylvester ’50. During the christening ceremony in Perry Atrium, Steenstra presented an oar blade to Sylvester, a symbol of the great esteem the coach and rowers had for him. 

While having lunch with his teammates in Commons on Wednesday, �ֲ���ý rower Leo Sullivan ’25 of Bloomfield, Conn., took in the news of Sylvester’s bequest. Sullivan was at the 2023 event, where he met and shook hands with Sylvester.

“It’s incredible that he was so invested in this community that he would pay it forward in that way,” said Sullivan. “It just speaks to what a major part of �ֲ���ý he was.”

Sylvia Hawks’ work resume has no gaps: Fifty-one years, all spent supporting �ֲ���ý.

Hawks joined the college on March 4, 1967, working in what was then known as “the secretarial pool.”

She was 18 years old, and wherever you look, 1967 was a different world. The day she was hired, for example, the Lewiston Sun Journal reported that the Lyndon Johnson administration was avoiding the word “escalation” to describe the ominous, stepped-up military action in Vietnam.

And at �ֲ���ý, coed dining had just begun — as had something called “Short Term.”

I visited with Hawks in June 2018, three days before her retirement as an academic administrative assistant in Pettengill Hall. After we talked, I asked permission to write a story, since she’s reticent about such things. She paused. “That’s fine.”

Her first �ֲ���ý job, handling mimeographing, no longer exists. She recalls an early technological innovation: an IBM typewriter with a “mag card” that stored a page of text so corrections could be made without retyping an entire page!

I asked her to complete this sentence: “The more �ֲ���ý changes….” “The more changes there are,” she said, laughing. Yet change never perturbed Hawks. “You have to keep up,” she says. “If you
don’t change, then everything becomes stagnant.”

And are students different today, too? “No. They’re still leaving Mom and Dad for a new world. So their friends become that much more important to them.”

Hawks grew up in Lewiston, and after graduating from Lewiston High School in 1966, she learned her office and typing skills through a 20-hour course, part of a federal program that had been signed into law by President Kennedy a few years earlier.

Back then, a young person would graduate from Lewiston high, choose a local business — often a mill — and work there for decades. “And that’s what I did,” she says. “My mother said, ‘You don’t go jumping from job to job. That’s just not right.’ So I grew up with that mindset.”

In Hawks’ case, the choice was �ֲ���ý College, not �ֲ���ý Manufacturing. She made the choice intentionally after a summer job in a mill. “I was very young,” she said. “You had all these bosses, and they would, if you want to say it now, harass the younger ones. It was that kind of a mentality, and I hated it. I wanted out of that.”

Back in the day, one of her secretarial pool colleagues, briefly, was a just-graduated Elizabeth Strout ’77, now a Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist. “Liz was a character,” says Hawks, for whom “characters” are interesting people. “Not boisterous, but she always had something to say, just off, about different things.”

Strout has equally vivid and fond memories of Hawks, whom she’s visited when back on campus. Steadfast and honest is how Strout describes Hawks — good words that sound good together.
Since the dissolution of the Lane Hall secretarial pool years ago, Hawks has worked in Pettengill Hall, supporting the faculty in anthropology, history, politics, and digital and computational studies.

There, she was indeed steadfast in supporting her faculty. “You build a relationship with a professor, and that becomes a bond. There’s trust.”

So, what does “support” mean to Hawks? “It’s when you work with somebody, or there’s somebody you just care about or think about, then you’re going to be loyal to them. It’s just being there for them. “That’s what I’ve done at �ֲ���ý. And it’s been so worth it.”