Editor’s Note: This article and the above spread appears in the Spring 2026 edition of . See below for a web-friendly version.

David Omasombo ’26 and Chiwer Mayen ’26 have shared many basketball courts across their young lifetimes, including historic Alumni Gym, but the first one stands out in their memories for being the worst, in a technical sense. The surface was uneven, the rims inconsistent, and, most of the time, there were no nets.

“Terrible,” says Mayen. But at Lewiston’s Hillview apartment complex, it was a gathering place for the community, which made it a great place to be introduced to each other and develop a passion for hoops.

“Thirty kids on one court, 30 kids on the other court,” says Mayen, a sociology major.

“Just pack it and play basketball,” adds Omasombo, also a sociology major.

Omasombo would have been around 11 years old and Mayen 12 when their worlds first collided at the Hillview apartments, and both had already been on long journeys just to get to those basketball courts.

Omasombo was born to Congolese parents in a refugee camp in Tanzania. He arrived in the United States in 2010 via Indianapolis, as part of a church asylum program, and then lived in Nashville. Both American cities were tough on the young Omasombo.

“Back home, America is often described as the ‘promised land,’ like in the Bible,” Omasombo says. “But I didn’t know any English and I experienced a lot of bullying. It was hard to make friends as the little African kid in the group who dressed differently and spoke Swahili.” Omasombo spent long hours in Nashville working with his second-grade teacher Tee Hassold, learning English in one-on-one sessions after school.

Mayen was born in Jackson, Mississippi, to parents who had come to America from South Sudan. He lived in a house in Jackson built by Habitat for Humanity until he was in third grade. It was, he remembers, a great home, but not a great area. “The house had bars on the windows, and I mostly stayed inside,” Mayen says. “At the time I didn’t realize why, but it was for my own safety.” That’s when his father, who raised him and his sister mostly alone, moved the family to North Carolina. They stayed with family friends for about a year. Then Mayen’s father heard about opportunities in Lewiston, where there was a growing South Sudanese community. His family drove north to Maine and eventually moved into the Hillview complex.

In Nashville, Omasombo’s father had also heard about the growing community of African refugees in Maine and felt Lewiston would be a better fit for his family. That kind second grade teacher, Tee Hassold, helped Omasombo’s family raise funds to move north. “All 10 of us drove to Maine in 2012 in a 16-passenger van with all of our belongings,” Omasombo says. “Thanks to my teacher and the generosity of the community, we were able to move to Lewiston. I still keep in touch with Mr. Hassold. He is such an amazing human being.”

He was 10 when he arrived in Lewiston. After his first year at Longley Elementary, the Omasombo family moved to the Hillview apartments, and he enrolled at McMahon Elementary. That’s when the two boys met on the basketball court. The memory is fuzzy but Omasombo is pretty sure about one thing.

“I think my first impression of Chiwer was that he was a giant,” says Omasombo.

Mayen’s parents’ South Sudanese heritage is in the Dinka tribe, some of the tallest people in the world, and he is no exception. Today he is the tallest player on the Bobcats, standing at 6 feet 9 inches. Omasombo is the shortest player on the team, a full foot shorter than Mayen. But Omasombo had an edge in terms of basketball experience when they met. Growing up in the refugee camp in Tanzania, Omasombo only knew soccer and laughs about how when he first encountered basketball in America he tried to kick the ball through the hoop. Mayen was even newer to basketball. He hadn’t really liked sports growing up, but basketball started to grow on him.

“I was so bad at first,” Mayen says. “All I could do was pass the ball. In basketball, height is height, but you really need to have other attributes as well, such as strength. But I love the journey of getting better every day.”

The duo didn’t share the court in an organized setting until they attended Lewiston High School and started playing on the junior varsity team.

They both made varsity the next year and, under the leadership of then head coach Ronnie Turner, helped lead Lewiston boys basketball to one of their best seasons in recent memory. “I was tough on them, but Chiwer was great about taking my coaching to heart, and David would text me to open the gym for extra shots at night after games, and then again in the early morning,” says Turner. “He would be working on his game at 5 a.m.”

“Ronnie was the perfect role model that we needed to hear from,” Omasombo says. “He had grown up in Lewiston and knew what we were going through.”

Turner, whose mother, Tonya Bailey, is the director of �ֲ���ý’ Student Center for Belonging and Community, also had a sense, a belief, about where this hardworking pair with so much behind them might go next. Men’s basketball head coach Jon Furbush ’05 hired Turner as an assistant coach in 2021, and Turner made sure to alert him to the duo. “I had never had any players from Lewiston High School so I am grateful to Ronnie for helping me get in front of those guys,” Furbush says. “I remember watching both of them play and thinking to myself, ‘Maybe we have something here.’”

Mayen played one post-grad season at The Woodstock Academy in Connecticut, so he and Omasombo both enrolled at �ֲ���ý in fall 2022. They are the first Lewiston High School alumni to play men’s basketball at �ֲ���ý in five decades, since Bruce Campbell ’76.

Not that �ֲ���ý was a completely new environment for either of them when they arrived, as Omasombo and Mayen often snuck into Alumni Gym as kids to get shots up. They’d play pick-up with �ֲ���ý students. “Alumni Gym is where I threw down my first real dunk,” Mayen says. But when they first met, the notion of �ֲ���ý as a future alma mater was far from their minds.

Now, Omasombo and Mayen are recent �ֲ���ý grads, after making the most (and then some) of their time on campus. After four years steeped in academics, basketball, internships, community service, jobs, and further friendship, Omasombo and Mayen are well-aware of the example they set for future generations. Mayen was raised by an immigrant father, trying to care for his son and daughter on his own. Omasombo spent the first eight years of his life in the refugee camp before moving to America. “I didn’t have the privilege or opportunity to go to school and there were very few resources,” Omasombo says. “All we had was family. But that kept us alive.”

What might not seem possible is possible. It’s been done. Here they are.

And yet, when you look at what both of them do in the Lewiston community on top of their athletic and academic pursuits at �ֲ���ý, it definitely seems impossible for anyone to achieve as much as they do. There just don’t seem to be enough hours in the day.

“They redefine the meaning of hard work,” Furbush says. “Some people think they’re working hard, but if they actually spent some time with either of those guys they would quickly realize, ‘Oh, I am not maximizing my day.’”

For starters, both serve as substitute teachers in the Lewiston Public Schools.

“I’ve really enjoyed my time with the students and seeing my old teachers,” Mayen says. “I try to put myself in the kids’ shoes and try to have an impact on their psyche in a positive way.”

Mayen enjoys working with elementary school kids, while Omasombo has worked more with the middle and high schoolers. It’s not always easy, given the challenges in the aftermath of the pandemic, particularly behavioral issues. “I think it helps that the teachers can point to us as examples of people from the Lewiston Public Schools who are doing well. You don’t have to misbehave or fall into the wrong crowd,” Omasombo says.

Omasombo remembers what it felt like when he was in high school.

Violence in the community was a problem. So when he was a senior at LHS, Omasombo and a friend of his started an after-school club where young men could discuss issues impacting their lives and how to address them.

“Our goal was not to fix everything. We just wanted to give the boys in our community something we didn’t have growing up,” Omasombo says. “We talked about leadership and not following the crowd. Most importantly, we focused on staying away from potentially dangerous situations that could alter people’s lives forever.”

In addition to working in the heart of the city, Omasombo is an organic farmer. His dad, whose first name is Omasombo, grew up farming with his father in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The elder Omasombo was able to secure a parcel of land in Lisbon designated for refugees and started OK Community Farm. “My dad is an inspiration, getting up at 4 a.m. every day to work on the farm and support our family,”Omasombo says. “We sell our vegetables down by Kennedy Park. I really look forward to the days that I can go to the farm and help out, working side-by-side with my dad.” Omasombo is entrepreneurial, giving haircuts and starting a pressure-washing business with his girlfriend. Since eighth grade, when he traveled to Texas with his church group to help with hurricane relief, he’s been deeply vested in community service.

Being there for others makes him feel closer to God. He jumps at every opportunity to pay forward the assistance he’s gotten through the years. “I know what it feels like to need help, and not know how to ask,” Omasombo says. “I know what it feels like to feel lost and alone, especially as a kid. I had people step into my life when they didn’t have to, so I feel the responsibility to be that for someone else.”

Mayen is a direct support professional, providing caregiving services to people with disabilities, working in a group home in Augusta. There is also a national shortage in this field, so it’s a job that provides Mayen with a lot of opportunities. As a junior at �ֲ���ý, he worked overnights, sometimes going directly from basketball games to the group home. He isn’t doing that anymore, but still works long hours.

He doesn’t mind. “Working as a direct support professional can be hard but it is amazing, eye-opening work,” Mayen says. “I love the individuals I work with. One client I work with is a huge fan of Walker, Texas Ranger, so we watch that a lot together.” Mayen also connected with the Harward Center for Community Partnerships at �ֲ���ý, where the mission is “to weave together campus and community for the enrichment of both student learning and public life.”

Through Harward’s community work-study program, which gives students who receive Federal Work-Study funds the chance to work off-campus and engage with the community, Mayen secured an internship with The Third Place, a network that connects Maine’s Black professionals, students, and entrepreneurs to both professional and social opportunities. Mayen collects data on Black professionals in Maine and helps plan various events. It’s a job that allows him to work remotely, critical when one is as busy as Mayen is every day at �ֲ���ý and beyond. “My schedule is very hectic, so it was great to find such a flexible internship through them,” Mayen says.

“David and Chiwer are prime examples of what Lewiston is capable of,” says Mohamed Awil, associate director of volunteer programs and community partnerships at the Harward Center and leader of the community work-study program. Like Omasombo and Mayen, he is a Lewiston High School alumnus, having graduated in 2014. He coached track and cross country at LHS while Mayen and Omasombo were there as students. “I hope they inspire people to stay in the community,” Awil says. “Or come back to help uplift us all. I am excited to see the �ֲ���ý and Lewiston connection continue to grow.”

Mayen is driven by the desire to help his dad and his sister. “My father raised us as a single dad, and I want to give him all the props in the world,” Mayen says. “I work so much because I want to provide for him back in South Sudan, and also my sister, who is figuring things out as a young adult in Mobile, Alabama.”

Their coach, Furbush, is in awe of Mayen and Omasombo’s values.

“Chiwer and David are maybe the most unselfish people I’ve ever met, not just at �ֲ���ý, but in my life. They rarely put themselves first. They’re always thinking, ‘How can we give back?’”

After graduation, Omasombo’s plan is to go into commercial real estate, while Mayen’s goal is to continue playing basketball after college. He’s never been to South Sudan and would like to go in the near future and meet members of his extended family. Likewise, Omasombo hopes to one day be able to go to the Congo for the first time. But for now they are making it in America, despite facing obstacles along the way that most people can’t imagine.

“This country provides a lot of opportunities,” Mayen says. “America is great at times, and it’s terrible at times. But the goal is always upward mobility. Struggle and perseverance is a great teacher. You need to go through difficult times to succeed in this world.”

Since its founding in 1996, Lewiston’s Maine Museum of Innovation, Labor, and Learning (formerly Museum L/A) has engaged in a decades-long educational partnership with �ֲ���ý College. That’s no surprise, given that the museum called the �ֲ���ý Mill Complex home for the last 30 years.

In recognition of that relationship, �ֲ���ý is making a $75,000 gift to Maine MILL’s new, stand-alone building, which opens June 27. Visitors to the new museum at 1 Beech St. — housed in another mill, most recently known as the Camden Yarns Mill — will enter through the �ֲ���ý College Welcome Center.

“We are delighted to partner with Maine MILL as it starts a new chapter in its new home,” said �ֲ���ý President Garry W. Jenkins. “Both institutions share a commitment to education and access that makes this collaboration a perfect fit. And we love the thought that �ֲ���ý will be one part of the rich and complex Lewiston story that guests from around the country and the world will learn about during their visit to Maine MILL.”

The Maine MILL gift is the most recent example of the college’s investment in the region. Since Rachel Ferrante ’10 joined the museum in 2021 as executive director, the �ֲ���ý-Maine MILL partnership has only expanded.

“�ֲ���ý is an enormous asset for Lewiston, as Lewiston is an enormous asset for �ֲ���ý,” Ferrante said. “We’re thrilled that �ֲ���ý is deeply invested in the partnership with Maine MILL and connection to Lewiston.”

This partnership reinforces �ֲ���ý’ longstanding and deep commitment to Lewiston. For decades, the Harward Center for Community Partnerships has brought campus and community together to enrich the learning experience for �ֲ���ý students and the lives of our neighbors in Lewiston and Auburn.

“At �ֲ���ý, we examine what it really means to join — as equal participants — within a community’s self-led work, however the community is defining it,” says Darby Ray, director of the Harward Center. “This goes beyond superficial forms of place-based engagement. It’s not just, ‘We’re located here so let’s get involved.’ We are committed to doing the deep listening to understand what is really happening in the community and how we might join the community’s work. And we’ve tried to model that kind of accompaniment or presence over decades, which has fostered relationships of trust and accountability.”

The museum was founded in 1996 to preserve artifacts and stories from Lewiston-Auburn’s once-prosperous textile mill industry. When Associate Professor of History Joe Hall first took students to Maine MILL — then called Museum L-A — in 2003, there were weaving looms still threaded and covered with “dust fiber hanging like Spanish moss from trees,” Hall said. They sat exactly where they had been when the mill was operating. He quickly realized how valuable it was for students to physically observe the industries they were learning about in his courses. It was a way, he said, to show that history doesn’t just happen “in some imaginary cloud world.” 

Not long after, trips to the museum became a regular part of Hall’s “U.S. Environmental History” course. Numerous other �ֲ���ý faculty have also brought their students to the museum to supplement courses on everything from economics to Japanese textiles to Francophone history. 

“It’s been great as a way of grounding their learning, but also showing what it is that people here want to teach other people,” Hall said.

Students appreciate, Hall said, that the museum is led by a �ֲ���ý graduate. Ferrante oversaw the 2023 rebranding to Maine MILL, a name that aligns more closely with the museum’s subject matter and reflects the institution’s goal to tell more wide-ranging stories from the region. �ֲ���ý faculty have supported that effort; Associate Professor of Sociology Marcelle Medford, for example, led an extensive project collecting oral histories from Black Mainers, now included in the museum’s collection.

“We are focused on making sure that as a community history museum, we are telling the broadest version of our area’s history,” Ferrante says. “That also means what history has looked like here over the last 20 or 30 years since the mills have closed. Of course, Black voices have been incredibly important before that time, but are a huge part of Lewiston’s more recent history. Having that represented in the collection felt like a critical missing piece.”

�ֲ���ý also connects with the museum through student interns, like Tristan Seavey ’26 of Calais, Maine, who has interned at Maine MILL off and on since his first year on campus. During his last Short Term at �ֲ���ý, he completed a full-time internship at the museum funded through the Harward Center for Community Partnerships. A double major in history and German, Seavey is also Hall’s student. 

As an intern, Seavey has led museum tours, done archival and operations work, helped with event planning, and 3D-scanned the gallery. He developed a passion for telling stories about people who have been underrepresented in popular history, inspired by Ferrante and Hall’s work. 

The internship “changed the way that I approach history,” Seavey said. “Before �ֲ���ý and before working at Maine MILL, it was really just listing off dates and doing timelines. But working with Rachel and also working with Joe and doing my own research, I’ve really had this new perspective on how we tell history in a compelling way.”

Seavey’s senior thesis, which Hall advised, retraced the steps of a Black family living in his hometown of Calais in the mid-19th century, ultimately arguing that the impact of the Black community on that area was more important than previously discussed.

Hall watched as Seavey applied what he was learning at �ֲ���ý to work that needed to be done in the community, and then returned to the classroom, enriched by the experience. “It was really helpful to see how one person can use what they learn to offer new lessons to others,” Hall said.

Additional partnerships between �ֲ���ý and Maine MILL include the museum’s annual fundraiser, Soirée en Blanc. �ֲ���ý Dining, Conferences, and Campus Events handles catering for the events, and many �ֲ���ý dining staff members are from Lewiston-Auburn, Ferrante said, turning the fundraisers into full-circle moments.

“This museum is their museum, and what excites me is that they are helping make their own museum possible,” she said.

This year’s Soirée en Blanc will be held in the new museum building on Friday, June 26, the evening before the museum officially opens, meaning that �ֲ���ý will have a hand in welcoming the public to the new space for the first time. 

“One of the things that makes this place so special is the relationships and the community that exists here,” Ferrante said. “It’s a huge part of what drives what we do and why we do it and who we do it for.” 

�ֲ���ý has once again been recognized by the American Council on Education and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching for its deep level of commitment to community engagement, an honor the college first achieved in 2008 and again in 2015. Recently �ֲ���ý was also lauded  by ACE and Carnegie for its success in providing paths for graduates to earn competitive wages. 

Last week, ACE and Carnegie announced that �ֲ���ý had been designated with the 2026 Carnegie Elective Classification for Community Engagement. Community engagement constitutes “collaboration between institutions of higher education and their larger communities (local, regional/state, national, global) for the mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and resources in a context of partnership and reciprocity.”

At �ֲ���ý, inspiration for that work comes from the diverse and rich opportunities for student learning, skill building, and collaboration offered by the college’s location, explained Darby Ray, director of the Harward Center for Community Partnerships. 

“The Carnegie recognition is a wonderful affirmation of the college’s dual commitment to high impact student learning and community well-being, as well as the off-campus community’s investment in our students, “ said Ray, who is also the Donald W. and Ann M. Harward Professor of Civic Engagement.

Mutual respect between college and community, along with desire for collaboration, is a key part of the success, Ray said. “The result of it is that �ֲ���ý students have meaningful opportunities to work alongside community leaders to develop and apply knowledge and skills to address real-world challenges like public health, affordable housing, and arts-based economic development.” 

�ֲ���ý was one of approximately 230 institutions nationwide to receive the 2026 Carnegie Elective Classification for Community Engagement, and the only Maine institution of higher education on the list. This designation, which �ֲ���ý must apply for cyclically, is valid until 2032.

“Your institution’s application documented excellent alignment among campus mission, culture, leadership, resources, and practices that support dynamic and noteworthy community engagement,” ACE and Carnegie wrote in a letter to �ֲ���ý, lauding the college’s “exemplary institutionalized practices of community engagement.” 

�ֲ���ý has advanced the work of deepening partnerships, leveraging community assets, and addressing urgent societal challenges with “clarity and distinction,” the award letter said. The accomplishment “is especially noteworthy amid significant federal policy and funding shifts shaping the future of higher education.” 

In addition, in 2025, �ֲ���ý was identified for its success in a relatively new classification that ACE and Carnegie began using in 2022, the Student Access and Earnings Classification (an earlier version was known as the Social and Economic Mobility Classification), which prioritizes student success. The classification is intended to identify which American colleges and universities are providing access to students from lower socioeconomic and historically underrepresented racial and ethnic backgrounds to higher education and paths to earning competitive wages.

�ֲ���ý ranked high in terms of its return on investment. Eight years after a student first enrolled at �ֲ���ý — so typically, four years into being in the workplace — data shows that their median earnings are 68 percent above the median earnings of a comparison group of similar institutions. 

“Both these designations speak to the deep and rewarding experiences �ֲ���ý has to offer to students,” said President Garry W. Jenkins. “We’re committed to our community and we’re giving our undergraduates meaningful educational experiences not just on our campus, but within the Lewiston-Auburn region we care about so much. They’re volunteering in public schools and museums. They’re consulting and conducting research in a wide range of areas, from sustainability to water quality and asbestos remediation, and studying the history and culture of this community.”

These community connections are not fleeting, Jenkins noted. “We see this reflected in how many �ֲ���ý graduates stay in the state — a little more than 12 percent — or how they develop the habit of building community connections in their future neighborhoods and communities across the country and the world.”

“At �ֲ���ý, we believe that students from all backgrounds should have access to the transformative power of education,” Jenkins added. “That is and always has been part of our mission. To know that their �ֲ���ý education is helping graduates thrive in their careers is reason to celebrate.”

On a recent Thursday, Jose Carmona ’25, a politics major from Chicago, walked a few blocks from campus to see Carmen Thibodeau at her home. He’s been doing this throughout his four years at �ֲ���ý, visiting the woman he considers his Lewiston grandmother. 

Thibodeau gives him everything from life advice to lemonade on these visits. He does his homework on her couch, and then they might catch up on whatever show they’re watching together (Brilliant Minds is a current favorite) while her 14-year-old dog, Sally, circles around them both. It’s cozy, like family. 

And at this point, the Thibodeaus and the Carmonas practically are family, because Jose is not the first of this Chicago-to-�ֲ���ý family to visit the tidy green house near campus. This relationship spans 11 years and three more Carmona siblings: Jose’s brother and two sisters. 

On Sunday, May 25, Jose will be the last of the Carmona siblings to graduate from �ֲ���ý, following in the footsteps of Christopher, age 29, and Alanis, age 28, both members of the Class of 2018, and Carolina, who graduated in 2022. Each of them, during their journey through �ֲ���ý, formed deep bonds with Carmen Thibodeau, her daughter Kristen, and, before his death in 2022, Carmen’s husband, Richard.

The highlights of their times together fill a few pages of the notebook sitting on the kitchen table in front of Carmen. She’s jotted them down in preparation for an interview. They’ve hit all manner of Maine hot spots, from lighthouses to apple orchards to Height of Land, near Rumford, where she and her husband grew up, and the Fryeburg Fair (the draft horses were a big hit). Her daughter, Kristen, took Jose to see Stephen King’s place in Bangor last fall. Mother and daughter bought Jose his first legal drink on his birthday at Mac’s Grill in Auburn.

There have been Easters and Thanksgivings together. There’s a Mexican restaurant in South Portland that Kristen found which made the siblings feel like they were experiencing something akin to their mother Rosa’s legendary cooking. A shelving unit in the garage was devoted to summer storage for the Carmonas. Through these years there have been many airport runs. Farewells, but always greetings again in the fall because there has been at least one Carmona attending �ֲ���ý since 2014 and a spot on the couch for them. Roommate problems? Starbucks cravings? Call Carmen. 

She’s retired, having started her career at the Oxford Paper Mill in Rumford out of high school, taking a break when she had her daughter and son, then working at Liberty Mutual insurance in Lewiston for 30 years. She keeps very busy, helping neighbors with a multitude of errands and appointments. She’s got a 9-year-old grandson. But the last of the Carmonas graduating from �ֲ���ý is a landmark.

 “And when they leave, it’s not going to be good,” Thibodeau says. 

Then she smiles and her eyes light up. “One of the kids one time said, ‘Well maybe we could send one of the dogs.’” (Back home in Chicago’s Logan Square neighborhood, the family has four dogs.) At least one Carmona will still be relatively close by; Alanis is just finishing her third year of a Ph.D. program in cancer metabolism at the Harvard School of Public Health and she pops up to see Thibodeau when she can. 

Just how did this relationship come to be? As far as Thibodeau is concerned, it’s not particularly complicated. “They are so special and so nice, and the parents are so appreciative, how can you not? You know what I’m saying?”

But the story actually goes back to 2011, when Richard was a regular visitor to the �ֲ���ý campus to walk their Siberian husky, Wyatt. Early one spring day, he struck up a conversation with a student named Uriel Gonzalez, a senior from Texas. Gonzalez had been noticing Richard and the beauty of the dog for years (“it’s just not a dog you see anywhere”) and exchanging casual hellos. But that day they talked, and Richard mentioned he was looking forward to seeing the Senior Thesis Exhibition, particularly so he would see artwork by a senior he’d read about who wove indigenous influenced themes into his work. “And I said, ‘Well, I’m the artist,’” Gonzalez remembers.

“My husband runs home with the dog,” Carmen Thibodeau says. “My cousin Linda was visiting from California and we were sitting here in our PJs and having tea. And he comes in, ‘Hurry up, hurry up, we got to go to the museum right now because we’re going to see this artist’s work and he’s coming over for a visit after.’”

Richard, a licensed practical nurse, worked in eldercare in Lewiston and, prior to that, at one of the state’s psychiatric hospitals, in Augusta. He was an avid reader, Carmen says, and “he could talk to anyone about anything.” 

Gonzalez and the Thibodeaus became fast friends. After graduating, Gonzalez took a job in �ֲ���ý Admission and stayed in Lewiston for nearly two years, stopping by the Thibodeaus’ regularly. “They had a garden going and they’d send me home with jalapeños and tomatoes,” he recalls. And sometimes he stayed for dinner. “Commons is obviously great food but sometimes you need a little bit of a changeup.” They became close. “They’re just very genuine, sweet people.” Gonzalez was in the process of becoming a U.S. citizen at that time — Richard had urged him to do so — and the Thibodeaus were there for the citizenship ceremony when it became official.  

In 2013, Gonzalez left Admission and took a job as a college counselor at a charter high school in Chicago. There he made sure he introduced families to the idea that a small liberal arts college, like �ֲ���ý, could be accessible to topnotch students regardless of their financial status. Because the Carmonas had two siblings in the same class year at the school, this message had particular resonance. After Christopher and Alanis were both accepted to �ֲ���ý, they came to tell Gonzalez. “Obviously I’m over the moon,” he said.

Christopher was ready to pack his bags for Lewiston, but it wasn’t an automatic yes for Alanis; “I was very very attached to my mom,” she says. “And very scared of leaving.” Gonzalez understood. His visit to �ֲ���ý at age 17 for the college’s fly-in Prologue program was his first time on an airplane. “We talked a lot about the transition, being away from home,” he said. “And I knew I wanted to connect them to the support network I had there.” 

“It was almost like that instant connection — you could tell they wanted grandkids as much as we wanted grandparents.”

Alanis recalls getting an email from Carmen and Richard during her and Christopher’s first couple of weeks on campus. Would they like to come over? Richard could pick them up. “And I was like, OK, we’re putting a lot of trust out there.” But as soon as they met Richard at Commons, any fears disappeared.

“He was just instantly such a funny character,” Alanis said. “He gave me grandpa vibes.” When they walked into the Thibodeau house and met Carmen and the new husky, Nikita, the good vibes continued.

“They didn’t have grandkids at the time, and our grandparents had already passed,” Alanis said. “So I think it was almost like that instant connection — you could tell they wanted grandkids as much as we wanted grandparents.”

Being from the Midwest, the brother-sister duo, born 10 months apart and dubbed the “Chicago twins” by the Thibodeaus, didn’t know much about Maine. “Other than it’s a vacation land and �ֲ���ý is there, and there’s water, and Portland,” Alanis said, laughing. “So like dutiful grandparents, they really just showed us all around Maine. And soon enough we fell in love with Maine.”

It was on a trip to L.L.Bean, where Carmen first heard Christopher speaking Spanish. His dad, Jose, had called while they were inside the store. “I just wanted to follow Christopher around,” she said. “I loved listening to him speak Spanish. It was just beautiful.” 

Christopher majored in economics and Alanis in biochemistry. Both minored in Chinese. “The semesters came and went. But the Thibodeaus were always there,” Alanis remembers. “They kind of just became our family.”

By the time of their Commencement, their younger sister, Carolina, after a flirtation with another NESCAC school, was committed to coming to �ֲ���ý that fall. But unlike her older siblings, she’d be coming solo. At a party to celebrate graduation, Carmen remembers Rosa Carmona trying to express her gratitude for all that the Thibodeaus had done for Christopher and Alanis, and would do for Carolina. “We were kind of all crying,” Carmen said. “And she was just saying, ‘You don’t know how happy and good I feel to know that you and Richard are here for the kids.’” 

During that weekend in 2018, Jose, just 15 at the time, put on his big brother’s graduation gown in a hallway in Chu. He remembers thinking, “I’ll recreate this moment someday, in my own robe.”

In fall 2020, he applied to �ֲ���ý early decision. He and Carolina, who like Christopher majored in economics, overlapped on campus for one year, when she was a senior. “I would go to her dorm all the time.” She, along with her friend group, helped with his transition to life away from home. So did one of his first professors, Scott Balcomb ’75, then a lecturer in mathematics.

“I would always go to his office hours, even when I didn’t have class with him anymore,” Jose said. 

“You can feel the goodness in him,” Balcomb says. “He was just so incredibly open. If I asked him a question or if he asked me a question, he really wanted to know whatever I thought. It was not like he was just being nice to the old man.” 

Jose went on to take two more courses with Balcomb, both in calculus, not the easiest subject. This made Balcomb reflect on something essential he had learned himself as a �ֲ���ý student arriving in 1971. “�ֲ���ý provided the challenge that if I would work really hard, I could learn far more than I ever thought I could. But to do that, you had to take the challenge. It wasn’t a one-way street. They presented the challenge, and you had to accept it. That’s been my experience with Jose. I presented the challenge to him, and he accepted it and met it. That is just lovely to see. To me, that’s what �ֲ���ý should be about.” 

The other day, when Carmen found out how Jose did on his thesis (A+) she texted a few emojis. Exclamation points. Astonished face. Prayer hands and then a big thumbs up. In a few days, he’ll be bound for Chicago and a job as an analyst at J.P. Morgan. If you ask Carmen if she might take on another �ֲ���ý student as an informal host grandmother, she’ll shake her head. The Carmonas were special.

If you ask Jose, he has another take:

“I think after we go, she’ll probably find another student that needs help, just because she’s so helpful. And I would want that for someone else. I would want someone to have someone they can rely on and go to for advice. Maybe not completely depend on her, just because she is also a very busy lady. But if she does find a student that needs it, I would love that.” 

For two days each semester, Assistant Professor of Economics Kyle Coombs’ “Data Science for Economists” students are laser-focused on one goal.

They hole away in a reserved space on campus for a 48-hour “hackathon” to test their problem-solving skills and apply code, economics, and data science to real-world issues in the local Lewiston community.

Coombs’ goals for the class are to teach students the skills needed for real-world project management and to tackle problems which harm society as a whole. Knowing how to work with data can be a great tool for justifying, evaluating, and addressing socioeconomic concerns. 

“The motivation is around using data to get at social issues, inequality issues, and how it manifests around race, gender, income inequality, economic opportunity, and whether that’s equitable,” Coombs says.

During the fall 2024 hackathon, Coombs’ students tackled a project to examine the efficacy of the city of Lewiston’s efforts to address lead-paint hazards. Like many other cities around the country with aging housing stock, Lewiston has faced problems of lead paint exposure and poisoning in the home.

The Lewiston–Auburn area’s rate of childhood lead poisoning incidents is the highest in the state, according to Healthy Androscoggin, a public health initiative focused on wellness and disease prevention in Androscoggin County.

“We’re the second largest city in Maine, and we have per capita the highest number of young people in the state,” says Jacqueline Crucet, a former city of Lewiston neighborhood development planner who has worked with Coombs and his students. “It’s very important that we have healthy homes for these young people to grow in.”

Through a partnership set up by the Harward Center for Community Partnerships, Coombs connected with Crucet, who provided the hackathon students with information about the city’s lead program.

The data included comparisons of lead paint prevalence with home age and socioeconomic indices, statistics about the kinds of homes that the city has targeted for lead mitigation programs, how the programs are implemented, whether through grant-subsidized or fee-based models.

Coombs’ students analyzed the data and found that the city’s efforts to reduce lead exposure are mostly meeting their goal of targeting homes with the greatest risk of lead exposure, suggesting that during upcoming efforts, the city focus its attention on homes built between 1920 and 1940.

Coombs’ other hackathons thus far have focused on the correlation between streetlights and decreased crime rates and designing rental assistance pilot programs to support local renters.

In recent years, the verb “hack” has shifted away from its nefarious meaning — anonymous computer geniuses working to steal data — to mean solving a problem or creating a shortcut. To wit, a hackathon is a fast-paced, collaborative gathering, with suitable high-tech overtones, to solve a problem in a short period of time.

The hackathons showcase the students’ emerging “creativity and technical skill,” Coombs says, “which is a lot of what you use in workplace scenarios.” 

Each semester, Coombs collaborates with the Harward Center to reserve a campus space for the hackathon; there, students hunker down to work, though the “hackers” come and go for classes, sports, and sleep. While they hack, Coombs fields takeout requests and delivers favorites like Mother India and Pure Thai.

Nick Brown ’25 of Hopkinton, Mass., arrived at his hackathon last fall straight from track practice and settled in to work with a burrito in hand. He says he spent six to ten hours each day working on his team’s project.

“That was with fully comped, really good meals, and working with a great team of people,” Brown says. “It never felt at any point that I was not going to finish or felt rushed. It overall was a very positive experience.”

Like a team of coworkers, the students were responsible for independently dividing up group work and coordinating their schedules.

“I did a lot of the data cleaning and then the regressions, other people did a lot of visualizations or worked on the presentation itself,” Brown says. “It felt very natural, and we also felt like we were communicating very well.”

“Data Science for Economists” is cross-listed as both an economics and a digital and computational studies course. The hackathon is the culmination of a semester spent, for many of Coombs’ students, learning to code for the first time, an often-frustrating process of trial and error. 

“You will make constant mistakes,” Coombs says. “It’s about learning how to get through the mistakes, push through, address the problems, help yourself find creative solutions to a technical problem.”

The students organize their work in GitHub, a software storage program, and code in the language “R,” which is free and open source, meaning any student can access the code from their personal computer. An economics and history major with a minor in math, Brown used the R skills he learned during the course to complete his senior economics thesis. 

“In terms of raw skill building, this was probably the number one class I’ve taken at �ֲ���ý,” Brown says. 

After each two-day hackathon, the students present their work to city partners and make recommendations based on what they discovered. The city partners can then use the analyses in their own evaluations and projects. 

“It was really cool to be able to present to community members and see them actually derive insights from what we found and think about how those could be used to actually benefit people,” Brown says. “That was really insightful for me, how you can leverage your skills to create meaningful impacts.”

Each hackathon subject ties directly into greater city plans. In 2020, Lewiston received a $1.3 million federal grant to develop a resident-led transformation plan, “Growing Our Tree Streets,” for its downtown neighborhood, which has nine goals that will be accomplished across 25 years. (“Tree streets” is the nickname of the neighborhood where many streets have names like Oak and Maple.)

Based on the strength of the transformation plan, the city was awarded a $30 million Choice Implementation Grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Lewiston is the first small city in the country to receive the competitive grant, which is intended to help cities revitalize and transform neighborhoods. “We are like this beautiful experiment,” Crucet says. “We’re the right size for this kind of major investment where we’re taking some risks and trying to be as innovative as possible to meet the goals that we’ve set out in the transformation plan.”

Crucet was attracted to Lewiston because of that very “go getter” mindset that led residents, including �ֲ���ý alumni, to lead the charge for the transformation plan. 

“We have this amazing cadre of �ֲ���ý alumni,” Crucet says. “They’re doers and they’re taking all of their knowledge and all of their life experience and investing in Lewiston, and they see a future.” 

By tackling subjects included in the city transformation plan and making suggestions to the city, Coombs’ students are able to join in on these real-world efforts. 

“The exercise of the hackathon enables them to have the opportunity to inform actual policy and the business of the municipality in which they live,” Crucet says.

Commuter traffic rumbled past the homey building on Main Street, but out back, the vibe was considerably more melodious. Instead of revving engines, live classical music was the soundtrack for an early October day at the Looking Ahead Clubhouse in Lewiston.

Two �ֲ���ý students and a newly appointed professor of music helped to bring the soothing beauty of music, through piano and voice, to an audience at the vocational center for adults living with mental illness.

The �ֲ���ý musicians performed as part of the , who is visiting various towns and cities to perform for audiences who may not typically have access to live music.

Sawada performs in intimate, inclusive spaces such as community centers, shelters, and public schools, rather than traditional concert halls. At the clubhouse on Oct. 4, she and the �ֲ���ý students and their professor performed outside on the patio behind the building, located just a mile from campus. Clubhouse members gathered close by.

Jahan Baker-Wainwright ’25, a biochemistry major from Cottage Grove, Wis., played Beethoven’s Pathetique Sonata. Marrich Somridhivej ’26, a biology major from South Windsor, Conn., and Sawada performed Amy Beach’s “Summer Dreams” for four hands.

Chris Gepford, the director of the Looking Ahead Clubhouse, said that the event hit some important notes. “We had recently started a relationship with �ֲ���ý,” through the Harward Center for Community Partnerships, he said, “and this was a wonderful way to start our partnership.” 

Hosting the Gather Hear visit and events like it can help raise awareness of the clubhouse’s programming in the Lewiston-Auburn community, he added, “so that individuals with mental health needs have a program where they are colleagues, and their unique talents and abilities are utilized [so they can] grow into the best version of themselves.”

For the students, the Gather Hear performance was a meaningful opportunity to connect through music. “Classical music often lies behind a barrier that many people struggle to overcome,” said Baker-Wainwright. “My job as a classical musician is to share music, and I’m happy to have contributed to a more inclusive experience.”

Somridhivej, who has been playing the piano since age 6, noted how he has “typically performed in front of judges or a competition jury, where the focus is on technical precision and evaluation. My performance became less about perfection, and more about connecting with people and sharing the beauty of music.”

Gepford said, “We loved having the opportunity to be a part of individuals’ academic journey.”

 Zen Kuriyama, who joined the �ֲ���ý faculty this fall and directs the College Choir, sang two pieces by Franz Schubert: his emotionally charged “Der Doppelgänger” and the uplifting “An die Musik.” Choosing contrasting selections was intentional, said Kuriyama. “We wanted songs that represented a binary of mental states — one ecstatic and joyful, the other frenetic and dark.”

While Gepford said classical music is not the go-to listening choice of clubhouse members, “we had a lot of positive feedback from our group. Everyone agreed that the music was wonderful, enjoyable, and calming.”

As one of the clubhouse members told Kuriyama afterward, “The negative voices in my head stopped for the first time in months while listening to your music.”

That response speaks directly to the sentiments expressed in of one of the pieces Kuriyama sang, Schubert’s “An die Musik.” The title means, simply, “To Music,” and the opening lyrics are: “In how many a bleak hour, when I am enmeshed in life’s tumultuous round, have you kindled my heart to the warmth of love, and borne me away to a better world.”

At noon today, one year after the mass shootings in Lewiston, the �ֲ���ý community gathered in Gomes Chapel for a Remembrance Service to pause, grieve, and reflect on the tragedy, while also acknowledging the acts of compassion, courage, and resilience.

“We meet in shared grief, and care, and in love, and also in shared reflection and hope for our neighbors, our city, our community,” said �ֲ���ý President Garry W. Jenkins in his welcome remarks.

Jenkins spoke about �ֲ���ý’ role as a caring neighbor. “Above all else, we are citizens of Lewiston, affected by the tragedy and also showing up wherever and however.”

Led by the Rev. Brittany Longsdorf, the college’s multifaith chaplain, the Remembrance Service created a shared space for the campus community to feel the emotion of grief through silence, poetry, musical offerings, student reflections, and interfaith poems and prayers.

“It is not always the easiest thing to pause during one of the busiest moments of the semester and remember and hold space for our grief, and I am grateful you are taking the time to slow down and share in this meaningful moment together,” she said.

“I invite you to simmer in this beautiful chapel, allow yourself some spaciousness and authenticity and let whatever feelings rise up — joy and sorrow, gratitude and anger, hope and grief — and have their moment, each in turn, as you move through this time.”

In her remarks, Longsdorf shared how grief is “simply another form of love,” and reflected on how �ֲ���ý and Lewiston have grown stronger together. “Our grief-love has bound us to each other in profound and new ways.”

In his remarks, Lewiston mayor Carl Sheline offered appreciation to �ֲ���ý for supporting the city and citizens of Lewiston in the aftermath of the shootings, including the many students who created a welcoming community Halloween trick or treat event six days after the tragedy.

“I love Lewiston and I love you all,” he said. “My wish for Lewiston is simple, that we embrace community and each other.”

Jillian Scott-Lewis ’27 of Portland, Ore., was one of three students who offered reflections. In October 2023, she had been a �ֲ���ý student for barely two months, she said.

“I was starting to love Maine, but I didn’t feel at home yet. At the vigils and remembrance events that I attended, I remember hearing everyone say that the Lewiston community was so strong. I can now say that Lewiston is my home, my second home, and that in the past year, it has been proven to me over and over again how strong the Lewiston community is.”

Anzal Isaak ’26 of Lewiston said that “on the hardest days, hope doesn’t always look like happiness or excitement. Sometimes hope is just a quiet resilience — the ability to keep going, to find something to hold on to, even in our saddest moments.

“Today, we honor the memories of those we’ve lost and we allow ourselves to grieve. We also acknowledge our own strength, our own ability to cope, to keep going, and to spread hope in the world. Because in the end, that’s how we honor life. By continuing to live and find peace within ourselves.”

The Remembrance Service included the reading of the names of the 18 people killed in the shootings, and the communal singing of “Dona Nobis Pacem” (“Grant Us Peace”) led by the College Choir, directed by Assistant Professor of Music Zen Kuriyama.

Samantha McCune, a Multifaith Chaplaincy program coordinator, delivered the closing blessing.

During the summer after her first year at �ֲ���ý, Paige Magid ’24 of Washington, D.C., was on vacation in New Orleans with her dad when they passed a restaurant just as an employee ran outside yelling for help. 

The hostess was having a seizure and the staff didn’t know what to do. Creighton Magid simply pointed at his daughter and said: “She’s an EMT.”

“They had me come into the restaurant, and I saw this lady on the floor with her eyes open and her lips turning blue,” Paige Magid recalls. “I went over and took her pulse. Her jaw was clenched and people tried to open it and I told them, ‘No, no, no. You’re going to injure her. You need to go about this in a different way.’”

Magid’s quick action helped to keep the woman in stable condition until paramedics arrived. She relied on training she’d just received at �ֲ���ý during her first Short Term, after which she became nationally certified as an emergency medical technician.

Last spring, after graduating with a double major in biology and theater, and with three years of practical experience with �ֲ���ý Emergency Medical Services, Magid headed to Yale to pursue a master’s degree in public health in chronic disease epidemiology.

Such is the impact of �ֲ���ý EMS, the college’s all-volunteer, student-run, state-certified emergency medical service, which was founded by four �ֲ���ý students in 1995. Since then, the service has become an integral part of supporting the well-being of �ֲ���ý people while simultaneously training and inspiring students, hundreds of them over the decades, to provide life-saving medical care.

At its core, say BEMS alumni, the service is about fostering a life philosophy grounded in caring for one’s community. In addition to medical know-how, BEMS teaches such powerful life skills as listening carefully to others, responding with empathy, slowing down to take note of your surroundings, and, fundamentally, how to harness the kind of rock-solid courage needed in emergencies, and not just medical ones.

“One of the best things it taught me was how to listen to people, through looking and listening to your patient. We do not do that very well as humans,” says Madeline Bruno ’17, who is now a geologist but kept and used her EMT certification when she served on a volunteer ambulance crew just after college.

Today, there are more than 250 college and university EMS services across the country, and most are student-run, according to the National Collegiate EMS Foundation. But not all are state-licensed like BEMS, which means it adheres to the regulatory procedures and policies of state-certified ambulance crews, a distinction that makes it unique in Maine.

At any given time, BEMS numbers around 30 members, many of whom also work part time on local ambulance crews such as United Ambulance in Lewiston, near the �ֲ���ý campus on Russell Street, and others in surrounding towns like Lisbon, Turner, Monmouth, and Durham — adding another layer of learning as they form connections in local communities.

“The way you get to know your community is really, really unique,” says David Kingdon ’98 of Wailuku, Hawaii, one of the four founders of BEMS 29 years ago. Now a paramedic on the island of Maui, he served as a first responder coordinating medical care during the wildfires of August 2023.

“It builds confidence in handling stress and crisis. It’s also about just having one’s worldview opened up a bit, even for those who don’t go into a related field. It’s a great way to know your town at a deeper level.”

It’s also a way to know your college on a deeper level, says Magid. “BEMS has shaped a lot of the way that I see �ֲ���ý. It was a lot of fun, but it also was sort of a leadership role. I’ve had to be in some really serious situations. I’ve shown up at a call early in the morning where someone was unresponsive. It turned out to be fine. But that was definitely scary.”

Magid didn’t come to �ֲ���ý planning to study medicine, and she took �ֲ���ý’ Short Term EMT course on a whim. But after responding to about 30 EMS calls on the �ֲ���ý campus, she’s been imbued with a can-do sense of civic duty that has helped her discover a purposeful career path.

Nearly 30 years after it was founded, BEMS continues to evolve and offer students more. Most recently, there has been a significant shift in making BEMS more accessible to students, regardless of their ability to pay for training.

Three years ago, a donor came forward to fund the Short Term EMT class to make it free for all 16 students taking the intensive, 40-hour, three-week course, which previously cost $1,500 to $3,000 per participant. �ֲ���ý hopes to continue to underwrite the cost of the course.

In addition, students now receive academic credit for taking the EMT course, like all other Short Term courses, removing another barrier to access.

�ֲ���ý donors have noted how BEMS impacts the community in other ways. After three members of �ֲ���ý EMS, in their part-time work with United Ambulance, were among the first medical responders to the mass shootings in Lewiston on Oct. 25, 2023, a �ֲ���ý alumni family established a $100,000 endowment to support BEMS operations, including the cost of training.

And in April, donors again came to the rescue, as a �ֲ���ý family offset the $62,000 cost of a new �ֲ���ý vehicle. The 2022 Ford SUV, similar to a Ford Explorer, replaces an aging 2007 Toyota Highlander, affectionately known as “Heidi the Highlander,” used by generations of �ֲ���ý students.

“This family has an appreciation for what these students do for our community, and in their communities as �ֲ���ý alumni,” says Geoff Swift, vice president for finance and administration and treasurer, who oversaw the purchase. “And we were thrilled that they were interested in supporting this vehicle for the students.”

While the BEMS vehicle doesn’t transport patients to the hospital, it does need to arrive quickly on the scene, carrying all the gear typically needed to aid victims of medical emergencies, from backboards and medications to equipment that provides breathing assistance.

“This car has increased space to carry gear, and we plan to design the trunk in a way that will make it easier to access our gear on a call,” says Ned Friedman ’24 of Park City, Utah, who served as BEMS co-chief this past academic year. “That will reduce wait times.”

BEMS was started in the 1995–96 academic year by four students who all earned their EMT certification in high school and wished to continue as EMTs in college. Its beginnings were modest. “We didn’t even have a basic vehicle the whole three years that I was there. Most of us were on foot or on bicycle,” says Kingdon.

Since then, all four founders have remained devoted to a life in medical and community service.

Kingdon, who spearheaded the founding effort, is currently a special operations and flight paramedic with Maui County EMS and is also a professor of emergency medical services with the University of Hawaii. He has hosted several Purposeful Work interns in the past, including Friedman this spring.

Another BEMS co-founder, Michael Schlechter ’99, went into business after �ֲ���ý and now volunteers his time as chief of his Connecticut hometown’s EMS, which earned state “Volunteer Agency of the Year” honors in 2023.

Peter Tilney ’99 earned a medical degree from the University of New England and is now an emergency-room physician in Lewiston as well as the medical director of LifeFlight of Maine, the state’s air-ambulance service.

And Pete Linkroum ’99 of Baltimore is an acute nurse practitioner in the Department of Palliative Medicine at MedStar Franklin Square Hospital in Baltimore.

BEMS could have remained a private service, similar to what many other colleges and universities offer. But the four founders wanted it recognized by the state of Maine, even though as a non-transporting service it would primarily serve the �ֲ���ý campus community.

“Here we are over 25 years later, and it’s still an active service and a vibrant organization,” Kingdon says. “These may be young people, but they’re very mature and very responsible, and totally capable of serving and, frankly, running a small EMS service. I think it’s important that everyone acknowledge that.”

Since its inception, BEMS has been run by student co-chiefs with programmatic support from Student Affairs. This spring, co-chiefs Friedman and Noah Bachner ’25 of Weston, Conn., met weekly professional staff in the college’s Office of Residence Life and Health Education to develop leadership and training opportunities. 

In addition, the co-chiefs also now check in with Dennis Russell, United’s education manager and paramedic program director, who came on as a �ֲ���ý advisor in 2016 to help monitor the service’s compliance with constantly changing state protocols.

Each year, about 30 BEMS volunteers commit to a minimum of five 24-hour shifts a month, including one weekend shift. During those days on duty, they remain on campus and carry radios and medical gear with them while going about their normal routines of attending class, dining in Commons, and sleeping in their residence hall.

Dispatched through Campus Safety, most of the calls students respond to are minor health issues. But they have responded to car accidents on the roads around campus, helped administer bandages to stop bleeding, and cared for head injuries. In one instance, they provided CPR when a student had a seizure and stopped breathing.

Their response time to the roughly 120 calls they answer during the school year averages just three minutes. “That’s excellent,” says Paul Menice, director of �ֲ���ý Campus Safety, and is the reason he can direct the campus community to call Campus Safety for a medical emergency. “You will get a quicker response calling Campus Safety than calling 911. Especially with BEMS, they have a quick response time.” 

“For us, it’s been great having them as a partner. They’re showing up, and they’re doing it.” — Director of �ֲ���ý Campus Safety Paul Menice

BEMS also works at campus events, from Puddle Jump to Commencement. On May 4, they assisted Campus Safety to provide support at President Garry W. Jenkins’ inauguration.

“They add another layer of (campus) safety and another first responder in an emergency situation,” says Menice, a 35-year member of the �ֲ���ý staff who has observed BEMS since its infancy. “For us, it’s been great having them as a partner. They’re showing up, and they’re doing it.”

Once a month, the students train with Campus Safety in mock scenarios to stay sharp for an actual emergency. The co-chiefs meet regularly with �ֲ���ý staff and David Russell at United Ambulance to plan training sessions, simulations, and events, like one held last February when BEMS partnered with Campus Safety to showcase the work done by Maine first responders. The event featured a LifeFlight of Maine helicopter landing on Bardwell Field.

“One of my greatest takeaways is the skill to be able to talk to people, any person, in their time of need.” — Jillian Sheltra ’19

About 70 percent of the BEMS students go on to work in a medical field, according to Student Affairs. The exposure to emergency medicine is top shelf. But many BEMS alums say the life skills they learned are applicable in ways beyond the walls of a hospital.

“In my career up to this point, one of my greatest takeaways is the skill to be able to talk to people, any person, in their time of need,” says Jillian Sheltra ’19 of Portland, Maine, a BEMS alumna who is a paramedic for LifeFlight, a nonprofit and Maine’s only air ambulance service. “Without that, I don’t think I would have ever developed personally. For that, I definitely credit BEMS.”

After she joined BEMS, Sheltra went on to work part time for United Ambulance, assisting veteran EMTs of 20 and 30 years. The medical care she witnessed those seasoned EMTs provide left an impression not just for its medical dimension, but in how it offered an intimate view of humanity seldom seen by modern medical practitioners.

“You go into people’s homes. That is an incredibly unique perspective. I absolutely loved that piece of it,” Sheltra says.

This fall, after caring for more than 350 LifeFlight patients and traveling more than 20,000 miles aboard LifeFlight helicopters, Sheltra has begun medical studies at Tufts School of Medicine.

Sophie Love-Webb ’24 of Lewiston, a former co-chief who worked part time for United, says working on the local ambulance was invaluable for getting her outside the “�ֲ���ý bubble.”

“It made me feel a lot more balanced as a student at �ֲ���ý. I felt like I had a community in Lewiston. I had friends in Lewiston. I felt like I understood the Lewiston community a lot better. I left campus often,” says Love-Webb, now a full-time EMT at United.

BEMS was a big reason Aleisha Martinez Sandoval ’26 chose to come to �ֲ���ý. Sandoval moved away from her family in Mexico City at age 15 so that she could attend a Texas vocational school where she could serve on an ambulance and get her EMT certification. As a high school senior she already had the goal of pursuing a career in medicine as a physician.

“I really like that it’s something that we have here. People feel that they can call us. Most of the people in the service genuinely care about what they do. It gives you a good connection with people who are passionate about something you like,” Sandoval says. “I’ve known that this is my thing for a long time.”

“The value that I see in BEMS is the educational component. You can apply that level of commitment and growth and learning to anything else you do in life.” — Ned Friedman ’24

Many BEMS students who went on to careers in medicine didn’t know when they came to �ֲ���ý what their path would be. But the service effectively serves as a broad funnel helping to guide students toward different pursuits in medicine, health, and wellness.

“We all come from different majors: environment, politics, biology, pre-med,” says Ethan Baker ’24 of Jackson, N.H.

For Friedman, who majored in politics, EMT service has been a powerful source of finding purposeful work, including working as a part-time advanced EMT with United and at Durham Fire & Rescue. This spring, Friedman also job-shadowed Kingdon, the paramedic in Maui. He is now firefighter recruit with West Metro Fire Rescue in Lakewood, Colo.

BEMS has provided Friedman a path to gain practical skills, “the intricate world of emergency medicine, which teaches you, quite literally, how to save someone’s life.” He also values its transferable skills like leadership and how to commit to something you care about.

“The value that I see in BEMS is the educational component, putting in time and effort to learn and grow your skill set,” he says. “You can apply that level of commitment and growth and learning to anything else you do in life, even if you put your license aside after �ֲ���ý.”

His co-chief Bachner agrees. “Even for someone who just drops into BEMS for a short time, it teaches great life lessons. It teaches you how to interact with people, how to stay calm, what you have in common with other people — just generally making yourself a useful human being.”

There are also BEMS veterans who pursue fields of work or study unrelated to public health and safety. The service helped them find their way, too.

After she graduated from �ֲ���ý with a geology major in 2017, Madeline Bruno volunteered on a local ambulance crew during a two-year fellowship for the Island Institute, which helps support the public health and wellness and the sustainability of island communities along the Maine coast. Bruno says the experience of giving back to a community on Islesboro in that way was invaluable.

“I really got to know the community and, I think, some really vulnerable parts of the community,” she says.

Bruno lives in Augusta now and works for the engineering firm WSP in environmental remediation in remote parts of Maine, where commanding the skills of an EMT brings added value to her team.

“It’s really nice to have 38 subcontractors on a job site in a remote area and if something happens I can say: ‘Call 911, obviously, but call me, too. I can help,’” Bruno says.

Mike Schlechter, a BEMS co-founder and an EMT since age 16, initially planned to become a rabbi to serve his community in a meaningful way. He ended up going into management consulting with a focus on employee experience design and digital transformation — but never stopped being an EMT.

Today Schlechter is the volunteer chief of service of Weston (Conn.) Volunteer EMS, where he oversees a crew of 77 volunteer EMTs, one of whom is Noah Bachner, the current BEMS co-chief. “Being a rabbi ended up not being the path for me, for myriad reasons. Being a volunteer EMT was — and is,” Schlechter says. “For me, it’s always been about community service. That’s still true. Since I was a teenager, it’s been a big part of me and my identity.”

Fellow BEMS founder Pete Tilney wasn’t sure when he arrived at �ֲ���ý if he wanted to go into medicine, or even if he was cut out for it. Helping to get BEMS off the ground and doing EMT work as a student proved to him he had what it took.

Some 25 years later, Tilney then proved how well-suited he was for the life of an emergency room physician. On the evening of Oct. 25, 2023, when a gunman brought unthinkable horror to Lewiston, Tilney got the news on his commute home to Kennebunkport, Maine.

He turned around and returned to Central Maine Medical Center, where he quarterbacked the LifeFlight response and the EMS crews that called from as far away as Boston to offer assistance in the triage effort.

Professionals like Tilney know that there’s no such thing as “it can’t happen here.”

“Oct. 25 was awful, but it’s what we train for,” Tilney says. “The amazing thing is that people’s training and awareness really came together, and so we were able to take care of the community at large. We are sort of a big-small community. We are a really tight-knit community. So we were able to work cohesively, which was lovely.”

He added that the fact he works in Lewiston is directly related to the experience he had working for BEMS. 

“BEMS gave me that foundation and appreciation for emergency medicine. I wouldn’t be doing this 25 years later if I hadn’t discovered at �ֲ���ý that I really enjoy doing it,” he says. “And I wouldn’t still be working in Lewiston if I didn’t care about the community.”

This past summer, �ֲ���ý offered 128 Purposeful Work internships in 18 states, the District of Columbia, and seven countries outside the U.S. 

Another five dozen students did funded research on campus with �ֲ���ý professors across 14 academic disciplines, or had off-campus academic internships. Other students held internships with community organizations through �ֲ���ý’ Harward Center for Community Partnerships.

Last week, we shared stories and photographs of students who had summer internships outside Maine. This week, it’s back to Maine, and to �ֲ���ý, for Part 2.

‘I’m glad to be making the most of these opportunities’ — Pat Cullinane ’25

The place: A research lab in Bonney Science Center at �ֲ���ý

The job: Cullinane, a biochemistry major from Quincy, Mass., worked with four fellow students in the research lab of Associate Professor of Biology and Neuroscience Martin Kruse.

The research team is studying an important but not fully understood protein found in our cells that might play a critical role in several neurological conditions, such as epilepsy and Alzheimer’s disease.

Cullinane has his sights set on graduate school, so the professional experience of working in the Kruse lab has “been a great tool for gaining exposure with techniques and what a layout would look like in a post-grad lab as opposed to undergrad labs.”

One of Cullinane’s research partner was Sebenele Lukhele ’26, a biological chemistry major from Manzini, Eswatini, “This research lets me solve real-life problems in biochemistry. Plus, the community here has made the experience much more than just lab work — it’s a whole growth process.”

Cullinane has enjoyed going from neophyte to now standing on his own two feet as a researcher. “A lot of labs are set up for you, but in this lab, you have a lot of control. You can share your ideas and guide your experience,” he says. 

The quote: “Learning how to design your own experiments is pretty awesome.”

‘My goal was to ensure they were having the best experience possible’ — Chidera Kalu-Uka ’27

The place: Tree Street Youth in Lewiston

The job: A sociology major from Katy, Texas, Kalu-Uka was a Harward Center Summer Fellow at Tree Street Youth, where she supervised a group of third- and fourth-graders, becoming a mentor, friend, and active participant in their growth and joy.

Before Kalu-Uka fell in love with �ֲ���ý, she fell in love with Lewiston, and a summer spent at downtown Tree Street Youth “has only strengthened that love.”

Under the leadership of executive director Julia Sleeper ‘08, who co-founded the organization with Kim Sullivan ‘13, Tree Street is a cornerstone youth support and aspirations program located in downtown Lewiston. “As someone who moved to this country only six years ago, I feel resonance with the impact Tree is making,” said Kalu-Uka.

The �ֲ���ý Center for Purposeful Work encourages a developmental approach to the search for a rewarding career, with ample opportunities for both discovery and reflection. Kalu-Uka’s summer at Tree Street prompted her to reflect on her academic and career goals, which had been focused solely on pre-health and public health.

She now plans to major in sociology, minor in education, and stay on a pre-health and public-health track and pursue a career “dedicated to working with underserved communities, whether that be in public health, healthcare, or education.”

The quote: “I’ve discovered that my interests can intersect without sacrificing any of them.”

‘I’ve been infected with the pure joy and curiosity of the kids’ — Shenandoah Waugh ’26

The place: Harpswell (Maine) Heritage Land Trust

The job: As a Purposeful Work intern who had never worked with children before, Shenandoah (Shenny) Waugh took on the daunting task of teaching, guiding, and herding 16 young children, ages 4 to 6, for five days a week, at the land trust’s popular Nature Day Camp, located along the Maine coast.

“It was challenging and intimidating,” says Waugh, who discovered that working with children sparked a feeling of purpose. “ Working with young kids is so engaging, fun, and refreshing.”

The camp provides screen-free opportunity to engage with nature. As technology continues to create a barrier between ourselves and the natural world, “it is so important to offer these young kids an experience where fun is tech-free, and we embrace free exploration, curiosity, and even boredom,” Waugh says.

A double major in chemistry and European studies from Lyons, Colo., Waugh is a �ֲ���ý Outing Club outdoor program manager and a Registered Maine Guide. “Engaging with the BOC on campus has shown me what outdoor education looks like and potential career paths.”

The quote: “Working with young kids outdoors feels even more purposeful.”

‘I always look forward to the camaraderie’ — Bora Lugunda ’25

The place: Ladd Library, �ֲ���ý College

The job: For Lugunda, a history major from Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, this was her third summer working on campus as a field assistant for Information and Library Services.

Paul Adutwum ’27 of Tepa, Ghana, split his time between the ILS Help Desk in Ladd and the Harward Center, where he supported projects related to community-engaged learning and research. He also wrote blog posts featuring student experiences in community engagement.

“I have a pretty awesome set of bosses and really feel like an appreciated part of the team,” says Lugunda, who takes care of computer setups and upgrades for faculty, staff, and labs. “I always look forward to the camaraderie through restaurant suggestions, conversations about AI, and random banter.”

Adutwum said he was “thrilled” to be on campus, and was looking forward to another gig, a soon-to-begin research project on Ulam-like sequences (patterns and rules found in number sequences built from sums) with Visiting Assistant Professor of Mathematics Senia Sheydvasser.

The quote: “I am looking forward to an exciting and productive summer!” — Adutwum

‘It made me think of my own position and privileges in the context of a bigger community’ — Ganga Corsaro ’26

The place: St. Mary’s Nutrition Center in Lewiston

The job: As Purposeful Work interns, Corsaro, a double major in environmental studies and Chinese from St. Paul, Minn., and Haley Wilkins ’25, an American Studies major from Hoboken, N.J., saw and supported the growth of 10 local community gardens. 

They mulched, weeded, cleared, and created garden beds; provided community gardeners with seeds and seedlings; handled food deliveries for the Nutrition Center’s food pantry; and supported youth programs at Geiger and Montello elementary schools and at Hillview Resource Center. 

For Wilkins, the internship revealed the importance of community and place to her own purposeful work. She also valued how the Nutrition Center constantly adapts to “new needs and circumstances with collaborative brainstorming.” Corsaro learned that her own purposeful work will need to be “proactive and intentional — actively contributing in ways that reflect who you are and what you stand for.”

The experience deepened Corsaro’s appreciation of her adopted hometown of Lewiston. “The community’s diversity and strength, and the work people are doing to improve their own lives and the community as a whole, really surprised me.”

The quote: “It sounds simple to some, but witnessing seeds growing and producing food has been more exciting and rewarding than I expected.” — Wilkins

‘It’s very beautiful, and obviously different from fall or winter’ — Harris Ramlee ’25

The place: Bonney Science Center

The job: Ramlee, a biology major from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, spent his summer on campus working as a technician in the college’s vivarium.

In his downtime, Ramlee enjoyed strolling around campus, soaking in the summer weather — his first summer spent in the U.S. His friend Paul Zhou ’25, a psychology major from Beijing, agrees with the weather assessment. In winter, there’s snow and less light, but “in the summer, it looks absolutely beautiful.”

Ramlee has also taken time to explore Maine, hiking and visiting the beach. “It’s very, very amazing,” he says. 

The quote: “The campus looks absolutely beautiful.” — Zhou