For Mother Jones, in a Sept. 24 article headlined “,â€� journalist Evan Mandery named ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ as an outlier — for its emphasis on meaning and purpose. Mandery writes that a focus on finding meaning “suffuses the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ curriculum,â€� unlike many other elite colleges that he covered in his story.

In looking beyond the classroom, Mandery points again to ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½: “One notable exception is the Center for Purposeful Work at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College, launched in 2017 and framed around principles of developmental psychology. The center’s work is predicated on a simple premise: ‘If you’ve got wellbeing in your career,’ explained director Allen Delong, ‘you are twice as likely to have wellbeing in all the other areas of your life.’â€�

The article points to the college’s commitment to supporting students seeking meaningful work, noting that ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ subsidizes around 600 internships each year, “about as many as Harvard, though its endowment is less than 1 percent as large,â€� and notes that this commitment shows up in outcomes: “15 percent of its 2023 graduates went into education (five times the rate of Harvard grads), 16 percent entered the health field (more than twice the rate of Harvard grads), and 5 percent joined nonprofits.â€� 

With the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College Museum of Art’s Ralph Steadman exhibition due to close on Oct. 11, interviewed co-curator Andrea Harris about the exhibition. Harris co-curated the exhibition, “And Another Thingâ€�, with Steadman’s daughter, Sadie Williams. Not quite a retrospective, the exhibition spans 65 years and is drawn from 15,000 works of art. The reporter asked Harris, “How did you get this to come to little old ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College in Lewiston, Maine?â€�

“Well, Ralph is all about collaboration and he gets around,â€� Harris said. “He’s been to the United States several times and has been meeting people throughout his career. One of the meetings he had, he was up in Aspen, Colorado, where he met with Dan Mills, who was the director of the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College Museum of Art. And Dan was always a fan of Ralph’s, had always had a great feeling that bringing the art to Maine would be an incredible experience for the community. “

Initially the exhibition was slated to open in 2020 but was delayed because of the pandemic. “And here we are having this incredible opportunity in Maine and it’s been wonderful,â€� Harris said. “The ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Museum of Art is this beautiful space. It’s just absolutely incredible for the college students, for the community, and again, available to everyone to come out and enjoy.”

The exhibition opened in June and will close on Saturday, Oct. 11. Harris will offer a lecture to the public on Friday, Oct. 10 at 4 p.m. and will be present on the closing day to engage with visitors. The ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College Museum of Art is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Stephanie Kelley-Romano, professor of rhetoric, film and screen studies, was featured on The Chronicle of Higher Education’s podcast College Matters, a series that examines “how higher education pushes students to wrestle with big ideas.� Kelley-Romano’s popular course, “Conspiracy Rhetoric: Power, Politics and Popular Culture,� was highlighted in the podcast episode “� as one of  “the most intriguing and popular courses on the nation’s college campuses.�

 â€œConspiracy Rhetoric,â€� which Kelley-Romano is teaching again this fall, focuses on the ways that rhetoric — the art of effective (and often persuasive) communication —  shapes conspiracy theories. Kelley-Romano explains that “when students understand how things function rhetorically, then they can see and create rhetorical campaigns.â€� She told the Chronicle that the course often helps students understand that “when more people have more rights and more support, the entire society does better.â€� 

Leigh Weisenburger, vice president for institutional affairs and secretary to the Board of Trustees, was featured in a Portland Press Herald article about ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ dropping its application fee for all students. (In the past, students could ask for a waiver for the fee based on their financial needs). In , Weisenburger, who played a role in the elimination of the application fee, said, “It just seemed like the right moment to press play on something that we know to be a barrier and will provide relief, economically for families, but also de-escalating any stress a student might have in the process.â€� ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ anticipates more applications in the coming year, following a record 10,029 applications in 2024, and is prepared to accommodate the potential increase with a higher number of adjunct readers. 

Vice President for Finance and Administration and Treasurer of ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College Geoff Swift was recently featured in the Sun Journal’s .â€� Swift was interviewed about Lake Andrews, his role in nurturing the campus’ physical environment, and ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½â€™ responsibility for the wildlife that makes its home around the Puddle. “We’re stewards of this place,â€� Swift said. “ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ sits on 133 acres, much of them occupied by residential buildings, sports fields and academic facilities. But the green spaces, from the quad to the wooded areas, are also under our charge and we take that seriously. Respecting wildlife is part of that. There are limits to what we can or should do.â€�

Sports Business Journal of Jeff Price ’87 ±Ê’29 as the inaugural CEO of the Heisman Trophy Trust. Prior to this role, Price served as chief commercial and philanthropy officer for the PGA of America. “I see plenty of opportunity to build a larger commercial enterprise and support the Trust’s charitable goals, which were also a passion of mine at the PGA,” Price told Sports Business Journal. Price, who played football at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ — as quarterback and wide receiver — is also a parent of a student in the Class of 2029. Price was recently on campus for the 150th Football Celebration at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½. 

News of Associate Professor of Art and Visual Culture Carolina González Valencia’s grant of $50,000 to finish her film How to Clean a House in Ten Easy Steps was covered in . The Sundance Institute funded 32 projects this year.

In August, Deadline covered Gonzalez Valencia’s , which supports filmmakers in developing their pitches, and invites them to present their works in progress to a panel of funders and distributors at Camden International Film Festival. The film, which is being shot in the U.S., Colombia, and Mexico, is a “hybrid documentary� in which a domestic worker and her filmmaker daughter co-create the fictional character of a writer to uncover the slippage between truth and fantasy. It tells a story about immigration, labor, dreams, and the power of fiction to spark emancipation.

In the greenhouse atop Carnegie Science Hall, a green seedling peeks up from an unassuming black pot. Small but storied, this plant has traveled the world to put down roots here in Lewiston.

The ginkgo tree seedling, not even a foot tall, is the child of a ginkgo tree in Hiroshima, Japan, one of 170 hibakujumoku or “survivor treesâ€� that miraculously lived through the atomic bombing of Aug. 6, 1945 — 80 years ago this August — and still stand in the city today.

“We are looking at a piece of something that survived the bomb, and that’s what’s really magical,â€� says Alan Wang ’24, who coordinated the effort to bring the seedling to ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ in partnership with the .

Green Legacy Hiroshima tends to the surviving trees in Hiroshima and their legacies, collecting their seeds and sharing them with institutions of higher education and botanical gardens. The offspring of the survivor trees are now growing at 146 partner institutions across 41 countries, bringing their message of hope and survival to communities around the world. 

As a junior at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½, Wang, who is originally from Henan, China, studied abroad in Japan through the Associated Kyoto Program. As part of the program, he traveled to Hiroshima to visit the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, where Green Legacy Hiroshima gave Wang and classmates a tour of the hibakujumoku. 

From a watch that stopped exactly at the moment the bomb detonated, to a shadow created by someone instantly vaporized by the heat of the atomic blast, what Wang saw in Hiroshima left a lasting impression on him.

“You can just see the devastating impact that the nuclear weapon caused,â€� Wang says. 

When he learned that Green Legacy Hiroshima had no partners in Maine, Wang became determined to make ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ the first. He imagined a survivor tree planted on campus, its presence encouraging discussion about the effects of nuclear weapons.

“I envision it as a platform to get people to talk about this,� Wang says.

But before he could bring the seeds to ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½, Wang had to secure the support of campus partners and then apply to join Green Legacy as a partner institution. Though it would be a long process, Wang was committed. 

As a senior back on campus, he started by bringing his idea to Assistant Professor of Japanese Language and Asian Studies Hanna McGaughey and Lecturer in Japanese Keiko Konoeda, who were both eager to support Wang’s efforts. Impressed by Wang’s persistence, Raymond Clothier, the interim multifaith chaplain at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½, also joined the project.

“When somebody is willing to dedicate that amount of time to a project like this and to not let it go when he encounters bumps on the road, it is inspiring,� Clothier says.

Finally, Wang was left with finding a biology professor who was willing to take on a multi-year responsibility. A young tree needs a lot of tending before it is sturdy enough to plant outside. Wang eventually connected with Daniel Slane, a visiting assistant professor of biology, who immediately agreed to help.

With the four faculty and staff members on board, Wang submitted the application for partnership to Green Legacy Hiroshima during the holiday break between semesters of his senior year and heard back within a month: ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ was approved as a partner.

In summer 2024, seven ginkgo seeds arrived from San Diego, where all Green Legacy Hiroshima seeds for U.S. partner institutions are stored. Slane first sanded their hard exteriors to make it easier for them to germinate. He then refrigerated two of the seeds for cold stratification, a process which mimics winter by exposing seeds to cool weather and encouraging germination. After a couple of months, he removed the seeds and planted them in pots in the greenhouse high above the Historic Quad.

But, those first two seeds did not germinate. Slane suspects that the soil conditions were too moist. Back to square one, Slane refrigerated and planted three more seeds. A couple months later, one seed germinated. Now, Slane heads upstairs almost daily from his office to check on the seedling.

One of the oldest tree species on Earth, ginkgo trees are known for their resiliency. Konoeda says there is a message there for all beings about enduring through the impossible.

“The mother plants survived and watched the experience — the fire and the wind and the heat. And still, we see this green and the tree,â€� Konoeda says. “So, we don’t know what is going on in the world right now, but we will survive.â€�

ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½â€™ seeds are from a 200-year-old ginkgo tree in the lush Shukkeien Garden, created in 1620. The garden is a little less than a mile from where the bomb exploded. Its blast spread outward and then the force of air, rushing back toward the hypocenter, pushed the tree inward, leaving the tree with a permanent slant toward ground zero. 

The fact that the hibakujumoko are able to reproduce is impressive, Slane says, because high radiation can cause plants to become infertile. The ginkgo seeds’ DNA may even be altered due to epigenetics, the way in which heritable traits in offspring are changed by a parent’s life experiences. 

“If you have seeds from a tree that has been impacted by a natural event or something like a bombing, they will have certain epigenetic changes that allow the offspring to probably deal better with those changes,� Slane says.

Though it will be at least two years before the tree is large enough to plant outside, the ambition, or hope, is that the ginkgo will eventually be planted on campus, joining the ranks of the bright yellow tree standing guard outside of Carnegie since 2003 and the new ones at Bonney Science Center. Once the tree is planted, Clothier and the Multifaith Chaplaincy will be in charge of maintaining it. 

“It’ll be meaningful to me to see the tree when it’s in the ground, to have a place, a marker on campus for peace, for the intergenerational work of peace,â€� Clothier says.

Like the seeds themselves, each of the people contributing to this project have a personal tie to the atomic bombings or the brutal history of World War II, and most have traveled across oceans to end up at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½. Konoeda, for example, grew up in Kitakyushu, Japan, the original target for the second atomic bomb. The city narrowly avoided complete destruction when clouds obscured its skyline on the planned day of the bombing, and American planes headed toward Nagasaki instead.

Growing up in Independence, Mo. — the hometown of President Harry S. Truman, who authorized the atomic bombings — Clothier interrogated the history of the bombings at a young age. 

In middle school, he and his peers put Truman “on trial� for a school assignment, attempting to answer the question, was authorizing the bombings the right choice? Thinking through these questions in a shared hometown contributed to Clothier’s interest in peace and ultimately led to his anti-nuclear weapons activism.

McGaughey and Slane both have a German background, which instilled in them the importance of never forgetting the atrocities of the war. Both also spent years living in Japan.

Growing up in Germany, “I was brought up with, ‘Remember, remember, never forget what happened back then,’â€� Slane says. “For me, that’s in a way connected, and that’s why my heart is there.â€�

At the intersection of these varied identities and backgrounds are differing narratives about the story of World War II and the relationship between countries like Japan, Germany, and the U.S. The ginkgo trees do not declare one narrative right or another wrong, the project contributors say; they simply open up a space for listening and thinking beyond preconceived notions. 

“Japan tells a story that is very much about its big victimhood and not about what it has done or how it has come to that position in the history,â€� Konoeda says. “And the U.S. tells its own narratives. And only by stepping outside of those stories, you see a bigger picture. And we are stuck now looking at this contemporary world that’s so divided in different ways, but we need to step back.â€� 

As a living reminder of both the past and the potential of the future, the ginkgo tree will offer students the opportunity to reflect on their own lives while perhaps exploring these differing historical narratives, McGaughey says.

“The past isn’t necessarily a blueprint for how we should do things. I think we are free to decide for ourselves what should come next,â€� McGaughey says. “That’s what I hope that the tree can be — a place where people can reflect on, ‘So what is the right thing to do here?’â€� 

For Wang, a ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ politics major and Japanese minor, the relationship between his home country of China and Japan is storied and complicated. Fighting between China and Japan during World War II exacerbated the two countries’ fraught political relationship and, for many, established an enduring resentment between the two populations, a feeling only complicated by the devastation Japan experienced during the atomic bombings.

With this historical context, some people, Wang says, may be surprised to see someone from China advocating so strongly for something like the preservation of the hibakujumoku seeds.

But, after studying Japanese for two years at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ and studying abroad in Japan, Wang holds two things to be true at the same time: the relationship between his home country and Japan has been a difficult one, and the atomic bombings in Japan were unequivocally devastating.

“All of that has some nuanced influence on my opinion of the seed,� Wang says. “But at the end of the day, it came from something that survived the bomb. The wonders of life, the resilience of this being, I think, deserve celebration.�

Ginkgo trees can live for thousands of years. ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½â€™ tree may live on to see the next generation of people, and the next, and the next, its legacy of survival and hope enduring for centuries to come. 

ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Professor of Politics Ã�slaug Ã�sgeirsdóttir always wanted to return to her homeland of Iceland — but only if she could contribute in a meaningful way. Ã�sgeirsdóttir got her wish this spring when she was offered the rectorship of the University of Akureyri, a role in Iceland equivalent to president. Her rectorship begins July 1, 2024.

“This is the right opportunity at the right time. I was never going to move back just because I wanted to,â€� Ã�sgeirsdóttir said. “It always had to be because there was also an interesting opportunity to contribute to higher education in Iceland.â€� 

As Ã�sgeirsdóttir did a Zoom interview last week, a group of students showed up at her office with a huge bouquet of flowers. She returned to the interview clearly touched by her students’ gesture. That’s a big part of why she will miss the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ community: her work guiding students, and her close interactions with ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ students.

“I’ve gotten to do a lot of different things at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½. You have a lot of freedom at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ with what we call the educational journey with students. And I’ve just always loved that about ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½,” she said.

Ã�sgeirsdóttir, who joined the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ faculty in 2001, is a widely published expert on ocean governance, including the settling of maritime boundaries. She taught courses at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ that included “International Political Economy,â€� “Ocean Governance,â€� and “The Arctic,â€� and advised senior thesis students.

In addition to her teaching and research, Ã�sgeirsdóttir has made significant contributions to faculty governance at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½, including a term as associate dean of the college, said Malcolm Hill, vice president for academic affairs and dean of the faculty.

“We are all very excited to see Ã�slaug take on this important leadership opportunity,â€� said Hill in his announcement to the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ faculty. “I am deeply indebted to Ã�slaug, having benefited from her strong and unflappable leadership and wise counsel as associate dean. She tackled several important initiatives including introducing improvements to the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Faculty Development Fund, revamping the departmental review guidelines, and guiding a successful proposal to strengthen principles of faculty governance and committee work.â€�

The University of Akureyri, located in the town of Akureyri in the north of Iceland, offers undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral programs in the health sciences, business, natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities for about 2,800 students.

“I think what I bring to the table is an outside perspective, a different view,â€� said Ã�sgeirsdóttir, “but also a great deal of experience and deep experience in managing people, overseeing projects as well as years of experience teaching and publishing.â€�

Ã�sgeirsdóttir plans to get to work ensuring continued educational access on the Nordic island — which means something different in Iceland than it means in the U.S. In Iceland, public education is free, but that still doesn’t always translate into easy access to education as towns are far away and people often work while taking classes, Ã�sgeirsdóttir said. 

The University of Akureyri, which is a pioneer in blended learning in Iceland and has a reputation for educating teachers and nurses, among other professionals, also faces some of the same challenges as U.S. universities, such as the complexities presented by artificial intelligence and the role on-line learning will play in the future. 

�sgeirsdóttir is eager to work with faculty and staff to help the university navigate its way through the uncertain times in the world and in Iceland, which is a country roughly the size of Ohio with a population of nearly 400,000 people.

“How do you continue to provide great educational offerings and ensure that the quality of what you’re doing is great? There’s a lot up in the air, but it’s a great institution with a great reputation and I would like to carry that forward,â€� she said.

Sonja Pieck’s book about Germany’s Green Belt, the once-militarized Iron Curtain border between the former East and West Germany, begins with the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ professor back in her homeland, walking with an ornithologist along part of the huge conservation corridor.

As they walk, she turns and notices a cluster of crosses fashioned into an ad hoc memorial beneath a small stand of oak trees. A wooden sign at the memorial explains that it commemorates the lives of two border guards who had been killed there. 

At that moment, Pieck had an epiphany: If not for the Green Belt’s management approach, the formerly militarized corridor would have simply reverted back to forest, and the deaths there could never have been honored in this way. The simple memorial had created a narrative about the lives that had been lost there, and the loss and pain that connected others to this spot.

“Somebody had written a poem to remember the dead and put it under glass, right next to a carefully arranged wreath of flowersâ€� recalls Pieck, the Clark A. Griffith Professor of Environmental Studies at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½. “That was perhaps one of the pivotal moments of my research, where things just fell into place. It deeply moved me, this relationship between love, grief, memory, and conservation.â€�

Last month, Pieck’s book about the Green Belt, Mnemonic Ecologies: Memory and Nature Conservation Along the Former Iron Curtain (MIT Press, 2023) earned a PROSE Award in the category of Environmental Science and a higher-order award for excellence in physical sciences and mathematics, one of just four “super-category� winners in the Association of American Publishers’ annual awards program.

Pieck sets aside industry jargon to turn the book with the heady name into one that reads like a good novel. From the start, Pieck said the goal was clear: To get the book’s overarching message that conservation on wounded land must engage with memory — the memory of humans, animals, and the Earth — beyond academia to the international conservation community.

“At its core, it’s a story about people and their love for the land,â€� says Pieck. “I wanted to speak to the practitioners and conservationists, but also broadly to historians and artists and even people who are coming in from the mental health side — professionals who are thinking about questions about truth and reconciliation or about repair work more broadly.â€� 

Her message in Mnemonic Ecologies already has resonated beyond academia. In June she will speak on a panel of scholars about the Green Belt effort at a world heritage preservation symposium co-hosted by UNESCO and the Critical Global Studies Institute in Seoul, Korea.

In Korea, the demilitarized zone is about 160 miles long and 2.5 miles wide. There, too, nature is taking back the built environment. As in Germany, the Koreans “have experienced the sort of ecological irony of endangered species settling in and near the demilitarized zone. They want to take a similar conservation approach. So they’re in discussion with German conservationists, and drawing on people like me to help think about history, memory, and heritage in the age of ecological crisis.â€�

Much of Mnemonic Ecologies is an in-depth case study of how the Green Belt aided in Germany’s larger nationwide reckoning with its decades-long partition, socialist dictatorship, and challenging reunification. In creating the 866-mile swath of open land with the nation’s history in mind, the effort demonstrated how conservation, when approached as a community effort, can protect threatened species and habitats as well as serve as an opportunity for reparation and healing after civil unrest and war.

Done well, she said, conservation can create space for psychological well-being by embracing a sense of place, and what that place might mean to different groups of people, as Pieck explains in her book: 

“Working the terrain of grief need not be the sole responsibility of the conservationist but rather should be facilitated by broader coalitions than usual. Science-based conservation NGOs are used to working with local partner organizations, but especially in landscapes of post violence, it is time to draw in new allies such as historians, post-war documentation centers, mental health professionals, pastoral care workers, victims organizations, museums, artists, theater groups, storytellers, poets, and peacemakers — in other words, those who understand how to care for the living by honoring their dead.â€� 

Pieck identifies broad lessons from the German Green Belt experience  that might be applicable to other projects worldwide, including the United States. “I think one can argue that the entire United States consists of wounded land, given the history of land theft, genocide, and slavery,â€� Pieck said.

At the end of the book, a chapter on global mnemonic ecologies looks at wounded land more broadly, including at some of the most biodiverse places in the world that also have been arenas for some of the worst conflicts of the 20th and 21st century, places like the Balkans, Colombia, and Cambodia. Pieck said these places also are facing the tension between memory, memorialization, pain, grief, loss and the need for conservation to protect rich biodiversity. “Local communities need to decide how best to do that based on their unique situation. There are inspiring examples worldwide where people are already engaged in this kind of care-work.â€� 

Pieck’s research spanned nine years, including six summers in her native Germany doing fieldwork along different stretches of the Green Belty, which became a gratifying and enjoyable experience.

From there, the writing flowed easily. “I had thought about this topic for so long, and I had accumulated so much evidence and so much scholarship on it that the writing process itself felt good,� she said. 

 “It is a story of ecological revival. It’s beautiful that something healing could come out of the pain. That gives me so much hope.”

Anthony Phillips ’10 recalls taking the bus as a child from North Philadelphia to an elementary school in a predominantly white community and noticing how the streets were cleaner in that neighborhood, the homes had lawns.

Phillips said there were clear indicators back then of housing redlining and racism at work. The corner of Philadelphia where he grew up, Phillips said, was rife with violence, undesirable homes, and drug deals taking place out in the open. The stark contrast made Phillips wonder on those bus rides in his childhood how two areas in such close proximity could be so different. 

“I always wondered why my neighborhood did not look as beautiful as other neighborhoods when it came to resources. I was always concerned about why this was happening in my neighborhood. So that made me think about the inequity, right? In my own city, one neighborhood looked beautiful, and another neighborhood looked like it needed a lot of support. But what I did love about my neighborhood at the time: It was full of love,� Phillips said.

“We had neighbors who looked after each other. We had neighbors who loved to chat and laugh with one another. We had great block parties and festivities. But we didn’t have the same resources as other neighborhoods when it came to making sure that crime and other nuisance things didn’t take place.â€�

From an early age, Phillips’ mother and grandmother taught him that values like kindness, integrity, and hard work could lead to a better life. They served as living examples of the joy found in helping others — offering a roadmap Phillips trusted. He also admired the industry, grit, and determination embodied by their tireless work and unremitting commitment to education. He has followed their example to this day

So in 2022, when Phillips was encouraged by his community to run for a seat on the 17-member Philadelphia City Council to serve the northwest section of Philadelphia where he grew up, he answered the call. With no electoral experience — but a hefty collection of degrees that led the Philadelphia Inquirer to dub him “an academic wunderkind� — Phillips won a seat at the table in Philadelphia City Hall in a special election at age 33. Then he won the regular election a year later, earning the right to continue serving the people of the 9th district. And in just his first 15 months in office, Phillips proved his commitment to serving those in need.

For Anthony Phillips, what it took to overcome financial obstacles, redlining, and urban decay and find a life journey worth pursuing was the hard work, love, resolve, and faith his mother and grandmother passed on to him.

“My grandmother was my second parent. I never even met my father until I was 21 years old,� Phillips said. “But my mom always surrounded me with people that could be impactful in my life. She always said to me, ‘Hey, I want you to hang out with Mr. Cleave and Mr. James. Mr. Cleave and Mr. James ended up being these 70-year-old men who were my mentors, who taught me how to play checkers, but also encouraged me. They’d be like, ‘Hey, I like the way you speak. I like the way you dress. I liked the way you treat your family.’ They gave me positive affirmations.

“Growing up we didn’t have much materially. But I forgot sometimes that we were poor because we were rich in so many other ways. Ever since third grade, I was this person who was immensely concerned about: How can we make other people’s lives better?â€�

Phillips’ maternal grandmother, Evelyn Phillips, started her life working as a sharecropper picking cotton in Marion, S.C., in the 1940s. His mother, Ann Phillips, worked full time as a case worker and office manager for the Philadelphia Department of Public Works, then at night and on weekends, she added a second part-time job at Walmart and Caldor. Together they provided the means to move from North Philadelphia to a very desirable home in the northwest section of the city. And in the brick row house where the two women together raised Anthony and his sister, Latrisha, they filled their home with academic rigor, life lessons, and love. 

Latrisha earned a doctorate and is an executive at an elite private school. At the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, Anthony is currently completing his doctoral dissertation on whether the Black church is still serving the needs of citizens of Philadelphia.

Phillips recalls how his mother first taught him about the realities of being a Black man in America after he went on a field trip in third grade to Baltimore’s Black Wax Museum. He walked into the replica of a slave ship hull and saw the wax representations of Black slaves, and went home confused. 

“I said, ‘Mom, I saw the craziest thing ever: Black people were enslaved. Did you know they were in chains?’ My mom said, ‘Well, that’s the way things were. And, in some ways, that’s the way things still are today.’ And I said, ‘Well, we’ve got to do something about that.’ So my journey to action came from what I call this African American history moment in my life,â€� Phillips said.  

Soon after, at his mother’s suggestion, Phillips became a junior deacon at his church, Triumph Baptist Church. While he was in middle school, he started a nonprofit called Youth Action with two friends to help youth get involved in social activism to encourage positive change in their neighborhood. All the while, he researched and read about the Civil Rights Movement. When he read how Martin Luther King Jr’s mentor at Morehouse College went to ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½, Phillips decided to apply. 

At ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½, he double majored in philosophy and African American studies (now Africana) and was a Benjamin Mays Scholar. During his junior year, he joined a ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ exchange program to study at Morehouse College. As a senior, he completed a ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ honors thesis detailing the conflict within the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee between Black integrationists and Black nationalists.

Along the way, he sought out and found other mentors at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½, such as Professor Emeritus of History Hilmar Jensen, and Charles Nero, the Benjamin E. Mays Distinguished Professor of Rhetoric, Film, and Screen Studies.

Nero said Phillips was intellectually very curious. He attended and helped at many of the events hosted by the Multicultural Affairs office that existed at the time. It was no surprise to Nero when Phillips chose to double major in African-American studies and philosophy.

“I thought for him that was a really good choice because he wanted to know not only about the specific experiences of Black people and African-American people, but he also wanted to have an understanding about what it is that appeals to people about power,� Nero said. “I think that combination of studies allows him, at a personal level, to think about how to engage in power and how to use power for the benefit of Black people.�

After graduating in 2010, Phillips headed to Yale for a master’s in Black religion in the African diaspora. Just as he was getting started, his mother died unexpectedly from complications during an asthma attack. Phillips was just 21. Still, he forged ahead. 

“I think about the fact my grandmother was a sharecropper from South Carolina where she had to pick cotton in the fields. And my mom sacrificed with basically no money to provide food and resources for her kids. That inspiration helps push me forward,â€� he said. 

Their example kept Phillips focused on service. As he began doctoral studies at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, he joined the university program Student Bridges to help provide education and access to underrepresented students in western Massachusetts. In 2018, Phillips joined TeenSHARP, based in Wilmington, Del., to help prepare talented Black, Latino, and low-income students for success at selective colleges and universities.

And in hard times, he also found inspiration in his faith. 

“When I’m down and when I feel as if things are not going well, I also get my inspiration from God. The church is what gives me purpose every Sunday,â€� said Phillips, who worships at Salem Baptist Church, a historically Black church in Abington, Pa. 

“When I drive the church bus for the seniors, they are always encouraging me, saying, ‘You’re doing a good job, keep it going.’ Those seniors on that church bus, they inspire me, too.â€�

Nero pointed out that Philips is both a political leader today, as well as a leader in his Black church, which historically has been a significant, supportive community to Black people and African-American people in the United States.

“He’s a church goer, a religious person, a spiritual person, and he’s also made decisions to be in a majority Black religious situation. So I think that’s also about his commitment to Black people and recognizing the church as a site of power,â€� Nero said. “The church is a place that is empowering. It celebrates the community, and especially in the context of white supremacy, Black churches have been a place where Black people celebrate themselves.â€� 

In 2020, when Cherelle Parker announced she would vacate her city council seat to run for mayor, she encouraged Phillips to run for her seat representing the 9th district, where he grew up. Parker went on to win the mayoral race to become the first woman to lead Philadelphia in 341 years.

When Phillips won the 9th-district seat in 2022, it galvanized him. He vowed to improve education, neighborhood vitalization, and infrastructure — promises that yielded results. 

Immediately, he worked to improve the livability of the district by introducing legislation to ban tractor trailers from parking in residential areas in the city. When the ordinance passed, he introduced legislation to bypass the time-consuming studies needed to install speed bumps around schools, to slow traffic near schoolyards. That passed.

“My colleagues on the city council loved it so much, they asked about the rec centers, libraries, senior centers, and areas with vulnerable populations,� Phillips said with a booming laugh. “When you work with children, you have to have a whatever-it-takes approach to getting things done.�

This January, Phillips introduced legislation to ban ski masks so residents would feel safer in an area with high crime. It drew criticism on social media and was ridiculed for being a waste and unnecessary. That ordinance passed.  

“You’ve got to keep moving. I’m always looking for the next big piece of legislation,� Phillips said.

Having grown up in North Philly, Phillips said he knows intimately the kind of inequality that exists, even between neighborhoods a few miles apart. Step by step, he hopes to tip the scale toward those in need. 

Philips’ Instagram account — @phillipsdist9 — is full of the programs and the kind of change he seeks. One video from last January shows him at night out on a street in North Philly during a snowstorm looking for roads that need to be plowed. In it, he asks residents to call and report any. 

Another post shows him working with a group offering a free recycle drop-off for old electronics. Wearing a poncho while working in the rain, Phillips cheers in the post, “We get stuff done!�

Two years after their last post-election gathering, members of the Department of Politics at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ reconvened to offer their expert takes on this year’s midterm election results.

Taking part and sharing insights from their specific areas of expertise were Pavel Ba�ovský, John Baughman, Steve Engel, Lisa Gilson, and Chris Price.

“Welcome to our biennial politics department panel,� said Baughman at the start of the webinar, quipping that “we conveniently have federal elections immediately preceding these panels so we have something to talk about every two years.�

Here are their insights:

First, a primer on “thermostatic voting�

Thermostatic voting is the idea that the electorate acts as a thermostat to balance the political climate, explained Baughman, an associate professor of politics whose specialty is American politics and the U.S. Congress.

“If your house is too cold, the thermostat triggers heatâ€� to bring the temperature back to normal. “Often, the electorate in a mid-year election will pull the government back to the ideological center. So after a Republican president is elected, swing voters may want to elect more Democrats in the midterms to check the president.â€� 

The lack of a “red wave” doesn’t mean there was no thermostatic voting in the 2022 midterms

Pundits expected that thermostatic voting would create a “red wave” of Republican victories during the midterm elections. “Those expectations came from President Biden’s low approval ratings and past midterm results,â€� Baughman said.

“But leading up to the election, pundits misapplied� the idea of thermostatic voting.

Typically, thermostatic voting reacts to what the president is doing that dominates the headlines. But Biden didn’t change the temperature of the electorate. Something else did.

Baughman asked the audience to think of the biggest policy change over the past year. “It’s probably not what the president did. It was arguably the Dobbs decision, overturning Roe v. Wade,â€� he said. “There’s quite a bit of evidence, especially in states like Michigan, that voters were responding with a thermostatic reaction to Dobbs more than to Biden’s low approval rating. This benefited Democrats. It was a reaction against a conservative Supreme Court.â€�

Baughman added, “It’s extraordinarily rare for a Supreme Court case to generate the level of public reaction that we had in this case. I can’t think of a similar moment in modern American history.â€�

Young voter turnout played a big role in the midterms

Pavel Ba�ovský is a visiting assistant professor in politics whose specialty is political behavior, including youth political behavior.

Noting that “everyone’s probably most interested in the turnout,â€� he cited , which defines voters between 18 and 29 as “youth.â€�

“We see that the turnout this year among young voters was 27 percent, the second highest in the past 30 years — nothing to sneeze at,â€� he said. “It’s less than the last midterms in 2018 where it was the highest in the past 30 years at 30 percent.â€�

The issue that young voters prioritized, said Ba�ovský, was a woman’s right to choose. “Forty-four percent of young voters prioritized� a woman’s right to choose. “And the overwhelming majority of them trust Democrats more on this issue than Republicans.�

He added, “Inflation was their second-highest issue, 21 percent. And even in older demographics, abortion was the still the second-most important topic, behind inflation. So absolutely: This was a situation where the electorate, especially the young electorate, has gone for a party that they think would protect the women’s right to choose.â€�

SCOTUS doesn’t care ’bout elections

In terms of the Supreme Court, “I don’t think that the election results will matter that much,â€� said Engel, professor of politics and associate dean of the faculty who specializes in constitutional law, judicial politics, LGBTQ politics, and U.S. political development. 

â€�I don’t think the election actually changes their calculus in any way. The court will still be taking on considerations of race and higher education. It will still be taking on a key case regarding the tension between the First Amendment and same-sex marriage.â€�

In fact, he said, “the court seems pretty unconcerned with the decline of its own institutional legitimacy, as measured in public polling in the wake of Dobbs. They don’t seem to particularly care about this right now. 

The Democrats might not lean into abortion rights issue for political gain

Despite voters siding with Democrats on abortion access, said Engel, “I don’t expect Democrats to lean into this in a political way that might parallel, for example, the way Republicans kept putting bans on same-sex marriage on the ballot in 2004, 2006, and 2008 as a kind of get-out-the-vote mechanism. I don’t think Democrats have the bandwidth or the stomach to do that.â€�

Republicans did not tell voters what they would get

Engel pointed to a , where she argues that Republicans failed to tell voters what they would get if they put Republicans in power. 

“The only thing that people knew they would get was probably some kind of anti-abortion access policy,� Engel said. “And that was clearly rejected by the voters.�

Which is not surprising. “If you had followed public opinion polling on abortion access, it’s not surprising to me that the American public rejected restrictions on abortion access that were on the ballot.â€�

Codification of same-sex marriage doesn’t make sense from a constitutional perspective

Led by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, the Senate is taking steps to protect . 

“As a constitutional scholar, I do not understand this strategy or what it accomplishes,� said Engel. “As political optics, I get it. It pushes Republicans into the uncomfortable position of hating on same-sex marriage, which now has overwhelming public support. It pushes Republicans into dealing with the fallout of Dobbs, which they clearly do not want to do.�

But any federal law, Engels points out, “can still be held by the Supreme Court to be unconstitutional. So if the court really wanted to overturn Obergefell [the SCOTUS case that requires states to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples and to recognize same-sex marriages], a federal law codifying Obergefell does not stand in their way.â€� 

It’s not a good look for a candidate to encourage election denying

In its reporting, the news media has agreed that denying election results is not a winning strategy for political candidates and that voters overwhelmingly rejected election deniers. 

“I think that that’s right to a certain extent, but there’s more,â€� said Lisa Gilson, an assistant professor of politics who specializes in political theory, particularly theories of protest and criticism, and who also teaches the politics of the American far right.

“It’s significant that the overwhelming majority of the election deniers who were running for secretary of state, the office that administers and validates elections, lost their elections, which suggests that voters, or at least most voters, do not want the people who are supposed to be certifying the election to be denying the validity of these elections.�

One of the reasons why election denying didn’t work, said Gilson, , is because it “reduces the turnout of voters who were concerned about or were buying into conspiracy theories about voter fraud.â€�

Telling voters that their vote isn’t going to be counted “is not actually a really good strategy to get people out to vote. Those voters tend to be disillusioned with the whole process anyway, so you’re actually turning away voters.â€�

2024 looks good for the Republicans

2024 could be tough for Democrats in Congress, Gilson believes, because Democratic incumbents are vulnerable in a number of Senate elections in 2024, including West Virginia, Montana, and Ohio. “These are states that are red or Republican-leaning.�

And Democrats will have few opportunities to pick up seats in Congress. “Maybe in the past we used to think that Florida was a state that you could potentially pick up,â€� Gilson said. “It’s not anymore; Florida is very red. Texas, too, hasn’t worked out well recently for the Democrats.â€�

Then there’s the issue of various states, including Ohio and North Carolina, engaging in redistricting of congressional districts. “The midterms were run on maps that are relatively favorable to Democrats. And they have been in the process of redistricting,� which may not favor Democrats.

Elections are about counting, not voting

“Elections are not just about the voting but about counting,â€� said Chris Price, a visiting assistant professor of politics, giving a nod to playwright Tom Stoppard’s line.

Price, who specializes in contentious and violent politics, used the quote to give meaning to the fact that “68 percent of Americans said that they believe that the status of democracy in America was either somewhat or very insecure.� And if such a large percentage of the electorate believes elections and democracy are insecure, that opens the door to a “potentially violent challenge,� he said.

Price is part of a team, which includes colleagues from the , that has been trying to measure the “potential mobilizable base of people who say that the election in 2020 was rigged and that they would be willing to endorse force to overthrow the presidency.â€� 

His group “estimates that at about 8 percentâ€� of Americans who, under the right conditions, would be “more than willing to use violence to get their preferred political outcomes.â€� 

So far, bad attitudes have not yielded widespread violent behavior, he says. “But in the run-up to this set of elections, we did see some more very worrying, observable things,â€� including the armed intrusion into House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s house.

In Arizona, “ were watching ballot boxes in the run-up to the election. While these are all worrying signs for now, I have to say, so far, so good and knock on wood.�

What will the Republicans rally around in 2024?

“One of the questions going forward about the Republican Party is whether it’s going to coalesce around a coherent fiscal policy,â€� said Gilson. 

It’s speculation, she offered, “but one of the Republicans’ difficulties is that voters may be partial to Trump, they want to decrease the debt, and they also want to expand Medicare. They want all different things at the same time.�

In 2024, “will the Republicans have a coherent platform on fiscal issues? Will one even be necessary? It should be, because even if the rate of inflation is decreasing by 2024, we are still going to be dealing with economic fallout.�

Trump announcing his candidacy doesn’t shield him from various investigations, but…

Trump’s official candidacy for president “doesn’t provide him any kind of immunityâ€� from prosecution, said Engel. “But again, optically it looks weird for the Department of Justice to be investigating an announced presidential candidate.â€�

Baughman suggested that observers watch to see if Republicans begin indicating support for the investigations. “If Republican leaders really do want to take Trump off the board, they can embrace the investigations, or at least no longer voice the objections they’ve been voicing. That’s one thing to watch for: Does [U.S. Attorney General Merrick] Garland tacitly or even openly gain more support from Republicans?â€�

If Trump doesn’t win the Republican nomination, might he pull a “Teddy Rooseveltian Thing�

“The former president is the nominal leader of the party, but Trump doesn’t care about the Republican party,â€� Engels says. “It’s not an apropos analogy, but if he doesn’t win the nomination, will he pull a Teddy Rooseveltian kind of thing — ‘I’m gonna break off, run independently, and bring my voters with me’?â€�

In other words, said Engel, “it’s not clear to me that the Republican party can deal with Trump if Trump is not the nominee.â€�

As they experienced the pandemic and its national response, the youngest generation of American voters shifted their thinking about what they want — and »å´Ç²Ô’t want — from the federal government, according to new research co-authored by ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Associate Professor of Economics Sandra Goff and .

Young Americans want the federal government to get bigger, according to survey data that Goff and her coauthors collected before and during the pandemic.

But at the same time, they’re now more distrustful of government, and they »å´Ç²Ô’t want government to play a larger role in carrying out any of its various traditional duties, such as setting safe workplace standards, taking care of infrastructure, or advancing space exploration.

Titled “Support for Bigger Government: The Principle-Implementation Gap and COVID-19,� the paper was authored by Goff; Associate Professor of Economics John Ifcher of Santa Clara University; Associate Professor of Economics Homa Zarghamee at Barnard College; and two Santa Clara students, now alumni, Alex Reents and Patrick Wade.

Goff and her coauthors came to their conclusions after surveying a group of young Americans — college students at Barnard, Santa Clara, and Skidmore College, which is Goff’s prior institution — two times: once before the pandemic and once during the pandemic. 

“It seems like students want some idealized form of government. They want government to do more — but they don’t really want the government to do more of the standard functions that they have been doing.â€� 

Associate Professor of Economics Sandra Goff

In doing so, they saw shifts in their attitudes toward government during the pandemic.

“Students became more critical and less trusting of government, but they also wanted a bigger government.â€� Goff explains. “It seems like students want some idealized form of government. They want government to do more — but they don’t really want the government to do more of the standard functions that they have been doing.â€� 

The “standard functionsâ€� of the federal government, which the survey respondents showed no increase in support for, are typically agreed-upon by researchers. 

They are: setting fair and safe standards for workplaces; maintaining infrastructure; advancing space exploration; strengthening the economy; keeping the country safe from terrorism; helping people get out of poverty; protecting the environment; responding to natural disasters; ensuring that food and medicine are safe; ensuring access to health care; ensuring a basic income for people 65 and older; ensuring access to high quality education; and managing the nation’s immigration system.

Goff and her fellow researchers also found that respondents want the government to intervene more in markets, that is, to step in to protect citizens from unethical behavior by businesses or to safeguard the environment.

Goff explains that the gap between what the respondents say they want and what they will support is “an example of a ‘principle-implementation gap.’â€� Such gaps, between what people say that they want and what they’re willing to support “have been seen in the prior work by others,â€� Goff says. For example, white Americans accept equality as an ideal . 

Goff and her colleagues have no neat answer to why the gap exists, but they do believe that what they found among these young college students is likely to “persist over time.� And though the survey was directed at one young age group — so-called Generation Z — “it still provides important insights: that young, educated people throughout the U.S. are discontent with government, see a strong role for government, yet are unsure of exactly what that role should be,� says Goff.

As is often the case in research, Goff and her colleagues didn’t set out to learn about changing attitudes toward government, pre- and post-pandemic. After all, they didn’t know a pandemic was coming when they initially surveyed their students, in December 2019, to “determine the effect of taking an introductory economics course on market and government attitudes.� An experimental and behavioral economist, Goff’s primary area of interest is in using computational models and experimental methods in the lab and field to explore prosocial economic behavior.

“There are studies that have shown that economics instruction can cause people to behave more selfishly,� Goff explains. “We wanted to see if taking an introductory economics course caused students to become more pro-market or less supportive of government.�

COVID sidetracked that line of inquiry, but opened another. “We had these initial survey responses, and then COVID happened,� she says. “We thought it would be interesting to see if the pandemic changed the way people felt about government and markets.�

Goff grew up in Livermore, a town a few miles north of ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ and, like Lewiston, located on the Androscoggin River, which was horribly polluted before the federal government intervened in a big way, thanks to the Clean Water Act of 1972, passed 50 years ago this week due to the efforts of U.S. Sen. Edmund Muskie ‘36.

Muskie grew up in Rumford, which is also on the Androscoggin. “As a fellow Maine mill town resident, I’m obsessed with Muskie,â€� says Goff, who admits to having one of his old wooden chairs. “My grandmother purchased it from a yard sale he was having back in the day.â€�

Perhaps, Goff continues, a reimagining of what government can do is happening now — giving survey respondents something to support.

Landmark examples of what the federal government could do, the Clean Water and Clean Air acts are instructive in the present moment, suggests Goff. 

“They are great examples of what was, in their time, a break with the past and a reimagining of what government can do,� she explains. Perhaps, Goff continues, a reimagining of what government can do is happening now — giving survey respondents something to support.

“Perhaps we are seeing it with the . Perhaps, in these moments of crisis, people are looking for bold, moral leadership from the government. 

“Could that be the thread that ties together the sweeping changes that we have seen in the past in response to crises? Are people looking for government action that matches the intensity of the crisis, and when they don’t see that intensity, are they simultaneously disappointed with government and wanting bigger government?â€�

“Okay. I am going to just say it: I’d like to see a woman ask a question,â€� economist Cecilia Rouse said to her ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ audience. 

“A student,� she clarified, and a laugh rippled among the students, faculty, and staff who were asking some Q’s during a lively Q&A session after Rouse’s talk in a Pettengill Hall classroom back in April.

Rouse is no stranger to commanding a room: She chairs the White House Council of Economic Advisors. And as a professor of economics at Princeton, she’s certainly no stranger to speaking with students. 

She’s also a woman, and thus no stranger to the fact that economics is infamously dominated by men, a fact that “is not a trend, but always the case in economics — everywhere,â€� says Lynne Lewis, Elmer W. Campbell Professor of Economics at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½. With colleague Nivedhitha Subramanian, an assistant professor of economics, Lewis welcomed Rouse to ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ on behalf of the student club Women in Economics, the Department of Economics, and the President’s Office.

Nicknamed WE@ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½, the economics club was founded by Lewis and a colleague in 2018 following high-profile national media accounts of discrimination against women in economics.

The discrimination was “nothing new,â€� as Lewis said in 2018 but “at the same time it was great to see the topic getting attention.â€�  how “gender and racial gaps in economics are wider, and have narrowed less over time, than in many other fields.”

Among economics majors at U.S. colleges, it’s understood that about 70 percent are men and 30 percent women. At ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½, 74 percent of the economics majors this year were male. That’s within a senior class that is fairly gender balanced at approximately 46 percent male, 52 percent female, and 2 percent transgender and/or gender non-conforming.

Open to all students, Women in Economics focuses on supporting female-identifying students who wish to study and explore economics, finance, consulting, and related fields through various efforts, including invited guest speakers like Rouse, who can expand the notion of who can both major and thrive in economics.

Jane Dodge ’24 of Winchester, Mass., is the community liaison for WE@ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½. She’s not an economics major — English is her choice — but knows that economics at the college level ,” a culture that make it hard for female students to see themselves thrive in the field of study.

Students often have a preconceived notion that studying economics is “all about [going into] finance and making money,� says Dodge. But it can be other things. “It’s about looking at how people make choices and ways wealth can be distributed� — which has value that spans most academic majors, she says.

As part of her visit, Rouse spent informal time talking with students, including a gathering in the Fireplace Lounge in Commons, where she offered direct encouragement and advice. At her evening talk, she was introduced by President Clayton Spencer and interviewed by Lewis and Subramanian.

An example of economics’ multidisciplinary reach came during Rouse’s talk when she addressed economics and energy in the context of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Even though the the invasion has “raised the issueâ€� — mostly due to soaring gas prices — so that “as we make this transition to clean energy, we need to be independent there too, because we don’t want to find ourselves at the mercy of another country,â€� says Rouse. “We need some energy independence.â€�

Rouse suggested looking at politics as a component of economics, rather than an opponent.

For Caitie McGlashan ’22 of Hopkinton, N.H., Rouse’s insights into how politics, policy, and economics can inform and benefit each other were eye-opening. 

It’s tempting to think of politics as “this nuisance that prevents beneficial economic policy from getting through,â€� says McGlashan, vice president of WE@ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½. But Rouse suggested looking at politics as a component of economics, rather than an opponent.

“When we have some sort of constraint in economics, we incorporate it into our modeling and use it to make the model more realistic. We don’t just ignore it,” McGlashan explains. “So Rouse framed politics as a constraint that can be modeled into the likelihood of a particular piece of economic legislation being effective.”

The trifecta of politics, public policy, and economics are also all components of a slightly older — but ongoing — issue a little closer to home: COVID. Lockdowns at the beginning of the pandemic have had lasting effects on the economy, and it’s only made it more clear that a single decision can have widespread consequences.

COVID variants keep appearing, but no nationwide lockdown has been announced since the first one in March of 2020. Cases are still high, even with vaccination rates, so why hasn’t the economy been hit as hard as that first time?

“Two years ago we knew nothing about this virus,â€� says Rouse. Information battled with disinformation. “Remember, people were wiping down their groceries — and being told they didn’t have to wear masks, [that COVID] was overblown. Shutting down the economy was what we just needed to do. It was a very extreme policy simply because we didn’t have the tools.â€�

But now we have those tools, says Rouse. We know what upticks in cases look like, we know ways to react and mitigate exposure, and more importantly, we have vaccines; all tools that affect the way an economist calculates what actions to take.

And for economics students and those considering studying economics, the job market for economists is “red-hot� right now, says Rouse.

Economics doesn’t afford a single path or a single tool for its majors. “It’s a fantastic toolkit to help understand so much of the world around us,” says Subramanian.

“You’re able to ask important questions and use data to answer them,” says Lewis. True, it can be a means to a specific career goal, as are many academic majors, but it’s also about “finding ways to make people better off, and crafting policies that address poverty, discrimination, environmental pollution, and inequality.”

When newly elected Sen. Angus King, an Independent from Maine, was preparing to move into his office in the Dirksen Senate Office Building in 2013, he was offered a choice of desks. The one King picked is big and broad, with slightly curved legs that square off in an angle at the top, interrupting its otherwise perfectly rectangular shape, and end in an almost claw-like foot. 

The legs are distinctive but even more so is the desk’s rich legacy, having served as the desk of Edmund Sixtus Muskie ’36 during his time in the U.S. Senate.

The desk was command central as Muskie was working on landmark legislation, including the Clean Air and Clean Water acts, the latter of which will have its 50th anniversary this fall. Muskie chaired the Senate Subcommittee on Environmental Pollution, a role that famously earned him the nickname “Mr. Clean.â€� 

“There was no question in my mind this was the right choice,� King says. “If you’re ever given the option to use Edmund Muskie’s desk, you take it!�

And other Maine politicians have done exactly so: When Muskie left the Senate in 1980, after more than two decades, to become Secretary of State to President Jimmy Carter, his former assistant from the early 1960s, George Mitchell, then a federal judge in Maine, was appointed to fill Muskie’s seat in the Senate. King says Mitchell took the Muskie desk as well.

Then, when Mitchell left the Senate in 1995 and was succeeded by Olympia Snowe, she moved the desk into her office. At Muskie’s memorial service in 1996, Snowe described coming to Washington in 1979 as the new congresswoman from Maine and being touched by Muskie’s kindness and grateful for his advice. “We were congressional colleagues for only a year and a half, but our friendship lasted throughout the years.â€� 

The furnishings and decor around it changed — Muskie liked to hold forth from behind the desk, with visitors grouped around it in chairs, while Snowe was typically pictured in her office sitting side by side with guests in more elegant striped gold and red high backed chairs — but the desk of the senators from Maine remained the same. 

The parties did not though. As was Muskie, Mitchell is a Democrat but Snowe is a Republican. 

“This desk’s bipartisan (now tripartisan!) history is one of my favorite features,� says King. “It’s a reminder that I stand on the shoulders of giants who made it their habit to work across party lines to deliver results for our state and our nation. I’m humbled by the legacy of accomplishments left behind by the leaders who came before me.�

Muskie, who died in 1996 just shy of his 82nd birthday, would have turned 108 this week, on March 28. (Late March birthdays are another thing the two former governors of Maine have in common: King turned 78 on March 31). Muskie grew up the son of immigrants in Rumford, where his father was a tailor, before arriving at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½, conscious of his lack of wealth initially and needing to work his way through college, like many of his classmates during the Depression. By the time he graduated cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa in 1936, he was class president and a skilled and confident debater.

In mid-March, with the Russian invasion of Ukraine raging, King, an adroit user of Instagram who writes often soulful captions for his own photography, posted a sunlit shot of his office, showing part of the desk, his bust of Lincoln, and the rich red walls behind it, hung with paintings by Maine artists (Marguerite Robichaux and Linden Frederick). The scene, and the moment in time, prompted him to share some perspective in light of the Ukrainian crisis. “In difficult times like these,â€� King wrote on the post. “I find temporary refuge in history.â€� 

That refuge included considering Muskie’s feat in leading Maine, and the nation, â€œinto the environmental era,â€� King wrote, noting that Muskie managed the first Clean Water Act to a “unanimous (!) vote in the Senate. And came to embody the idea of integrity in politics.â€�

There’s no question that Muskie worked at this desk as he crafted the Clean Water Act, King says. “Looking back on it, the fact that Muskie got this bill enacted into law speaks to his relentless perseverance. He held hearing after hearing on this subject, drawing from both scientific data and his personal experiences in Rumford to advocate passionately for the importance of clean water in every community across the country.�

Rumford sits on a bend of the Androscoggin River, so in his youth, Muskie could literally see (and smell) the water and air pollution generated by the small city’s pulp and paper mills.

“He eventually wore down his opposition, and the bill passed the Senate unanimously,� King says. “When I’m working on the toughest issues we face and feel like I’m at an impasse, Muskie’s example reminds me to keep going.�

It’s a true working desk then, not ostentatious. It’s solid. Like Muskie. An aide once said that ‘sham and pretense grate on him like sandpaper.’”

Some mysteries remain about the desk. No one seems to know exactly what kind of wood it is, but King says that “it’s from the early 20th century, and had been in the Russell Senate Office Building originally.� It’s double-sided, so it could accommodate two people sitting across from each other, with a footrest for each. “I’ve never used the desk for that purpose,� King says. “So I get extra room to stretch out my legs.� (A nice feature when you’re 6-foot-2.)

It’s a true working desk then, and despite the turn of its legs — which make it easy to identify in historic photos, like the one of Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan making her way into Snowe’s office for a meeting when she was still a nominee — it is not ostentatious. It’s solid. Like Muskie, who The New York Times described in its obituary as “above all, a creature of the Senate. A blunt man, with a hair trigger temper that detonated often, he nonetheless became one of the Senate’s most influential members. An aide once said that ‘sham and pretense grate on him like sandpaper.’”

Mitchell was stunned and intimidated. “I couldn’t control the shaking of my legs even though I was sitting down.

Note the mention of the temper, which was legendary. The first time George Mitchell glimpsed the desk that would eventually become his, he also saw the temper. On March 26, 1996, Mitchell shared his memory as part of the many Congressional memorial tributes to the former senator from Maine. Mitchell recalled going for an interview for a job as an assistant in Muskie’s office. He was fresh out of law school. Mitchell had been advised to prepare a memorandum on the legal aspects of an issue that was being considered by the Senate.

“I thought the memo was pretty good, but unknowingly I had made a huge mistake,â€� Mitchell said. “I reached a conclusion that was the opposite of the Senator’s. I had never met him but he didn’t bother with any small talk. Within minutes of our introduction, he unleashed a ferocious cross-examination. He came out from behind his desk, he towered over me, he shook his finger at me and he took my memo apart, line by line.”

Mitchell was stunned and intimidated. “I couldn’t control the shaking of my legs even though I was sitting down. I tried as best as I could to explain my point of view and we had what you might call a lively discussion. As I left he said, ‘The next time you come in here, you’ll be better prepared.’ That’s how I learned I’d been hired, and I sure was better prepared the next time.â€�

King says he tells visitors about the desk’s history, “often and eagerly, without any prompting.�

A few years ago, King ran into Ned Muskie, the youngest of Ed and Jane’s Muskie’s five children, in Washington, D.C., and invited him for lunch in the Senate dining room. “I said that would be incredible,� Ned Muskie says. “Because I have wonderful memories of Dad taking us there. Back then, Dad was like a rock star, even among other senators. They all wanted to interact with Dad. So our lunches would be interrupted by people like Hubert Humphrey or Sam Nunn.�

But before King and Ned Muskie went to lunch, they stopped by King’s office. Muskie remembers King telling him, “I have something special to show you. And sure enough, it was the desk.�

It was set at a different angle — “Dad had it in a very conventional way, at the end of the roomâ€� — but Ned knew it immediately. “Hell yeah,â€� he says. He told King about his own history with the desk. 

“I knew this desk from when I was a very little boy. Very similar to John-John Kennedy, who would sit on the stretcher below his father’s desk, I also did the same thing. Dad would be on the phone and I’d crawl under the desk. I’d tickle his feet or do something silly like that, so I have very fond memories of the desk.â€� 

Ned’s four siblings would sometimes join him in play under and around the desk while his father worked. “How Muskie ever got the Clean Water Act passed with kids darting back and forth, I’ll never know!� King says.

King considers the desk timeless. “Not only because it’s been passed down from senator to senator, but because the impact of the work done at this desk still affects Maine people today. Just look at the Clean Water Act: Mainers depend on the ocean, lakes, and rivers to live and work. Without this historic legislation, our waterways would not be the same today.

“Thankfully, Maine had Ed Muskie working for us. So yes, the desk is timeless. It’s a piece of history, and I’m honored to continue the tradition.â€�

What does Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake have to do with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine? Why did Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy decide to stay in Kyiv? And how are Zelenskyy and Russian president Vladimir Putin controlling the narrative, each in their own way?

From a recent campus discussion among four ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ faculty members with wide-ranging expertise in the issues at play in the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine, here are 10 takeaways.

The narrative isn’t new

One of Putin’s biggest defenses of his invasion of Ukraine is that the current Ukrainian governing body is, in fact, illegitimate. 

In 2014, during the Revolution of Dignity, Viktor Yanukovych, then president of Ukraine, declined to sign a political association and free trade agreement with the European Union, instead choosing to strengthen ties with Russia.

Ukrainians disagreed with this decision, and the Ukrainian parliament unanimously voted to remove Yanukovych as president, resulting in him fleeing the country, fearing retaliation. Putin’s perspective is that the government that replaced Yanukovych is illegitimate, and he uses this to back his claim that the invasion intends to “free� Ukrainians from their oppressors.

“From the top of the Russian government down, it’s a pollution of nationalists and neo-Nazis who have, as their goal, the erasure of Ukraine’s true history, in which Ukraine returns to its appropriate place, as part of Russia,â€� said Professor Emeritus of Russian Dennis Browne during Wednesday’s discussion, sponsored by the Department of German and Russian Studies and by the Program in European Studies.

 â€œThis is what I would call the pollution of Ukrainian extremist arguments. I don’t see any off ramp on either side of this today.â€� 

Ukraine is no ‘border zone’

Putin claims Ukraine is a “brotherâ€� to Russia, part of its own civilization. 

Meanwhile, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has tried hard to redefine Ukraine’s identity, starting with associating it in the world’s eyes as part of Europe (including formally seeking membership in the European Union, which experts say would take months if not years). 

Zelenskyy is trying to inspire empathy and a sense of camaraderie with the rest of Europe.

“​​One of the things that was immediately apparent at the very beginning of this crisis was that there was what we might call a PR crisis, where essentially the world hadn’t thought about Ukraine since 2014,â€� says Cheryl Stephenson, lecturer in Russian. 

The public relations crisis is that the rest of Europe — and the U.S. — understands Ukraine as “a kind of a seam or a border land,â€� says Stephenson. 

Ukraine exists “between the concept of Europe and the concept of Russia, between concepts like East and West, democracy and authoritarianism, civilized, and uncivilized are words that are being used a lot right now.�

‘On-the-fly mythmaking’

Zelenskyy seeks to change the concept of Ukraine as a buffer zone between Russia and the rest of Europe. 

Instead, Zelenskyy wants the rest of the world to see Ukraine as a seam, where Russia isn’t almost invading Europe; it is invading Europe. Which makes Putin’s threat to Ukraine a threat to the rest of Europe.

So how is Zelenskyy attempting to re-identify Ukraine and give the rest of the world a reason to help?

Zelenskyy’s decision to stay in Kyiv and his constant updates and videos are not only to boost morale, says Stephenson, but they also serve as a way to transform national and international narratives about Ukraine.

“[It’s a] kind of on-the-fly mythmaking, and like all kinds of myth, myths that surround nations are powerful regardless of their truth value,� says Stephenson.

“Their power is connected to the kind of emotions that they invoke in people, both about others and about the self. And that’s very actively going on in these very brief social media interactions between the Ukrainian government, and between international audiences and the people of Ukraine.â€�

Various social media accounts for the Ukrainian government have begun to be regularly translated for international audiences while other people are translating memes and messages that promote Ukrainian culture and values, and this all helps boost Zelenskyy’s narrative, says Stephenson.

Sphere of influence = right to interfere?

Putin sees Russia’s sphere of influence as international, so he believes he has the right to interfere in Ukraine and, specifically, to interfere in their government. This isn’t a new idea, nor is it unique to Putin.

Referring to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, Professor of Politics Jim Richter noted that “this is the second time in this young century that a great power has invaded a country of over 40 million people without provocation and in violation of international law.â€� 

And in both cases, said Richter, who chairs the Program in European Studies, “the population of that great power — and possibly the decision-makers as well — were under the impression, perhaps delusionally, that the local population would celebrate the invaders as liberators and greet them with flowers and celebrations.

“Most people now agree that the invasion of Iraq, regardless of its moral implications, was a complete and massive strategic blunder.�

Wary and weary of war

“Russians, I think, are generally averse to war. They accept it when necessary,â€� said Richter. “Russians have a knowledge of war that people in the U.S. do not. They get the stories from their grandparents. It’s still a living memory, the absolute horrors of war — but also the necessity of war in certain times.â€�

Putin believes that the way to convince Russians of the necessity of war is to control the narrative, using his rhetoric to unify their beliefs and identity as Russians.

“I think Putin hoped he could control the narrative enough,â€� Richter said. “But with the resistance of Ukrainians, the length of time in the war, the costs and the economy, the resistance likely to grow, the harsher repression that’s going to happen in Russia, that’s going to be more and more difficult to maintain.â€�

Echo, echo

Putin has surrounded himself with people who agree with him, creating an echo chamber that rings with his own voice.

That’s caused problems in Putin’s strategy, says Richter, and led to his underestimating the determination of Ukrainians to fight and underestimating the willingness of many other countries to defend Ukraine against Russia. 

From accepting Ukrainians fleeing their besieged homes, to offering food and medical supplies, to volunteering to fight alongside Ukrainian soldiers, much of the rest of the world has taken a stand with Ukraine.

But underestimation isn’t Putin’s only problem, says Richter. He’s also overestimated his own military, and the willingness of Russians to support his decision to invade Ukraine.

While some polls show high Russian support of Putin’s decision, those polls are being released at a time when Putin is tightly holding the reins of information circulating within and coming out of Russia.

‘There is no war in Ba Sing Se’

On March 4, Putin signed a new law against the spread of “false information� about Russian armed forces. Punishable by up to 15 years in prison, “false information� includes using the term “war� to refer to what’s happening in Ukraine; instead, Putin says, it’s a “special military operation.�

Other taboo words include “invasion,â€� and using “Naziâ€� and “Hitlerâ€� to refer to Putin. Encouraged words are “demilitarizeâ€� and “de-Nazifyâ€� in reference to Putin’s “special military operationâ€� in Ukraine. Enemies are “foreign agents.â€� 

It’s right out of the animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender, where citizens are forced to repeat the phrase “there is no war in Ba Sing Se,� the mythical city-state, until they are brainwashed.

Of course, the result has been widespread and creative wordplay, as Russian media and citizens circumvent the new law, from using antonyms to deliver an easily-deciphered message, to creating memes to lift spirits.

Lecturer in Russian Marina Filipovic gives the example of a meme in which the cover of Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace has been doctored to read Special Military Operation and Peace.

“It became viral. People are sharing it, reading it, and this wordplay brings comical relief in these distrustful times,� says Filipovic. Through the meme, “they can speak.�

Access to news

While Putin is blocking access to and banning media outlets and social media platforms, Filipovic described how Russians are still finding ways to communicate with each other and share resources.

They’re using apps instead of browsers to access social media, sharing and signing petitions condemning Putin’s war, and circumventing the ban on Facebook (which Filipovic said only 7 percent of Russians use) with the more popular Russian messaging and social media platform, Telegram, and social media platform V Kontakte.

But blocking Facebook could just be a sign of what’s to come, says Filipovic.

“By limiting access to Facebook, what the government wants to signal is what may happen to the actual Russian equivalent, VK, if certain censored things are being promoted.�

Swan song

On March 1, Russia’s last independent TV news station, TV Rain, was blocked by Putin, but not before they delivered one final, poignant message, .

There was a message in that medium: In 1991, during the failed Soviet coup d’état that tried to take down Mikhail Gorbachev, the government played a video of Swan Lake on TV stations for three days to block information from being delivered.

“Playing this in the moment as they’re leaving the TV station is a high level symbolic gesture,â€� says Filipovic. 

Outcome unknown, expansion unlikely

Richter said the possibility of Putin expanding his war into the rest of Europe is unlikely.

“I think there is something in Russian military doctrine that says, ‘Escalate to de-escalate.’ Putin is still going to be pushing. He’s still got other things to do on the ground before he would go that far. I think it’s going to be really brutal, but I don’t think he’s going to expand at this point. I think he knows that that would be too dangerous.â€�

Still, “it’s going to be a long stretch,â€� said Browne.

Questions about how long Russia’s military will be able to continue attacking Ukraine can’t be easily answered. Nor can the question of nuclear warfare.

“The thing that worries me are the nuclear power plants and the reactors — not so much being hit by weapons, but the staff under pressure constantly,â€� says Browne. 

“You don’t just go, ‘Well, we’re having a war, so let’s turn the plant off.’ It has to be done by experts, engineers who know what they’re doing. And I’ll be honest, one of my biggest fears is some kind of a leak that just comes from maintenance issues.â€�

Want more?

The panelists each shared their go-to sources for news about Russia and Ukraine:

• Filipovic recommends reading , a journalist for the New Yorker and author of a book about Putin, The Man Without a Face.
• Stephenson recommends reading and , both historians and writers, and the book The Gates of Europe, by historian and writer Serhii Plokhy.
• Richter recommends reading The Guardian.
• Browne recommends reading and the