It’s Friday afternoon, Jan. 10, and for professor Jane Costlow, a difficult moment.

She has just arrived at Pettengill Hall’s Perry Atrium, where an informal campus gathering will honor the memory of Carl Benton Straub, Costlow’s predecessor as the Clark A. Griffith Professor of Environmental Studies. Straub died at age 83 in his Lewiston home on Nov. 15.

“Losing Carl is really hard,” she says. “He was just a dear, dear friend.”

Costlow knew Straub for all of her 33 years at �ֲ���ý, first as the dean of faculty who hired her, then as the faculty colleague who invited her to join the environmental studies program, and, ultimately, as a good friend and inspiration, if not quite a mentor.

“He was somebody I really treasured getting to talk with every couple of months,” she says. “I feel his absence, and as time goes by I’m going to feel it even more acutely. I need a Carl fix. I need to talk to Carl.”

And Straub thought so highly of Costlow that, before his death, he identified her as one of three individuals he wanted to eulogize him at his formal memorial service, to be held Oct. 10 in the Peter J. Gomes Chapel.

For Jane Costlow, the recent gathering for in memory of Carl Straub had pensive moments (left photo) and also laughter (right photo), where she’s flanked by Professor Emeritus of History Dennis Graflin, left, and David Das, her husband, right. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

“I’m really kind of glad I have a long time to think about what I want to say,” she says, “because it’s a daunting responsibility.” At the same time, “it also feels like a fabulous invitation from Carl to reflect on his life and what he gave to �ֲ���ý.”

In Perry Atrium on that Friday afternoon in early January, Costlow was not among those who spoke about Straub, choosing instead to listen to others.

Though it was held for a sad reason, the gathering had moments of levity, notably recollections of Straub’s pointed observations about �ֲ���ý life, everything from campus landscaping to the Commencement processional.

As a whole, the event was “a fabulous reminder of how much of a role Carl played at �ֲ���ý and various other communities,” Costlow says. “He was a man of extraordinarily varied interests and friendships.”

The gathering reflected that eclecticism, with friends attending from �ֲ���ý; from the rural town of Sumner, where Straub owned property and made many friends; from the Shaker community, which he researched to understand that religious community’s connection to the land; from Maine environmental and arts organizations to which he belonged; and from the Lewiston-Auburn community where he lived.

Costlow recalls that she and Straub hit it off from the start. Like her, he was fascinated by Russian culture, and because he traveled to Russia, the two had that point of connection. “There were a number of different things that we shared, interests that we had in common.”

There were differences, too. In the classroom, Straub was a huge presence with a broad philosophical approach. “It was clear to me that I wasn’t going to be able to teach that way,” she recalls. “But it’s wonderful to have friends strikingly different from you.”

Straub’s being a larger-than-life �ֲ���ý figure made it “almost too intimidating for him to be a mentor” to Costlow. Which made us wonder about the concept of mentoring: Who has mentored Costlow in her career? Who is a  role model? And how is she mentoring younger faculty today?

You attended Duke as an undergraduate and Yale for graduate school. Who were your mentors or role models?

There were very few women as professors at Duke or Yale. For me, leaving high school meant leaving behind seeing women in the classroom, essentially. I went to a small high school in eastern North Carolina, where I also had African American teachers!  None at Duke or Yale.

And when I was a graduate student in the mid-1980s, none of my professors, in the classroom, struck me as teaching how I would want to teach. They were world-famous, Ivy League scholars, and I don’t think they were that interested in what it would mean to teach at a liberal arts college like �ֲ���ý.

Jane Costlow discusses her academic role models. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

In that day and age, nobody got any training in being a teacher. It was, “Okay, here you are, here’s the deep end of the pool, now swim.” When I came to �ֲ���ý, the people that I learned from were colleagues closest to my age, people like Georgia Nigro and Mary Rice-DeFosse.

And it was a very different age when it came to being a woman, having children, and staying at work.

I remember having a conversation in the library with Carole Taylor right after my first child was born. It had become impossible for me to write. And I was kind of freaking out because I was still untenured. She reassured me: “That’s completely natural. Don’t worry about it too much. You will be able to write again.” Those kind of short encounters made a huge difference to me.

And I remember potlucks for women on campus, staff and faculty, once a month, with those kinds of informal conversations — just debriefing, venting, and sharing. What was going on in class? What wasn’t going well? 

Joyce Seligman, who founded the writing program at �ֲ���ý, was extraordinary. It wasn’t that Joyce was mentoring or necessarily teaching us, although she had materials and insights about how to teach writing in the classroom. But she consistently gathered people together and created frameworks in which people could just share their experiences. Those were mentoring situations that for me were really, really helpful.

Now that you’re a senior member of the faculty, how do you think of mentoring? Do you actively seek to mentor young faculty? How does that play out?

It’s somewhat informal. Occasionally somebody I know will seek me out, and we’ll have lunch or sit down and talk about a classroom situation, or balancing teaching, writing, and life activities — those kinds of things.

I think listening is the most important piece of mentoring, just being able to really give the person that you’re talking to a sense that they can say whatever is on their mind, in their heart, and to focus on listening to them, not giving advice too quickly.

But like anybody who’s been teaching for a while, I can make some concrete, tangible suggestions. And that’s certainly a form of mentoring, passing on what I’ve got in my bag of tricks. The language teachers at �ֲ���ý have always been fabulous about doing that because language teachers think about that stuff: “Okay, how are we going to get our students to learn vocabulary? Well, here’s this bunch of stuff that you can do.”

Do you have an overriding philosophy for helping younger colleagues?

I want to just affirm people in being the teacher that they are. Early in my career at �ֲ���ý, I had to come to terms with the fact that I was not going to be a teacher like the late Dick Williamson. His persona in the classroom was incredibly vibrant and big, with his amazing sense of humor and energy. I could not be Dick.

But as I’ve matured as a teacher and become more experienced, I’ve realized that what’s important is to be the person that you can be. Let your personality become a persona in the classroom that works for you, and that makes you comfortable and makes other people comfortable.

And then you occasionally throw in a joke. Every once in a while I imitate a Russian babushka. And my students look at me like, “Oh my God, what has happened to her?” But it’s a moment of levity in the classroom.

The other night you moderated a Purposeful Work panel of alumni from the last 30-plus years whose careers are related to environmental work. Some of these alums you’ve known and mentored. What were your thoughts as you saw them addressing current �ֲ���ý students in environmental studies?

It was wonderful to see former students who have made their way, in very different ways, into interesting and fulfilling work.

It’s wonderful to see how they’ve grown, since we knew them in our somewhat protected classrooms, to become flexible, resilient, creative, and imaginative — and then where they’ve gone with that after graduation.

The variety of things that they’re doing is really inspirational, and I was delighted to hear��so many of them talk about the importance of storytelling and communication in their work. Everybody in every classroom at �ֲ���ý is teaching these skills, and they’re clearly important once they’re out in these very different jobs and settings.��

It’s the day of Opening Convocation at �ֲ���ý, Sept. 3, the official beginning of the 2019–20 academic year.

For professor Jane Costlow, the day marks the beginning of an ending. After 33 years at �ֲ���ý, Costlow, the college’s Clark A. Griffith Professor of Environmental Studies, has started her final year of teaching.

Costlow personifies a sea change in higher education and at �ֲ���ý as baby-boomer professors retire from their institutions en masse. During the current decade, roughly a third of the �ֲ���ý faculty will retire, leaving behind the life of the academy to which they’ve devoted much of their adult lives.

When Costlow first arrived at �ֲ���ý, in fall 1986, she joined the Russian department, teaching language and literature.

“I remember a mild sense of panic,” she says, “because it was my first teaching job. I was really excited but I was also really kind of nervous.”

The excitement came from what she’d already learned about her new college during interviews. “I had wonderful interactions with people,” she says.

“I had a sense that students were down-to-earth. And I was meeting other faculty and I thought, ‘Wow, these are really cool people.'”

Top left, Costlow and colleague Sonja Pieck trade notes about their summers. Top right, Costlow’s “Welcome back!!!” office-door message greets students. Above, Costlow throws on her academic gown before heading to Convocation. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

It’s time for Convocation, and with a casual ease Costlow dons her academic gown and a doctoral hood that she created herself. Its colors, black and “Yale blue,” signify her Yale degree in Slavic languages and literatures.

Adding a personal touch, she dons a straw hat that has been sitting atop a file cabinet since she wore it at Commencement last May.

Then she heads out.

Ever been on a treadmill at the gym when the speed suddenly goes up? That’s what a college campus feels like as summer turns to fall.

For any educator, “that’s a huge transition,” Costlow says of switching from summer mode, when professors can, distraction-free, dig deeply into their research, to the academic year and its multiple  demands.

“You suddenly realize you’ll be in the classroom. You’ll have all these thesis students. In many ways, your time is not yours anymore,” she says. “But it’s always exciting to see your students, especially students returning from abroad.”

And it’s on Costlow’s mind that the rhythm of her life will change. “It’s just a little bit bittersweet to think, “Oh, well, this is the last time I’ll do this.”

The day after Convocation is the first day of classes and Costlow’s first session for her course “Lives in Place.”

Presenting words and images of and by writers, filmmakers, and artists, the course examines the question “What does it mean to live sustainably in place?”

Proving that even a 33-year �ֲ���ý veteran can make a mistake, Costlow makes a false step on the first day of her final year. Accustomed to teaching in a certain Hedge Hall classroom year after year, she arrives there only to see another �ֲ���ý veteran, Dana Professor of Anthropology Loring Danforth, preparing for his class.

Checking her course schedule (for the first time, she abashedly admits), Costlow races across campus to the correct classroom, in Olin Arts Center.

On a day of last firsts, the location of the class offers something different: a full circle. In 1986, Costlow’s very first class was in Olin, then a brand-new building that hadn’t even been dedicated yet (it would happen that October).

Back in Olin again, Costlow introduces herself to the class and explains her career trajectory from the Russian department to the environmental studies program — a move inspired partly by her explorations of meaning and symbolism of Russian forests. Then she hands out the course syllabus.

The document opens with a drawing of Mount Katahdin by the American Modernist Marsden Hartley (whose artwork is a notable part of the �ֲ���ý Museum of Art collection) and includes a quote from Aldo Leopold: “We can be ethical only in relation to something we can see, feel, understand, love, or otherwise have faith in.”

At top, Costlow distributes the syllabus for her course “Lives in Place.” Above left, she crouches to write the last of four opening-day prompts. Above right, she speaks to the class. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

After writing a few initial but essential questions on the blackboard, Costlow asks her students to break into small groups and discuss the questions:

What is nature? Where is nature? Why do we need it? What kinds of nature do we need?

Like many courses taught by longtime professors, “Lives in Place” has a durable framework that Costlow leans on year after year. On the other hand, “I always mix it up a little bit,” she says.

During the semester, her students will consider how “place comes to mean something important to people in different cultures and different places, and how people can be displaced from where they feel connected.”

Displacement has “long been a central and tragic aspect of modern human lives,” she adds. “And it seems to be becoming increasingly pressing as an issue.”

Jane Costlow shares her thoughts as the new academic year approaches. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

After class, Costlow heads back to her Hedge Hall office for a late-morning appointment with Jesse Saffeir ’20, an environmental studies major from Pownal, Maine.

Saffeir has returned to �ֲ���ý after time away in different places: a winter semester in Iceland, followed by an Otis Fellowship from �ֲ���ý over the summer, which she used to travel, experience, and consider the swaths of Maine land cleared for overhead electrical transmission towers.

A tangible result of her Otis Fellowship is a book of original poetry. She gives a copy to Costlow, who accepts it with warmth and joy, as Saffeir bows her head in appreciation.