At ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Reunion in June, the Alumni Association gathered to present the annual Alumni Council Awards, recognizing the exceptional career and service achievements of five alumni.

“It is truly inspiring to witness the transformative power of our alumni as they engage in informed civic action and lead in diverse fields,â€� said Leah Elsmore ’12, president of the Alumni Association for the 2025-26 academic year. “This year’s recipients reflect the ardor and devotion — Amore ac Studio — that define the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ experience, serving as a powerful reminder of the potential within our entire alumni network.â€�

Peter R. Basiliere ’76 received the Alumni Community Service Award in recognition of his leadership and civic service in Milford, N.H., where he was elected town moderator and school district moderator. After retiring from a career as a leader in additive manufacturing, Basiliere, an active Rotarian, began serving as a volunteer with the American Red Cross. Since then he has joined disaster relief teams in California, Vermont, the Carolinas, and, most recently, Guam, where he oversaw the Red Cross’ food operations after a super typhoon hit the island. Basiliere’s commitment to service and strengthening communities around the country reflects ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½â€™ ideals of purposeful work and responsible stewardship of the wider world.

Scientist Noah E. Petro ’01 earned the Alumni Professional Recognition Award in recognition of his career and leadership at NASA, where he has worked since 2007. Since 2017, he has been the lab chief of NASA’s Planetary Geology, Geophysics, and Geochemistry lab, which conducts research on Mercury, Venus, Earth, and their satellites. He is the project scientist for Artemis III, the 2027 mission that will bring astronauts to the moon’s surface for the first time since 1972. Petro’s work at NASA, both highly scientific and serving the general public, exemplifies ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½â€™ mission of combining intellectual rigor with public good.

Physician Christopher B. Lanoue ’99, P’26 earned the Bruce Stangle ’70, P’96, GP’26 Award for Distinguished Service to the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Community in recognition of his commitment to supporting ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ students and alumni through their medical school journeys. An emergency medicine specialist with MaineHealth, Lanoue has worked closely with the Center for Purposeful Work, mentoring ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ies pursuing medical careers, and done so with “generosity, warmth, and openness.â€� His leadership and service, emblematic of ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½â€™ values, has touched countless people as they themselves prepare for a career of serving others through medicine.

Rachel Ebersole ’17 was presented with the Distinguished Young Alumni Award in recognition of her career as a museum educator and her leadership within the alumni community. Ebersole is the manager of teen programs at The New York Historical museum and library, where she also oversees a digital learning lab and makerspace. Ebersole is a dedicated leader within the New York ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Network, fostering alumni community and hosting events. Her volunteer service to the college is an inspiring example of the transformative power of the young alumni network.

Erica Seifert Plunkett ’86 earned the Helen A. Papaioanou ’49 Distinguished Alumni Service Award, which recognizes alumni who have given exceptional service to the college. Plunkett served as class co-president while at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ and, since graduating, as an Alumni Council member, a dedicated class agent, and a committee leader. Plunkett has also led an accomplished career in research; she spent more than 25 years at the Wellesley Centers for Women supporting research projects studying mental health literacy and mental health in adolescents. She is now a project manager at Brown University’s Hassenfeld Child Health Innovation Institute, working on projects related to adolescent depression prevention.

The Office of College Advancement also presented Kathryn (Kali) M. Brown ’21, Craig E. Comins ’81, and Meg W. Curran ’11 with ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½â€™ Best Awards, which recognize dedicated volunteers who have expressed a passion and commitment for advancing the mission of the college.

“Our alumni continue to do incredible work in their communities and professions, and honoring this year’s award recipients is a privilege,â€� said Assistant Vice President for Alumni Engagement Sarah Cameron. “Every year, these awards remind us of the strength and reach of the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ network, and we look forward to seeing who our community nominates next.â€�

Want to nominate someone for a 2027 award? Nominating forms are available now. 

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 ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College. That’s no surprise, given that the museum called the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Mill Complex home for the last 30 years.

In recognition of that relationship, ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ 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 ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College Welcome Center.

“We are delighted to partner with Maine MILL as it starts a new chapter in its new home,â€� said ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ 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 ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ 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.â€�

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 ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½-Maine MILL partnership has only expanded.

“ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ is an enormous asset for Lewiston, as Lewiston is an enormous asset for ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½,â€� Ferrante said. “We’re thrilled that ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ is deeply invested in the partnership with Maine MILL and connection to Lewiston.â€�

This partnership reinforces ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½â€™ 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 ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ students and the lives of our neighbors in Lewiston and Auburn.

“At ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½, we examine what it really means to join — as equal participants — within a community’s self-led work, however the community is defining it,â€� 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.â€�

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,â€� 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.â€� 

Not long after, trips to the museum became a regular part of Hall’s “U.S. Environmental Historyâ€� course. Numerous other ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ 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,â€� Hall said.

Students appreciate, Hall said, that the museum is led by a ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ 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. ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ 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,â€� 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.â€�

ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ 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 ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½, 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,â€� Seavey said. “Before ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ 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.â€�

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 ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ 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,â€� Hall said.

Additional partnerships between ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ and Maine MILL include the museum’s annual fundraiser, Soirée en Blanc. ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Dining, Conferences, and Campus Events handles catering for the events, and many ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ 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 ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ 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,â€� Ferrante said. “It’s a huge part of what drives what we do and why we do it and who we do it for.â€� 

As ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ softball celebrates its 50th anniversary, the program is moving forward with a significant transformation of its home facility at Lafayette Street Field — marking a major investment in the future of softball at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½. Fundraising efforts have met the $1 million dollar threshold thanks to gifts from a number of donors.

“I’m incredibly excited about what this project represents for our softball program and for the entire department,â€� said Director of Athletics Stacey Bunting. “As we celebrate 50 years of ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ softball, this project both recognizes the program’s history and invests in its future, creating a space that will support championship-level competition and enhance the daily experience for our student-athletes.â€� 

Improvements include professional-grade drainage and installation of artificial turf. Drainage issues, along with lingering snow early in the season, have often required the softball team to travel for practice and games. Now they won’t have to.

“Turfing the field gives us consistency and a true home we can take pride in,� said softball Head Coach Kat McKay. “It will allow us to train as needed and compete at a high level regardless of the weather.�

There will be upgrades to the fencing and safety features. “It’s a much more modern, sleek, and functional look,â€� said Chris Streifel, director of capital planning and construction. “Definitely an improvement on the current chain link fence.â€� The field will be strategically reconfigured as well, with a new scoreboard in left field. Grandstand seating and a custom windscreen are also part of the improvements. 

Leadership Gifts Officer Chelsea Turner ’94, who played softball throughout her time as a student at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½, remembers a season the team traveled to Trinity College for their first game having never practiced outside. The weather and the field forced them to practice in Clifton Daggett Gray Athletic Building. Inspired by her experience as a player, Turner worked with donors on the project to transform the softball field. 

For softball’s coach, there’s no doubt this project is “transformational,� but McKay also points out that her players have “never made excuses — they’ve made it work everywhere — different spaces, different fields, tough conditions, even traveling for ‘home’ games.�

Trustee Jeremy B. Chase ’91 and Christine Werthmann Chase ’92 were lead donors for the project, sponsoring a match to help reach this initial goal.

The team is heading into their postseason, having swept Trinity in a double header on Senior Day at home, but Coach McKay is already anticipating the future, with gratitude. “This gives our current players — and our alumni — something they’ve earned after 50 years of softball: a home field they can be proud to call theirs. This elevates everything we do and sets us up for where we want to go as a program.�

Carrie Cushman talks Museum of Art’s Marsden Hartley Legacy Project on Maine Public

Carrie Cushman, director of the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Museum of Art, spoke about the museum’s current projects .

In conversation with Heather McDougall, manager of music and people at Maine Public Classical, Cushman, who joined the museum in August 2025, discussed the excitement of arriving at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½. The museum is preparing to launch the Marsden Hartley Legacy Project, an online digital catalog of all known paintings and ephemera by modernist painter and Lewiston native Marsden Hartley, which has been in development since 2019.

“We’re really lucky that this is happening at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½, and we will be the home of it and responsible for stewarding it into the future,â€� Cushman told McDougall.

The ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Museum of Art was founded because of the Marsden Hartley Memorial Collection, Cushman explained, comprising over 400 paintings and ephemera by Hartley — by far the largest collection of Hartley’s work — which Hartley’s niece donated to the college in 1955. 

“We have people coming to the museum almost weekly requesting to see work from the collection, and many are artists who are looking for inspiration in this 20th century modernist who is finally getting his due,� Cushman said.

Additionally, Cushman’s exhibition The Worlds of Ilse Bing was featured in a in the online magazine What Will You Remember?.

The exhibition is on view through May 24 at Wellesley College’s Davis Museum, where Cushman previously worked as the Linda Wyatt Gruber ‘66 Curatorial Fellow in Photography. Exploring Bing’s rise to prominence, coinciding with 35mm photography’s growing popularity, the exhibition “brings her work into conversation with her creative influences and with those who she influenced in the worlds of modern art.�

What Will You Remember? also included the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Museum of Art’s exhibition Shellburne Thurber: Full Circle, co-curated by Thurber and ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ assistant curator Samantha Sigmon, in its February roundup. On view through March 21, the exhibition demonstrates how Thurber’s photography has “visualized interior work that is private, domestic, psychological, or insular.â€�

Mara Tieken opines on rural schools, students in The Hechinger Report; Women Writers, Women’s Books

Though public school closures and consolidations are becoming increasingly common, they rarely serve their intended purpose of saving struggling school districts money, writes Professor of Education Mara Tieken in an .

For school districts with declining enrollment or decreasing state and federal funding, “school closures may seem logical,� Tieken writes. “Close schools, ‘right-size’ districts, save money. Problem solved.�

However, she explains, school closures require additional transportation and renovation costs, often leading to districts saving little to no money, while students’ test scores and future college and employment outcomes decrease.

Tieken has extensively researched and written about rural schools and their students. On Feb. 5, she published a piece about the process of developing her latest book — Educated Out: How Rural Students Navigate Elite Colleges—And What It Costs Them — in an .

While writing the book, which explores how students from rural places experience attending a small elite college, Tieken developed an approach to research characterized by slowly developing relationships with the students she was interviewing, she writes.

“We often think of research as a one-way process, a passing of ‘data’ from ‘subject’ to ‘researcher,’� Tieken writes. “But that approach is neither ethical (in fact, it’s often quite exploitative) nor useful. So much more can be learned when the relationship is actually relational.�

The 13 years that Tieken spent researching and writing the book taught her to be a more patient teacher, she says, with an expanded awareness of the struggles that her students from rural backgrounds may be facing. The book culminates with suggestions for how academic institutions can better support rural students.

“All those recommendations that I make in the book’s final chapter?â€� Tieken writes. “I have to do them, too, and I feel obligated—in a really good way—to encourage others to do them, as well.â€� 

Caylin Carbonell ’12 gives public talk exploring daily life, labor dynamics in colonial New England

Caylin Carbonell ’12, an assistant professor of history at Bowdoin College, gave a public lecture about labor dynamics in colonial New England households, .

The talk, entitled “Laboring Lives and Hidden Stories in Colonial New England,” was the second installment in a series of free online lectures hosted by the Lincoln County Historical Association, based in Wiscasset, Maine.

Carbonell shared insights on “the daily lives inside colonial households as the country was beginning to take shape, with a focus on laborers, often a diverse group ranging from enslaved and indentured people to hired workers, including Indigenous, African, and European women and men.�

She also discussed the challenges of uncovering the stories of 17th and 18th century laborers from incomplete or nonexistent records. Carbonell, who majored in history at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½, is currently working on a book manuscript that closely explores daily life in colonial New England households.

Boston Globe, Sun Journal cover MLK Day at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½

The held during ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½â€™ Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day,  “From Silencing to Empowerment: Exploring Anger, Justice, and Post-traumatic Growth Among Refugee Women and Women of Color,â€� led by Yun Garrison, assistant professor of psychology, and Fowsia Musse from Maine Community Integration.

During the workshop, Garrison and Musse presented a framework of healing from trauma that they developed by examining the experiences of refugee women. For Musse, herself a refugee from Somalia, and other Somalian refugees and immigrants living in Lewiston, the workshop was particularly topical, the Globe reports; Musse said that anxiety caused by the Trump administration’s immigration deportation agenda led her to reflect on past trauma from her immigration experience.

“When something traumatic happens, how do we hold both anger and peace at the same time? Because sometimes they are pulling us in opposite directions,� Garrison said. “Maybe love and healing can bridge this. I do not know, but that’s what I’m sitting with right now.�

The Lewiston given by Myisha Cherry, an associate professor of philosophy at the University of California, Riverside.

Cherry’s address — â€œWhat Do We Do With All This Fear?â€� — explored the day’s theme of “Love, Anger and the Struggle for Justiceâ€� by closely examining and interpreting MLK’s writings and words.

The Sun Journal quoted from President Garry W. Jenkins’ introductory remarks addressing the day’s theme, sharing his interpretation of how love and anger may intersect in the pursuit of justice.

“I would rather spend my days in a space of love rather than a space of anger,� Jenkins said. “But we don’t always get to make that choice. … In linking these two, we have to wrestle with how they exist together — both in tension and in harmony.�

In sharing MLK’s thoughts about fear, Cherry explained that not all fear was negative; it can, in fact, be harnessed and transformed into a powerful force for change, the Sun Journal reported.

“We should be maestros as opposed to mere masters of our normal fears … and we should transition that normal fear into courage,� Cherry said. “Courage is just not doing something in spite of your fear, it’s taking your fear and matching it up with confidence … and engaging in action.�

As the Sun Journal reported, Cherry linked this healthy fear to MLK’s nonviolent protests and actions, urging all in the audience to use their “normal� fear to advance causes they care about.

“What we should do with this fear is make something beautiful out of it,â€� Cherry said. “This is a time of fear for lots of us … Turning to King has been illuminating, and I find that fear doesn’t mean that we are weak, it doesn’t mean we’ve given people the upper hand. It means that we’re sensitive to injustice. It means we value the people we’re fearful for and we value the principles that we are scared we are going to lose.â€� 

Brian Shankar Adler featured in DownBeat magazine’s cover story

Brian Shankar Adler — percussionist and ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ instructor of drum set, tabla, and other hand percussion — and Grammy-award winning soprano saxophonist Jane Ira Bloom released their debut album once like a spark, in their February issue’s cover story, “Making music in the moment.â€� 

The magazine used the stage at Olin Concert Hall as the setting for a photo shoot with the two musicians, who have performed extensively in Lewiston and Portland, Maine as a duo.

“We played each other’s compositions, and the music came alive instantly,� Adler told DownBeat. “Over the years, we built up a hefty book of tunes and a musical language with which to communicate.�

Without chorded or bass instruments, the brass-drum duo is a rare one, DownBeat reported. The combination makes for a unique, melodic sound, with roots in jazz, North Indian Hindustani, and Indonesian musical traditions.

“The way I see it, music is interconnected and has the power to communicate beyond borders,� Adler told DownBeat. “Listening to and playing jazz, it’s evident that the music has roots beyond America and arms that extend to virtually every corner of the world. When approached with open ears, curiosity and a sense of respect for the traditions, the possibilities for exchange are really limitless.�

Art New England reviews current exhibition at the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Museum of Art

On Feb. 5, of “Precision and Expression: American Studio Ceramics from the E. John Bullard Collection,â€� the current show at the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Museum of Art, co-curated by Assistant Curator Samantha Sigmon and Lecturer in Art and Visual Culture Susan Dewsnap. “…Bullard sought diversity and individuality in his acquisitions,â€� Little writes. “He also embraced humor and joy: many of the pieces will prompt a smile.â€� 

Calling it an “entertaining and enlightening exhibition,� Little highlighted an “exquisite vessel� by Mark Bell, “Spherical Vase,� ca. 2011, which he said “exemplifies the Blue Hill, Maine, artist’s seamless style.�

Little also explained the motivation behind Bullard’s generous gift to the museum. “The collector’s longtime ties to Haystack and the Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts in Newcastle, Maine, inspired his gift, as did the college’s ceramics program led by Susan Dewsnap, who co-curated the exhibition and accompanying catalogue,â€� Little writes. “Bullard envisions future students exploring and learning from these singular objects. That vision is already happening: interns at the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Museum researched artists for the catalogue and labels.â€�