�ֲ��ý in Brief – News

�ֲ��ý in Brief Sightings: First-years return from AESOP excursions in Maine

�ֲ��ý Magazine — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 19:53:55 +0000

Gearing Up!

Will a week in the wild prepare you for �ֲ��ý? Right after their AESOP pre-orientation trips returned to campus Aug. 31, and with traces of untamed Maine still upon them, these first-years posed for photographer Phyllis Graber Jensen. They returned with pots, pads and even some leftover pasta sauce — not to mention new skills, freedoms and friends.

When climbing, ‘nothing else matters,’ says Chester Chiao ’13

�ֲ��ý Magazine — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 14:01:20 +0000

Photographer Phyllis Graber Jensen stopped by the climbing wall at Merrill Gymnasium recently and asked Chester Chiao ’13 of Taipei, Taiwan, pictured here, why he climbs.

Chester Chiao ’13 trains on the rock wall in Merill Gymnasium. Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College

What are you doing in this picture?
I am training for endurance: keeping myself on the wall as long as possible.

Why do you climb?
I ask myself that question when I am 500 feet above ground on a vertical rock face, freezing my butt off, knowing that I am two-hour drive away from my cozy bed and delicious Commons food!

I climb because it helps me discover my limits, face my fears and overcome them. It also teaches me how to be both physically and mentally in check.

“Nothing else matters until you get to the top.”

The summit is what we strive for, but the process to it is extremely rewarding. I am in a completely different environment in the vertical world, and nothing else matters until you get to the top.

Last but not least, the people you meet along the way and the stories they share about their adventures has also attracted me to the climbing community.

How does climbing fit into your �ֲ��ý life?
My buddies and I always look for adventures on the weekends — trying to get on multi-pitch climbs in North Conway, N.H., or pulling on hard sport climbs in Shagg Crag, about 15 miles east of Bethel, Maine.

Does your style differ from other �ֲ��ý climbers?
I am smaller than most climbers at �ֲ��ý (and the rest of the world). I have to come up with different “beta,” ways or sequences to do a certain climb, and be more dynamic to reach faraway holds.

Why climb shirtless?
Climbing without a shirt is a big part of the bouldering culture. They say it makes you climb harder. Maybe that’s true, or maybe they just want to show off their back muscles. I took my shirt off because it was really hot in the gym, and I didn’t have another shirt to change into before dinner. Plus, I’m too scrawny to show off anything.

�ֲ��ý in Brief World: Taking photos in the Saudi desert

�ֲ��ý Magazine — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 21:01:44 +0000

What She Saw

A group of Saudi boys cavort for the camera during a desert outing. Photograph by Gintare Balseviciute ’13

The ubiquity of photography, thanks to the digital revolution, hasn’t diminished our curious fascination with one kind of camera: the pro-style, single-lens reflex camera.

That partly explains the boys’ euphoria in the photo above, taken by Gintare Balseviciute ’13 last May during a Short Term trip to Saudi Arabia.

While other students snapped away unnoticed with their pocket cameras, these boys cavorted, wrestled and posed for Balseviciute’s Canon SLR. “When they saw the Canon, it was as if they saw a Lamborghini,” Balseviciute says.

The trip to Saudi Arabia was led by Dana Professor of Anthropology Loring Danforth and largely facilitated by Leena Nasser ’12, a politics major from Dhahran.

A rare hijab-free mingling of the genders on the Saudi plains. Photograph by Ana Bisaillon ’12.

One excursion was to a desert farm in the Eastern Province, where the farm’s owner and family feted and entertained Danforth and the 16 �ֲ��ý students.

A rare hijab-free mingling of genders on the Saudi plains.

After camel rides, live music and good food, the �ֲ��ý group headed into the desert in white Toyota Land Cruisers for sand duning, followed by coffee and dates.

At the gathering, the �ֲ��ý women got the OK not to wear their abayas, so the photo above, and the image at right by Ana Bisaillon ’12, also show a rare hijab-free mingling of genders on the Saudi plains. “Not only are the kids seeing Americans, they’re seeing female Americans. And they’re seeing female Americans in Western dress,” Danforth says.

For Nasser, the image conveys other meanings. “Their clothing and the space may reflect the geography, but their spirits in the picture transcend the individual cultural experience,” she says. “I see hope and potential.” — HJB

World Facts

Facebook page African Economist by Desmond Mushi ’13 got 2,000 likes in first month.

Viewers from 28 countries tuned in for the livestream of President Spencer’s installation.

�ֲ��ý publishes a guidebook for students returning from off-campus study.

2013 Short Term course revisits an oral history initiative with orphans of Rwandan genocide.

“English, French nor Malagasy can describe my experience studying rare eagles on uninhabited islands.” — student in Madagascar

Unusual Fun

“Many prestigious independent schools in Britain have internships, usually linked to sport,” says Michael Bettles P’13, an administrator at Heathfield Community School, a state secondary school in Taunton, U.K. “I could see the benefits that the interns bring to those institutions, so I thought: Why should they have all the fun?”

“Why should they have all the fun?”

Thus inspired, Bettles worked with the �ֲ��ý Career Development Center to grab some of the fun for �ֲ��ý and his own institution. The result: performing-arts internships at the Tacchi-Morris Arts Centre, affiliated with Heathfield, that were inaugurated last summer by a current �ֲ��ý student and a 2012 graduate.

“This partnership is exciting because it provides a paid professional internship abroad in the arts, which is unusual,” says Nancy Gibson of the BCDC.

�ֲ��ý Spoken Here

Of �ֲ��ý’ approximately 24,500 alumni, about 580, or 2.4 percent, live outside the U.S. This snapshot taken right before the Mayan end of the world in December shows their numbers and countries.

79
England

67
Canada

49
Japan

23
Germany

22
France
Switzerland

21
Netherlands

15
China

14
Australia
Brazil

13
Sweden

11
India
Singapore

10
Pakistan

9
Greece
Nigeria
Spain
Thailand

8
Ecuador
South Korea

7
Italy
Turkey

6
Hong Kong
New Zealand
Vietnam

5
Cameroon
Malaysia

4
Austria
Bermuda
Israel
Mauritius
Nepal
Norway
Romania
Scotland
Zimbabwe

3
Bulgaria
Czech Republic
Jamaica
Mexico
South Africa
Sri Lanka
United Arab Emirates

2
Argentina
Bangladesh
Belgium
Costa Rica
Denmark
Egypt
Finland
Hungary
Iceland
Indonesia
Ireland
Kenya
Myanmar
Peru
Philippines
Saudi Arabia
Slovakia
Trinidad and
Tobago

1
Albania
Bahamas
Bosnia-Herzegovina
British Virgin Islands
Chile
El Salvador
French Polynesia
Georgia
Ghana
Guatemala
Jordan
Kazakhstan
Latvia
North Korea
Northern Ireland
Panama
Portugal
Russia
Scotland
Senegal
Taiwan
Tajikistan
Tanzania
Ukraine
Venezuela
West Indies
Wales
Yugoslavia

�ֲ��ý in Brief Lewiston: Many and One turns 10, Bobcats in the community

�ֲ��ý Magazine — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 20:40:47 +0000

Many and One, Plus 10

January saw the 10th anniversary of one of the most heartening shows of humane thinking — a joyous pro-diversity rally at �ֲ��ý that drew thousands.

Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College

The January 2003 event in Merrill Gym grew out of a letter that Lewiston mayor Laurier Raymond sent to Lewiston’s growing Somali community the prior October. Claiming that their presence was depleting municipal resources, Raymond asked Somali elders to discourage friends and relatives from coming to town, predicting that continued immigration would mean “negative results for all.”

Sparking widespread outrage, the letter was welcomed by one tiny constituency: a Wyoming-based white supremacist group who saw it as an invitation to hold a rally in Lewiston for their cause.

A determined group of local citizens would have none of that, though. “This is not who we are, and we have to make sure people know that,” said the late Dean of the College James Carignan ’61.

So under the banner of the Many and One Coalition, organizers mounted a counter-rally that drew 4,000 to �ֲ��ý — Somali residents, �ֲ��ý folks, justice activists and top Maine politicians — with John Jenkins ’74, a former mayor of Lewiston and Auburn, serving as master of ceremonies. Drawing national attention, the rally inspired related programming that included church vigils around Maine.

The supremacist rally across town, meanwhile, drew about three dozen participants.

The anniversary was noted this winter with a commemorative event organized by Welcoming Maine, an immigrant-advocacy organization founded by Sarah Davis ’10. — DLH

Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College

Close to Home

Jenny Bergeron ’14 of Lewiston can rest assured: She already knows she’ll be heading to medical school.

Bergeron, a biochemistry major, is the first �ֲ��ý student accepted to the Tufts University School of Medicine’s Early Assurance program, guaranteeing her a spot in the med school’s class of 2018 after she graduates from �ֲ��ý next year.

Bergeron will join Tufts’ Maine Track program, reserved for �ֲ��ý, Bowdoin, Colby and UMaine graduates. �ֲ��ý students do “very well” gaining admission through Maine Track, says Karen Daigler of the �ֲ��ý Career Development Center, ticking off a number of recent grads now at Tufts.

Established in 2008 as a partnership between Tufts and Maine Medical Center, Maine Track includes clinical rotations in rural Maine. The program seeks to train more doctors to serve rural Maine, where, according to state data, only 39 percent of residents have a primary care physician. — HJB

Lewiston Facts

�ֲ��ý students make up about 5 percent of Lewiston’s population.

�ֲ��ý is the third largest employer in Androscoggin County.

When �ֲ��ý needs to remove building furniture temporarily, a Lewiston moving company stores it.

President Spencer ate at a local brew pub, Gritty McDuff’s, on her first visit to �ֲ��ý.

Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College

Lasting Memories

Museum L-A offers a compelling set of online oral histories that reflect the craftsmanship and expertise of shoemakers from Lewiston-Auburn’s once-thriving shoe industry. Below is some of what the late Bernard Charest had to say about the art of hand-sewing shoes:

If you want to become fast at anything, you have to eliminate all the wasted movement, and that’s how Marcel Grondin taught me how to become a fairly decent, fast hand-sewer. You start knocking down the movement, you start speeding up the time.

Dick McBride taught me how to read the leather, how to feel it, how every piece of leather is different. It’s a living thing, and he taught me how the leather talks to you, tells you what it wants to do, how it’s going to come out well.

You may have part of the [upper] that’s going to stretch more than the other part, so you may have to cut some off this side, or purposely last it a little crooked, because leather has a memory. You have to learn how to listen to what it’s telling you, and you can make pairs of shoes that last forever.

Museum L-A oral histories

Give and Go

Besides their more visible exploits on the field, Bobcat athletes support numerous nonprofit programs in the Lewiston-Auburn area.

Free youth clinics
Women’s track, basketball, alpine skiing, softball, baseball, men’s lax, tennis

Good Shepherd Food-Bank
Men’s lax, football, rowing, field hockey

Tree Street Youth and Hillview housing youth programs
Soccer, baseball, squash

Team IMPACT
Softball, squash, tennis, men’s basketball teams “adopt” children facing life-threatening illnesses

Trinity Soup Kitchen
Tennis, men’s soccer

Holiday support for families in need
Softball, baseball, men’s lax, squash

Athletic equipment donation
baseball, men’s lax, men’s soccer, alpine skiing, athletic department

Lewiston High School Science Fair
Men’s lax, tennis

Martin Luther King Jr. Day Read-in
Football

Lewiston Adult Learning tutoring and 5K fundraiser
Nordic skiing

Youth swim lessons
Swimming

Families of Freedom Scholarship Fund
Men’s soccer; $7,000-plus raised for dependents of 9/11

Maine Premier Soccer Inner-City Initiative
Men’s soccer

Youth camp scholarships
Golf

Dempsey Challenge
Field hockey, women’s lax, athletic department

Rebuilding Together L/A
Athletic department

�ֲ��ý Field Day
All 31 teams; nearly 300 children participated last year

�ֲ��ý in Brief Arts & Culture: Astrophotography in Northern Maine

�ֲ��ý Magazine — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 20:19:40 +0000

Shooting Stars

By Doug Hubley

On the first night of a backwoods workshop dedicated to night-sky photography, the weather was clear and a motionless pond mirrored the heavens.

“I spent a few minutes just looking down into the lake,” says Will Strathmann ’13, of Newtown Square, Pa. “I got the same feeling of seeing the sky. I had a little vertigo, and it was very surreal, but stunningly beautiful.”

“Surreal, but stunningly beautiful.” Photograph by Will Strathmann ’13

Strathmann captured that beauty in the panoramic photograph shown above. He was one of 10 students, faculty and staff in the �ֲ��ý workshop held at West Branch Pond Camps, nearly four hours north of campus and some 10 miles east of Kokadjo, Maine.

Leading the workshop was Babak Tafreshi, a journalist, photographer and champion of the night sky. Born in Iran, Tafreshi was one of the artists in Starstruck, the 2012 �ֲ��ý Museum of Art exhibition that was one of the first to treat astrophotography as an artistic genre.

Photograph by Babak Tafreshi

“Being in the right place at the right time.”

Images by Tafreshi, who photographed the circular “fisheye” image above and whose clients include National Geographic, frame the night sky with the ground-level landscape, a genre called landscape astrophotography. “The trick,” he says, “is being in the right place at the right time.” Hence the workshop location: First West Branch Pond, ringed by mountains and trees, for that framing effect.

Still better is its freedom from the light pollution that obscures the stars in so much of the developed world. With an open sky for three of the workshop’s four nights, the lack of light pollution “let us see the Milky Way very stunningly,” says Tafreshi, as well as usually invisible phenomena such as zodiacal light, a faint heavenly glow around sunrise and sunset caused by space dust reflecting the sun’s rays.

Sacrificing shut-eye for shutter time, the group shot all night and spent the daytime editing their digital images. Tafreshi explains that landscape astrophotography can be done with quite ordinary, if judiciously chosen, gear — namely good tripods and fast, wide-angle lenses. “You need to get the use of any photon arriving at your [camera’s] sensor,” he says.

In between shooting, editing and catnaps, the �ֲ��ý group enjoyed the hospitality of camp proprietors Eric Stirling ’97 and his wife, Mildred Stirling. The business has been in Eric’s family since 1910. “I would go back just for the food,” says Megan Lubetkin ’16 of Cape Elizabeth, Maine, who does time-lapse and star-trail photography.

But all in all, there would be plenty to go back for. “It was just so serene,” says Lubetkin. “The lake was so pristine, there was no one else around, and it was just untouched. It was perfect.”

Arts & Culture Facts

In October, singer Dev’s concert rider asked for cough drops, sugar-free Red Bull and beef jerky.

Faculty composer Hiroya Miura premiered a work based on cosmic radiation patterns.

Trumpeter James Jhun ’16 played a fanfare for President Spencer’s arrival at the Inaugural Reception.

Artist-in-residence Dawoud Bey will set up studio in a former Lewiston mill building during Short Term.

A dance by professor Rachel Boggia incorporates video of her father training a horse.

Rhythm-n-Roots

Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College

Kirsten Pianka ’13 of Cleveland performs the dance “Rhythm-n-Roots” last fall, choreographed by guest artist Robin Sanders.

Sanders taught her �ֲ��ý dancers classic hip-hop techniques like popping and tutting, and related hip-hop to traditional West African dances.

A Little Afternoon Music

An assignment to write music for a college president’s inauguration is an honor, for sure, but can be fraught with more than the usual load of expectations.

Esty Professor of Music William Matthews, photographed by Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College

William Matthews, the Alice Swanson Esty Professor of Music, has composed music for three inaugurations at �ֲ��ý and one elsewhere. The music must be something, he says, “that can be performed by undergraduates with limited rehearsal time, will inspire a lay audience, will please the dedicatee, reflects musical styles of our time and reflects our institutional values.”

For President Spencer’s Oct. 26 installation, Matthews composed a setting for “The House Was Quiet and the World Was Calm,” a Wallace Stevens poem that Spencer selected. Scoring it for the college’s orchestra and choir, he included a neat twist to emphasize the “world” concept: recitations by three students in their native languages, Urdu, Nepali and Korean. — DLH

�ֲ��ý in Brief Sports: Football’s winning season, cross-country heads to NCAAs

�ֲ��ý Magazine — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 19:05:39 +0000

Five Great Moments

The Winning Season

Sept. 22: Trinity 37, �ֲ��ý 16
Sept. 29: �ֲ��ý 31, Tufts 23
Oct. 6: �ֲ��ý 33, Williams 6
Oct. 13: Wesleyan 24, �ֲ��ý 22
Oct. 20: Middlebury 38, �ֲ��ý 23
Oct. 27: �ֲ��ý 31, Colby 6
Nov. 3: �ֲ��ý 14, Bowdoin 6
Nov. 10: �ֲ��ý 47, Hamilton 33

bold = home team

From last fall’s memorable football campaign — a 5–3 record (best since 1981), an outright CBB title, NESCAC co-coach of the year honors for Mark Harriman — here are five great ones.

ONE: ‘Everyone Touches’

Oct. 6, Week 3 vs. Williams, pre-game

As �ֲ��ý marches onto Garcelon Field, each player and coach touches the jersey of Troy Pappas ’16, a teammate who had died the day before, six days after falling down a Parker Hall stairwell.

The No. 8 jersey is held high by team captain Patrick George ’13 of Gloucester, Mass., who says over and over, “Everyone touches.”

A few days earlier, with the team grieving their gravely ill teammate, Harriman had gathered his players off campus for a special dinner at Gipper’s Sports Grill. There, he told the team that the Williams game would be played. “That was my message: We’ve signed on to do this, now it’s time to go back to work,” he says.

As for the Bobcats’ mindset vs. Williams, a 33–6 victory one day after Pappas’ death, Harriman says, “I don’t know if a team will ever get that high again.”

�ֲ��ý players touch the No. 8 jersey of the late Troy Pappas ’16 while entering Garcelon Field for the Williams game, as Pappas’ uncle Gary Blackwell (�ֲ��ý shirt) and President Spencer (black coat) show their support. Photograph by Mike Bradley

TWO: ‘We’re Good’

Oct. 6, Week 3 vs. Williams, first quarter, first and 10 at the �ֲ��ý 18

Williams drives smartly into Bobcat territory and it all feels familiar, but not in a good way. Sure enough, Eph quarterback Adam Marske lobs a high pass into the end zone to 6-foot-3 Darren Hartwell, a three-time All-NESCAC receiver — but 5-foot-9 cornerback Michael Lee ’16 of Bealeton, Va., outfights Hartwell for an interception. Hartwell is held to one catch for 4 yards.

“That play crystallized where our talent level was,” Harriman says. “It wasn’t just about playing tough. It was about being physically pretty close to where we need to be against teams like that.”

Slot receiver Mac Jackson ’15 of Hood River, Ore., stiff-arms a Wesleyan defender — emblematic of coach Mark Harriman’s statement that the Bobcats in 2012 were physically on par with any NESCAC team. Photograph by Mike Bradley

THREE: Triple Play

Oct. 27, Week 6 vs. Colby, third quarter, first and 10 at the �ֲ��ý 3

A 52-yard Colby punt pins �ֲ��ý at its own 3. On first down, quarterback Trevor Smith ’13 of Malvern, Pa., keeps the ball for 8 yards, the first of nine consecutive rushes by Smith and three different �ֲ��ý backs, to whom Smith deftly pitches or hands off. At midfield, Smith passes to Shawn Doherty ’14 of Mansfield, Mass. — “the fastest player we’ve ever had,” says Harriman — on a perfectly run hitch in the left flat, and Doherty gallops for the score.

The triple-option offense requires precision rather than brute strength. It’s Fred Astaire, not Gene Kelly, and in 2012 Smith made the �ֲ��ý offense boogie.

FOUR: Take a Seat

Nov. 3, Week 7 vs. Bowdoin, fourth quarter, fourth and 1 at the �ֲ��ý 34

On fourth and 1, Bowdoin goes for it and loses a yard, stuffed by Matt Gaither ’13 of Winchester, Mass. On its next possession, Bowdoin tries again on fourth and 1 at the Bobcat 14. This time John Durkin ’15 of Rye Beach, N.H., and Josh Chronopoulos ’13 of Tyngsboro, Mass., drop Bowdoin for a loss. A good defense gets offenses off the field in key situations, and �ֲ��ý came up big in 2012.

FIVE: Pick 18

Nov. 10, Week 8 vs. Hamilton, fourth quarter, third and goal from the �ֲ��ý 1

In a shootout that will end with a 47–33 �ֲ��ý win, linebacker Gilbert Brown ’15 of Gloucester, Mass., seals the victory by intercepting a pass in the end zone and returning it 101 yards for a touchdown. It’s one of a record three pick sixes in 2012, a year that saw the Bobcats lead the nation in average turnover margin (+2.25 per game).

Brown’s return is 1 yard shy of the 102-yard return by Barney Marcus ’37 vs. Maine in 1936.

Athletics Facts

Bobcat athletics livestream is at bates.edu/athletics/live.

Men’s hoops coach Jon Furbush ’05’s brother Charlie pitches for the Mariners.

Lyric from the �ֲ��ý fight song: “Today the garnet Bobcat conquers again.”

700 campus people signed the athletics Ally Pledge supporting LGBT persons.

John Murphy ’13 competed in front of 20 scouts at a pro soccer combine in January.

First for Everything

Photograph by Mike Bradley

While it’s common for individuals in sports like track or cross-country to earn a spot in a national meet, it’s harder to earn a team bid.

But in 2012, both the �ֲ��ý men’s and women’s teams earned bids in the NCAA Division III Cross-Country Championships, held in Terre Haute, Ind. Never before had both �ֲ��ý teams earned spots the same year.

Here, the women bring it in before their race on Nov. 17.

The men finished sixth in the nation, up from seventh in 2011. The women, in their first NCAA team appearance since 1997, placed 19th.

�ֲ��ý in Brief College: The man behind the Kroepsch name

�ֲ��ý Magazine — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 18:42:47 +0000

David Kroepsch’s uncle Robert Kroepsch ’33 established the signature �ֲ��ý teaching award. Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College

What’s in a Name?
The Kroepsch Award

At �ֲ��ý, the name “Kroepsch” means great teaching: The college’s Kroepsch Award honors professors who excel in the classroom, such as the recently announced 2013 winner, Loring Danforth, Dana Professor of Anthropology.

To others, the name Kroepsch conjures memories of “Uncle Bob,” a frugal man who served cocktails to dinner guests in his car before heading into restaurants, and a noted higher-education authority who once gave three commencement speeches in one day — and submitted the feat to Guinness World Records.

“Uncle Bob” is the late Robert Kroepsch ’33, LL.D. ’71, who funded the annual �ֲ��ý teaching award with his wife, Ruth.

Last fall, Robert’s grandnephew David Kroepsch (shown here) visited campus with his wife, Suzanne, to say hello to 2012 Kroepsch winner Kati Vecsey of the theater department.

Robert Kroepsch’s frugality influenced his career. For many years, he headed a consortium of public and private universities in the West that worked to eliminate the wasteful duplication of programs.

“He was really proud that someone at UC–San Diego wasn’t doing the exact same project as the University of Oregon,” David said. “It was very important to him to know that we could make more progress because of that coordinated educational effort.”

While the Kroepsch name is ubiquitous at �ֲ��ý, you won’t find it in the pages of Guinness. “Uncle Bob found out there’s no category for commencement speeches,” says David. — HJB

The College Facts

Former Dining Services director Christine Schwartz now heads �ֲ��ý’ new events office.

Off-campus Welcome Events with President Spencer are breaking event attendance records.

Pearson Appointed VP

Photograph by Jose Leiva

Sarah Pearson ’75 returned to her alma mater last August as the new vice president for college advancement.

In the advancement world, Pearson is considered a leader among leaders. In the 2012 book Making the Case for Leadership, Pearson is one of 10 U.S. advancement leaders profiled, and is singled out for bringing creative strategies to fundraising and engagement initiatives.

Pearson comes to �ֲ��ý after serving as chief development officer of the Broad Institute of Harvard University and MIT, a leading biomedical research institution.

“�ֲ��ý alumni around the globe have much to be proud of,” she says. “We are clear about our strengths, passionate about the value of �ֲ��ý’ distinctive brand of liberal arts education and committed to working together to ensure that future generations will benefit from the shared �ֲ��ý experience.”

�ֲ��ý in Brief Academics: New professors and why they do what they do

�ֲ��ý Magazine — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 18:40:37 +0000

Faculty with Forebears

New tenure-track professors don’t step into a vacuum when they arrive — they often replace retired professors.

This fall, for example, neuroscientist Jason Castro succeeded John Kelsey, who started his �ֲ��ý career in 1979 (when Castro was 1 year old) and retired last year. And there are bittersweet legacies, such as Paul Shea succeeding the late David Aschauer, who died of natural causes during a triathlon in 2011.

Here are the new tenure-track additions to the faculty:

Paul Shea

Who: Paul Shea, economics
He succeeds: David Aschauer, passed away 2011
Why he’s an economist: To create better ways to predict consumer expectations. “Economists really don’t agree on how people form expectations,” he says. Shea seeks to model consumer expectations in a way that the theoretical people in his models “are just about as smart as the people who are actually making decisions in the economy.”

Larissa Williams

Who: Larissa Williams
She succeeds: Joe Pelliccia, retired
Why she’s a biologist: To study the process of evolution as it happens. “I look at the differences between the genomes of animals and plants that live in clean places and in polluted places to find suggestions of how they survive in the polluted environments.”

Rachel Boggia

Who: Rachel Boggia
She succeeds: No one — she’s the second tenure-track dance faculty member
Why she’s a dance professor: Majoring in neurobiology and behavior at Cornell, she studied dance all the while. There, she discovered the power of technology in dance when her teacher Byron Suber put her in “smart shoes” that enabled her to create her own sound score.

Ali Humayun Akhtar

Who: Ali Humayun Akhtar, religious studies and classical and medieval studies
He succeeds: Susan Schomberg, did not return
Why he’s a religious studies scholar: To interpret the medieval Mediterranean, a fascinating patchwork of Islamic and Christian kingdoms, where theologians and merchants worked in a spectrum of languages. Students of the liberal arts today, he suggests, “have the potential to become a new generation of paradigm-shifting modern polymaths in the way that Averroes, Maimonides and Aquinas shifted the historical trajectory of philosophy and science.”

Raluca Cernahoschi

Who: Raluca Cernahoschi, German (joint appointment with Jakub Kazecki)
They succeed: Denis Sweet (retired)
Why she’s a German scholar: It’s partly to investigate literature produced by ethnic German authors in Romania who came of age after World War II. These writers have had to position and reposition themselves vis-à-vis their country’s shifting political and social landscapes.

Jakub Kazecki

Who: Jakub Kazecki, German (joint appointment with Raluca Cernahoschi)
They succeed: Denis Sweet (retired)
Why he’s a German scholar: It’s in part to explain the role of humor in wartime. The author of Laughter in the Trenches, Kazecki points out that humor operates in similar ways across various constructs of identity. For example, Erich Maria Remarque is considered a pacifist, but what his soldiers laugh at in All Quiet on the Western Front is “what soldiers in works by more conservative authors laugh at,” Kazecki says. “They subscribe to a similar set of values.”

Jason Castro

Who: Jason Castro, psychology
He succeeds: John Kelsey (retired)
Why he’s a neuroscientist: “I find it fascinating that all of our ineffable experiences — smells, sounds, emotions, memories, cravings — are ultimately the products of activity in a very physical and complex object in our heads.”

Academics Facts

Chemist Glen Lawson won a $350,000 NIH grant to study cold–causing picornaviruses.

The day before fall semester begins is the busiest for �ֲ��ý.edu as students check schedules.

The Chronicle of Higher Education calls �ֲ��ý a “Top Producer” of Fulbrights.

Of the 26 endowed professorships, four are in economics.

The 2013 honors thesis deadline is March 22 at 3 p.m.

Service Return

A decade ago, when �ֲ��ý psychologist Michael Sargent helped Saul Miller ’04 score an internship with prominent Harvard social psychologist Mahzarin Banaji, the scope of Sargent’s gift eluded Miller.

Miller gets it now.

“As a faculty member myself, I realize how hard it must have been for Michael to get me that internship, and what a great opportunity it was,” says Miller, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Kentucky.

Generous service to students, and to the discipline of psychology as a whole, caught the eye of the American Psychological Association. Last fall, the APA awarded the �ֲ��ý psychology department its Departmental Award for Culture of Service in the Psychological Sciences.

This depiction by illustrator Alfred Garth Jones (1872–1955) of the Peasants Revolt features a male mob, but Associate Professor of English Sylvia Federico’s research proves that women stormed the castle, too.

Women of the Mob

England’s Peasants Revolt of 1381 is typically depicted like the mob scene in a Frankenstein movie: men rallying with pointy implements, women unseen.

But research by Sylvia Federico, associate professor of English, helped the BBC tell a different story last year.

During the 1381 revolt (over taxes, natch), women did “almost everything” that men did, Federico told the BBC. “They were not shy to pick up sticks and staves and wield them against perceived oppressors.”

Federico first published her findings back in 2001 in the scholarly article “The Imaginary Society: Women in 1381” in the Journal of British Studies. Last June, the BBC sought out Federico for its story on the anniversary of the day 631 years ago when rebels dragged Lord Chancellor Simon of Sudbury from the Tower of London and beheaded him.

This Just In

Recent �ֲ��ý-authored articles in academic journals, including some with alumni co-authors who contributed senior thesis research.

Article: “The Effect of Mixing Events on the Dynamics of pH1N1 Outbreaks at Small Residential Colleges”

Publication: Journal of American College Health

Authors: Karen Palin (biology) and Meredith Greer (mathematics)

What It Explains: Sharing lessons from the 2009 H1N1 outbreak at �ֲ��ý, the authors find that small residential colleges should be aware of student mingling patterns when offering vaccine clinics during an outbreak. While helpful, such clinics tend to alter student interaction patterns, and students mingling with different students than usual can actually hasten the spread of a virus.

Article: “Chinese Fandom and Potential Marketing Strategies for Expanding the Market for American Professional Sports into China”

Publication: International Journal of Sports Marketing & Sponsorship

Authors: Su Langdon (psychology) and co-author Sam Kaplan ’09

What It Explains: Chinese fans of U.S. sports seem to appreciate aesthetics and connection to the sport more than its entertainment value, “telling us that when marketing American pro sports to Chinese, focus less on thrills and action and more on beauty and grace and sense of connection,” Langdon says.

Myron Beasley, faculty member in African American studies and American cultural studies. Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen.

Article: “Curatorial Studies on the Edge: The Ghetto Biennale, a Junkyard, and the Performance of Possibility”
Publication: Journal of Curatorial Studies

Author: Myron Beasley (African American studies and American cultural studies)

What It Explains: Insights into the 2009 Ghetto Biennale in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, where international artists worked alongside artists of the Grand Rue against the backdrop of international politics and national disaster, with the earthquake occurring just weeks after the Biennale.

Article: “Chronic Hyperoxia and the Development of the Carotid Body”

Publication: Respiratory Physiology and Neurobiology

Authors: Ryan Bavis (biology), research associate Liz Dmitrieff and Sarah Fallon ’12

What It Explains: Additional proof that the development of the human respiratory system is more vulnerable to environmental perturbations than once thought.

�ֲ��ý in Brief Campus: Reidy’s inaugural stage design, award-winning website

�ֲ��ý Magazine — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 18:08:35 +0000

Stage Father

Michael Reidy marched into Merrill Gym with the rest of the crowd for the installation of President Clayton Spencer on Oct. 26.

But Reidy had a unique perspective on the ceremony: It all played out on a stage that he had designed.

Seeing the big stage in action “was quite a thrill, actually,” says Reidy, senior lecturer and managing director of the college’s theater and dance department.

As inaugural plans evolved last summer and fall, the number of people on stage grew to 100 or so, including the college choir, orchestra and a 19-member platform party.

With all those participants, Reidy — whose work as a top Maine theatrical designer goes back decades — knew that his stage had to provide visual organization for viewers, both in the gym and watching a live Web stream of the event.

So he rotated the footprint of the square stage approximately 45 degrees, such that a corner, bearing the podium, jutted into the audience. (The cherry-wood podium, designed by Reidy and fabricated by Facility Services craftsmen Thomas Winslow and Danny Sands, also had a prowlike form that accentuated the reach toward the crowd.)

That angle opened up sightlines for the three video camera operators and the gym audience. For more visual differentiation, Reidy situated each onstage group at a different height. And, thinking of video, he composed an aluminum-and-fabric backdrop onto which different colors could be projected.

The components had a built-in twist that graced the angular stage with gentle curves. Sheathed in translucent fabric, each column contained an opaque internal panel that gave depth and variation to the light bouncing off.

“As you walked through the space, the parts appeared to shift and change against each other,” Reidy says.

Reidy’s team also included trusty student assistants who made sure the technical aspects of two plays and a dance program over at Schaeffer Theatre, a total of 11 performances, ran like clockwork. “Without the students I really couldn’t do anything that I do,” he says, and that was more true than ever last autumn.

“It was fairly intense in our world for a couple of weeks.” — DLH

A team from Vermont-based YBVisuals captures video and photographs from their radio-controlled multicopter atop Mount David on Oct. 17, 2012. Photograph by Mike Bradley

Campus Facts

Not Hathorn Hall but Nash House (1849) is the oldest campus building.

December saw an influx of pine grosbeaks — they love berries and crabapples.

The People Have Spoken

The newly redesigned �ֲ��ý website, which debuted in November 2011, won top honors in a 2012 competition sponsored by eduStyle, a leading website for higher education Web design professionals. �ֲ��ý won top honors in both the judged and People’s Choice categories for Best Overall Website, and won the popular award for Best Home Page.

�ֲ��ý in Brief Students: Chiao ’13 climbs walls, Dube ’16 vows silence, Cravero ’13 wins Trashion honors

�ֲ��ý Magazine — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 17:23:11 +0000

Climbing the Walls with Chester Chiao ’13

Chester Chiao ’13 trains on the rock wall in Merill Gymnasium Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College

What are you doing in this picture? I am training for endurance: keeping myself on the wall as long as possible. Why do you climb? I ask myself that question when I am 500 feet above ground on a vertical rock face, freezing my butt off. Weirdly enough, I think climbing keeps me sane. Climbing helps me discover my limits, face my fears and overcome them. It also teaches me how to be both physically and mentally in check. How does climbing fit into your �ֲ��ý life? My buddies and I always look for adventures on the weekends — trying to get on multi-pitch climbs in North Conway, N.H., or pulling on hard sport climbs in Shagg Crag, about 15 miles east of Bethel, Maine. Does your style differ from other �ֲ��ý climbers? I am smaller than most climbers at �ֲ��ý (and the rest of the world). I have to come up with different “beta,” ways or sequences to do a certain climb, and be more dynamic to reach faraway holds. Why climb shirtless? Climbing without a shirt is a big part of the bouldering culture. They say it makes you climb harder. Maybe that’s true, or maybe they just want to show off their back muscles. I took my shirt off because it was really hot in the gym, and I didn’t have another shirt to change into before dinner. Plus, I’m too scrawny to show off anything.

Capping It Off

This bespoke investment piece earned top honors at the 2012 Trashion Show. And why not? Model Annie Cravero ’13 of Hanover, N.H., rocks a skirt fashioned from thrifted plastic bags (similar in quality to that four-season Maine fabric, the blue tarp), bags that last fall hauled AESOP trail mix. The leaf-bag bodice is studded with tabs and caps donated by students. As one alumna noted on Facebook, “I would so wear that bottle cap number.” So chica.

Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College

Student Facts

Though optional, 51 percent of last year’s incoming freshmen submitted SAT scores. About 10 percent of �ֲ��ý graduates go directly to graduate school. The Green Bikes program maintains 20-plus bikes for student use. �ֲ��ý students coordinate more than 100 organizations and clubs on campus. Admission deans now read student applications online rather than in hard copy.

How You Talk

“I am taking a vow of silence in protest of a recent hate speech incident,” the sign read. “Stop hate speech at �ֲ��ý.” Wearing that sign and letting it speak for him for 12 hours on Nov. 1 was Phillip Dube ’16 of Norton, Zimbabwe. In one of the more effective acts of protest on a campus that has seen its share, Dube undertook his public vow of silence in response to a racial slur directed at him.

The encounter was “not consistent with what I thought about �ֲ��ý.”

Dube was hurt and shocked when, in his own dorm room, a fellow student used the slur against him during a social gathering. It was an encounter “not consistent with what I thought about �ֲ��ý,” he told The �ֲ��ý Student. And he didn’t just swallow it: Instead, he pressed silence into service as an eloquent comment about the poison of hateful language on campus. Campus reaction was widespread and sympathetic. President Spencer praised him for parlaying a negative experience into a focus for reflection. Commons fell silent for a minute in his support. And geology professor Beverly Johnson, who teaches Dube in a course, devoted class time to a consciousness-raising exercise in which students were asked to recount their own experiences of hate speech, at �ֲ��ý or elsewhere. “There are 18 students in the class,” Dube told the Student, “and everyone had something to say.” — DLH

�ֲ��ý remembers Troy Pappas ’16

Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College

Football players grieve for their teammate during an Oct. 11 memorial service in the Gomes Chapel honoring Troy Pappas ’16, who died Oct. 5 of injuries suffered in a fall down a Parker Hall stairwell.

�ֲ���ý in Brief – News

�ֲ���ý in Brief Sightings: First-years return from AESOP excursions in Maine

When climbing, ‘nothing else matters,’ says Chester Chiao ’13

�ֲ���ý in Brief World: Taking photos in the Saudi desert

World Facts

Unusual Fun

�ֲ���ý Spoken Here

�ֲ���ý in Brief Lewiston: Many and One turns 10, Bobcats in the community

Close to Home

Lewiston Facts

Lasting Memories

Give and Go

�ֲ���ý in Brief Arts & Culture: Astrophotography in Northern Maine

Arts & Culture Facts

Rhythm-n-Roots

A Little Afternoon Music

�ֲ���ý in Brief Sports: Football’s winning season, cross-country heads to NCAAs

The Winning Season

ONE: ‘Everyone Touches’

TWO: ‘We’re Good’

THREE: Triple Play

FOUR: Take a Seat

FIVE: Pick 18

Athletics Facts

First for Everything

�ֲ���ý in Brief College: The man behind the Kroepsch name

The College Facts

Pearson Appointed VP

�ֲ���ý in Brief Academics: New professors and why they do what they do

Here are the new tenure-track additions to the faculty:

Academics Facts

Service Return

Women of the Mob

This Just In

�ֲ���ý in Brief Campus: Reidy’s inaugural stage design, award-winning website

Campus Facts

The People Have Spoken

�ֲ���ý in Brief Students: Chiao ’13 climbs walls, Dube ’16 vows silence, Cravero ’13 wins Trashion honors

Capping It Off

Student Facts

How You Talk

�ֲ���ý remembers Troy Pappas ’16

�ֲ��ý in Brief – News

�ֲ��ý in Brief Sightings: First-years return from AESOP excursions in Maine

�ֲ��ý in Brief World: Taking photos in the Saudi desert

�ֲ��ý Spoken Here

�ֲ��ý in Brief Lewiston: Many and One turns 10, Bobcats in the community

�ֲ��ý in Brief Arts & Culture: Astrophotography in Northern Maine

�ֲ��ý in Brief Sports: Football’s winning season, cross-country heads to NCAAs

�ֲ��ý in Brief College: The man behind the Kroepsch name

�ֲ��ý in Brief Academics: New professors and why they do what they do

�ֲ��ý in Brief Campus: Reidy’s inaugural stage design, award-winning website

�ֲ��ý in Brief Students: Chiao ’13 climbs walls, Dube ’16 vows silence, Cravero ’13 wins Trashion honors

�ֲ��ý remembers Troy Pappas ’16