Writer Monica Wood.

Monica Wood, author of a popular memoir about growing up in a small Maine town in the early 1960s, reads from and discusses When We Were the Kennedys  at 7:30 p.m. Monday, Oct. 28, in Olin Concert Hall, 75 Russell St.

Admission is open to the public at no cost, but tickets are required — please visit . The event is sponsored by the Office of the President with support from the Dean of the Faculty’s and Dean of Students’ offices. For more information, please call 207-786-6067.

Watch a livestream of the event: Live from ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½.

When We Were the Kennedys (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012) is the story of how a family, a town and then a nation mourn and find the strength to move on. Living in Mexico, Maine, in 1963, the Wood family is much like its close neighbors, Catholics and immigrants dependent on the fathers’ wages from the Oxford Paper Company.

But when Monica’s father suddenly dies on his way to work, her mother and the four deeply connected Wood daughters are set adrift.

This wrenching memoir has gotten attention nationwide. The Washingtonian wrote, “Wood’s gorgeously wrought new book . . . is a sharp, stunning portrait of a family’s grief and healing, and it also offers a refreshing lens through which to view the [assassination of President John F. Kennedy], as his family’s loss helps the Woods feel less adrift in their own sea of anguish.”

As this year’s assigned reading for the incoming first-year class at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½, Wood’s book was a good fit. “Wood’s thoughtful and affecting memoir gives marvelous insight into a community similar to Lewiston-Auburn, with vivid depictions of the multiple cultures that coexist in the area,” says Kirk Read, associate dean of the faculty and professor of French and francophone studies.

“She gives particular insight into the lives of working-class families who depended on the mills and who survived the boom and bust over decades.” Wood contemplates French Canadian and Irish immigrant cultures, the health of the Androscoggin River and the role of the Catholic church in a mill town, all relevant to ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½’ surrounding communities.

Wood also examines the iconic status of the Kennedys during the 1960s and the Maine politics that played out in parallel to the national scene. Figures such as U.S. Sen. Edmund S. Muskie, a member of the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ class of 1936, figure in the background of Wood’s memoir.

Winner of the 2013 Maine Literary Award for When We Were the Kennedys, Wood explains her storytelling roots: “My father and my mother’s parents came from Prince Edward Island in Canada, and brought with them the island tradition of storytelling,” she says.

“Although my sisters and I were the first generation in the family to go to college, I think of my background as a literary one. My father had a lilting island brogue and beautiful grammar; the notion that stories had to be told in a certain way was something I learned early. My grandfather used to sing long, melodramatic, novelistic ballads, another island tradition.”

Wood’s other books include Any Bitter Thing (Ballantine Books, 2005), Ernie’s Ark (Ballantine, 2002) and My Only Story (Ballantine, 2000).

The Boston Globe Magazine features a story by journalist Jon Marcus ’82 about his uncle, Arthur Marcus, who from the 1950s to the 1970s was one of the best at his job: providing timely sports results, especially results from Suffolk Downs, to various illegal gambling operations in the Boston area, all the while eluding authorities determined to catch him in the act.

Bookies and other gamblers used to depend on skilled “line men,” like Uncle Arthur, for timely sports results, including race results from Suffolk Downs in East Boston, shown here in the 1930s. Photograph courtesy of the Boston Public Library, Leslie Jones Collection.

“Uncle Arthur ‘dry-cleaned’ himself every day,” . “He moved his operations around the city, right under the noses of the people watching him…. He took bets on water soluble paper that could be dissolved instantly. He led buzz-cut Joe Fridays the right way down one-way streets in his midnight-blue 1967 Lincoln Continental, then spun around to the wrong way, knowing that the G-men wouldn’t follow.”

, the African American comedian who transcended show-business success to become a prominent activist for social justice and civil rights, performed to a full house in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall on May 23.

The next morning, Gregory participated in a course on the 1960s , taught by Multifaith Chaplain Bill Blaine-Wallace.

Gregory’s visit was also of interest to the history department’s methods course, this year centered on the turbulent 1960s and team-taught by African American Studies Chair Hilmar Jensen — who extended the invitation to Gregory — and Professor of History Margaret Creighton.

This short video focuses on Gregory ‘s visit to Blaine-Wallace’s SNCC class in Hathorn Hall, in which he expounds on a pointed social and educational observation he made the night before: “Recess is over.”

Gregory’s visit was co-sponsored by the Program in African American Studies and the Multifaith Chaplaincy.

He first appeared at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ in 1968. He shares another ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ connection: presided over the renewal of Gregory’s wedding vows with his wife, Lillian.

In observance of Black History Month and the 50th anniversary of the 1961 Freedom Riders protest, a historian from Ohio’s Miami University reviews the history, impacts and continuing relevance of this galvanizing episode in the civil rights movement at 4:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 17, in the Benjamin Mays Center at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College, 95 Russell St.

Sponsored by the Office of Intercultural Education at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½, Nishani Frazier’s talk, titled On the March, is open to the public at no cost. For more information, please call 207-786-8376.

Frazier, assistant professor of history at Miami, is an authority on the African American experience. She will examine the story of the Freedom Riders, their importance to American history and their current relevance in the face of efforts to retreat politically, culturally and socially from the advances of the civil rights movement.

Beginning in May 1961, the Freedom Rides were an effort to shatter segregationist resistance to laws mandating equal access to public facilities for all people. Involving up to 450 civil rights activists over five months, the Riders made repeated trips into the South on the Greyhound and Trailways bus lines, forging ahead despite the savage violence, at the hands of law enforcement officers and the Ku Klux Klan among others, that awaited them.

This chapter in the civil rights movement heightened national attention to the cause, brought in many new activists and compelled the federal government to begin enforcing its equal access legislation.

Frazier received her doctorate from Columbia University in 2008. Prior to teaching at Miami, she held the positions of associate curator of African American history at Western Reserve Historical Society; assistant to the director of the Martin Luther King Jr. Archives at the Martin Luther King Center for Nonviolent Social Change; and personal assistant to John Hope Franklin during his tenure as chair of the Presidential Advisory Board during the Clinton administration’s “One America in the 21st Century” initiative.

With Manning Marable as lead editor, Frazier was a co-author with John McMillian of the book Freedom on My Mind: The Columbia Documentary History of the African American Experience (Columbia University Press, 2003). Her current manuscript in progress, “Haramabee Nation: Cleveland, CORE and Rise of Black Power,” examines the philosophical evolution of the Congress of Racial Equality regarding the black power movement.

“It’s been a long, a long time coming, but I know a change is gonna come.” The hopeful words of the Sam Cooke song sung by soloist Megan Guynes ’11 made a fitting opening for the Jan. 16 Memorial Service of Worship that began Martin Luther King Jr. Day observances at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½.

The centerpiece was the Rev. James Lawson’s sermon. Lawson was an important advocate for nonviolent activism during the civil rights movement, and was instrumental to the founding of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in 1960.

A personal friend of King’s, Lawson told the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ audience how King had first encouraged him to move down South and continue his work at the heart of the emerging civil rights movement. Lawson praised King’s work as “breaking down barriers of fear, silence, racism and sexism, and lifting up a new era.”

Lawson also emphasized that the campaign goes on. “I want you to understand that to celebrate Martin Luther King’s life is to celebrate a movement made up of hundreds of thousands of people,” Lawson told his attentive audience.

Pointing to the many issues of violence, fear and injustice that our nation continues to struggle with, he said, “We, the American people, have not permitted the slogan ‘equality, liberty and justice for all’ to be the slogan of our land.”

He urged, “Destroy what destroys us, and replace it with instruments that allow human creativity and joy.”

Taking place in the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Chapel, the service was attended by 175 or so members of the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ and Lewiston-Auburn communities. The audience was also treated to inspirational readings from students and faculty, music provided by ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ ensembles the Crosstones and the Gospelaires, and a dance performance by ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½’ liturgical dance troupe, Justified.

— Gabrielle Otto ’11

Rutha Mae Harris, a founding member of The Freedom Singers, sings songs associated with the civil rights movement during the performance. In the panel presentation Leaving College for Good, which follows Perdew and Harris, students who have taken a break from ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ to do good works will discuss their projects and what it means for them to serve.

The event is open to the public at no cost. Sponsored by the Multifaith Chaplaincy, it is the 2010 Bertha May Bell Andrews Lecture at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½. For more information, call 207-786-8272.

After leaving Harvard, Perdew joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and worked in the committee’s southwest Georgia office. Eventually he, along with three other young men, was detained in Americus, Ga., and charged under the state’s 1871 Anti-Treason Act, created to suppress black resistance to white rule.

Because this crime was punishable by execution, the men were not offered bail and remained in jail for nearly four months awaiting trial. The case was eventually dismissed, and the men became known as “The Americus Four.” Perdew created Education of a Harvard Guy in 2005 with the help of playwright Curtis L. Williams.

The Freedom Singers formed in 1962 in Albany, Ga. They traveled across the country to raise money for SNCC and inform audiences about the grassroots organizing campaigns taking shape across the South.

A signature talk at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ since 1975, the Andrews Lecture is a memorial to Bertha May Bell Andrews, who served on the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ faculty from 1913 to 1917 and established the women’s physical education program at the college. Her son, Dr. Carl B. Andrews of the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ class of 1940, established the lectureship.

A ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ professor has received a $40,000 grant to complete his research into a Vietnamese monk whose self-immolation in 1963 was one of the defining acts of the Vietnam War years.

On June 11, 1963, at a busy intersection in the South Vietnamese capital of Saigon, Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc set himself on fire to protest the government’s discrimination against the nation’s Buddhist majority.

Captured in an Associated Press photograph that was distributed worldwide, this horrific act launched a series of events resulting in the fall of the Ngo Dinh Diem regime. Thich Quang Duc’s self-immolation also came to symbolize America’s unpopular involvement in Vietnam, and Malcolm Browne’s photo became an icon of the era.

Trian Nguyen, associate professor of art and visual culture and Luce Junior Professor of Asian Studies at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½, has received an American Council of Learned Societies fellowship for field research intended to address what he perceives as the scholarly neglect in recent decades of this figure, who remains highly revered among Vietnamese Buddhists. Nguyen was one of 57 to receive the ACLS grant out of a pool of 1,136 applicants.

“Many questions related to this Vietnamese senior monk and his final act are still unanswered,” says Nguyen, assistant professor of art and visual culture and the Luce Junior Professor of Asian Studies.

In his project, Nguyen will study Thich Quang Duc’s personal items and letters, books, legal records and other documents kept at Buddhist temples in Vietnam, and some two dozen interviews with people involved in events around the monk’s self-sacrifice.

Culminating in the first full-length book about Thich Quang Duc in English, the research will bring to light significant new facts about the monk and his significance within the cultural context of the time. Nguyen hopes that the project will also reawaken awareness, within and outside Vietnam, of both the historic importance of the monk’s self-sacrifice and the existence of the research materials.

The completed work, Nguyen writes in his ACLS proposal, “will make a substantial and original contribution to the understanding of both this famous monk and Vietnamese Buddhist culture and history in the mid-20th century.”

The ACLS advances studies in all fields of the humanities and the social sciences, and aims to maintain and strengthen relations among national societies devoted to such studies.

Nguyen came to ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ in 2000 under the auspices of a grant from the Henry Luce Foundation, and is the first faculty member to teach Asian art history at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½. He holds a doctorate in Asian art history from the University of California, Berkeley, and obtained his master’s degree in theological studies at Harvard Divinity School.

Nguyen’s primary research situates Buddhist art and architecture within the religious, political and social conditions of Southeast Asian culture. He has a particular interest in Vietnam. His teaching covers a wide range of topics in Asian art history, including the art of Zen Buddhism and Buddhist architecture, storytelling in Asian art and monuments of Southeast Asia.

Lindholm, who was recalled as a dean who could see students’ potential even before they could themselves, died on Feb. 27 at the age of 98; his . Readers can view the program for the memorial service here.

Four videos:

Karl Lindholm remembers his father, Milt Lindholm ’35

Karl Lindholm is Milt Lindholm’s son. He is assistant professor of American studies and dean of Cook Commons at Middlebury College.

Edmund Wilson ’62 remembers Milt Lindholm ’35

Ed Wilson ’62 served as Lindholm’s assistant in the 1960s. He is the associate dean emeritus of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, and a ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Trustee.

William Hiss ’66 remembers Milt Lindholm ’35

Bill Hiss ’66 is the executive director for international advancement and a lecturer in Asian studies at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½. He led the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ admissions office for 22 years.

Peter Gomes ’65 remembers Milt Lindholm ’35

Peter Gomes ’65 is Plummer Professor of Christian Morals and Pusey Minister in The Memorial Church, Harvard University.

Bob Hatch, who became director of athletics in 1974, speaks with Bryant Gumbel ‘70, then an LA-based NBC sports reporter, for a 1977 ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Magazine story on Bobcat athletics. Talking about the need for excellent facilities, Hatch said, “Looking down the road, I think people are going to be as fussy picking a college as they are picking a new suit or automobile. They are going to shop â€�

At a 2005 football game at Garcelon Field, Bob Hatch (right) enjoys the company of, from left, Dean Emeritus of Admissions Milt Lindholm ’35, Brian Flynn ’57, Paul Planchon ’66 and Chick Leahey ’52, former longtime baseball coach.

Bob Hatch and Jim Murphy ‘69, who played quarterback, show off Murphy’s football jersey, retired on Nov. 20, 1968. Murphy is the current women’s soccer and basketball coach. Photo courtesy ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library.

Bob Hatch coaches the Bobcat football team, circa 1967. Hatch served as head football coach from 1952 to 1972 before becoming athletics director.

Bob Hatch in 1977.

Professor Emeritus of Physical Education Robert W. Hatch, an icon of ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ athletics whose contributions  encompassed innovation and opportunity, died Feb. 13, 2010. He was 85.

• View reporter Dan Hartill’s story about Hatch in the
• View ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ story about Hatch and the 1956 Maine State Series football champions
• View published after his retirement in 1991
• View ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ tribute to Hatch on his induction to the Scholar-Athlete Society in 2005
• Visiting hours: Feb. 19, 4-8 p.m., Fortin Funeral Home, Auburn; memorial service: Fortin Funeral Home,  Feb. 20, 11 a.m., with a reception in New Commons afterward.
• Friends are sharing their memories

Appointed instructor in physical education and freshman football coach in 1949, Hatch’s head coaching assignments included varsity baseball (1951-53) and football (1952-72) as well as golf. He became assistant director of athletics in 1959 and succeeded Lloyd Lux as director in 1974, serving until 1991.

Considered an innovator as a coach, Hatch once deployed an unusual spread formation in football versus the much larger University of Maine team in 1961, stunning the undefeated Black Bears with a 15-15 tie.

In 1955, he wrote a suggesting that traditional RBI statistics could be misleading and urging greater use of on-base percentage, twin notions that are central to the modern “sabermetric” approach to evaluating baseball talent developed by Bill James and others in the 1980s.

“There was no bravado. He thought of it as just the right thing to do.”

As director of athletics, he oversaw the creation of a women’s varsity athletic program in the 1970s. “At a time when few schools were doing anything, he created opportunities for women athletes,” sad his immediate ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ successor, Suzanne Coffey, to the Sun Journal. “There was no bravado. He thought of it as just the right thing to do.” Coffey is now AD at Amherst.

Kevin McHugh, Coffey’s successor as director of athletics at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½, says that Hatch’s “right thing” ethos endures at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ today. “The current ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ athletics program reflects Bob’s idea of quality: good people who care about the institution and its student-athletes. Aside from wins and losses, there’s a social conscience and education-centered philosophy here. To me, that came down from Bob.”