Elizabeth Strout ’77

Elizabeth Strout on Returning to Olive Kitteridge — The New Yorker

Elizabeth Strout ’77 thought she was “done” with Olive Kitteridge, the central character in her 2008 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name. Until, she told New Yorker fiction editor Deborah Triesman, one day in a European cafe when Olive “just showed up.”

Pulitzer Prize–winning author Elizabeth Strout ’77 stands with President Clayton Spencer following her 2017 Reunion discussion with Spencer. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Olive, Again, will be published in October. The sequel features Olive as she ages and her interactions with other characters deepen and change.

The books’ Maine setting, Strout told Triesman, is inextricable from its characters. “Olive — my Olive — would not be Olive if she lived anywhere but Maine,” she said. “She is like a barnacle clinging to the rock of the place.”

Read the story:

• “,” The New Yorker, July 29, 2019

See also:

• “,” Portland Press Herald, Sept. 1, 2019

Michelle Greene

�ֲ���ý College receives its largest-ever federal grant — Multiple outlets

Maine and national outlets covered the announcement that �ֲ���ý received a $3.97 million National Science Foundation grant to build a video database to support research in fields that rely on the analysis and recognition of images, such as neuroscience, cognitive science, and artificial intelligence.

Assistant Professor of Neuroscience Michelle Greene, the principal investigator for the grant, will lead the creation of a Visual Experience Database comprising some 240 hours of video clips that depict everyday human activities and, importantly, simulate human vision and track head and eye movement.

Assistant Professor of Neuroscience Michelle Greene (right) works with student researcher Hanna De Bruyn ’18 to prepare an EEG test in March 2018. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

As Greene told Maine Public, the process of collecting video clips for the database will involve trained members of the project team, including �ֲ���ý students, “going out into the world wearing head-mounted cameras, like a GoPro. We’ll be recording what the world looks like as we engage in some common, everyday activities.”

Read the stories:

• “,” Sun Journal, Aug. 16, 2019
• “,” Maine Public, Aug. 16, 2019
• “,” The Associated Press, Aug. 16, 2019

Peter Goodrich ’89

Timeout: 9/11 still a painful day for those who knew Peter Goodrich — Sun Journal

On the 18th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Sun Journal sportswriter Tony Blasi returned to the story of Peter Goodrich ’89, the track and field All-American who died on Flight 175.

Blasi had interviewed, written about, and gotten to know Goodrich as a student as he racked up track and field awards and majored in math and physics.

Peter Goodrich ’89, shown throwing the shot put for �ֲ���ý, “was a gentleman,” said classmate Greg Nespole ’89. (Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library)

This year, Blasi talked to Goodrich’s classmate Gregory Nespole ’89. “Peter was a kind, thoughtful man who was modest, though highly exceptional as a student and athlete — a gentleman,” Nespole told him.

A lawyer, Nespole has long worked in Lower Manhattan, and his office is near the 9/11 Memorial. “I lost many friends,” he said. “It is still a painful day.”

Read the story:

• “,” Sun Journal, Sept. 11, 2019

Christopher Petrella ’06

Colin Kaepernick wants you to know your rights — PAPER magazine

Chris Petrella ’06 had a in a recent issue of PAPER focusing on human rights.

The issue, called a “,” by the New York Daily News, carried the theme “Know Your Rights” and featured Q&A interviews with 10 black thought leaders, including 2018 �ֲ���ý Commencement speaker Bryan Stevenson.

Christopher Petrella ’06, director of engagement at American University’s Antiracist Research & Policy Center, makes a point during a meeting of the college’s Justice and Equity Reading Group in 2017, when he was a �ֲ���ý faculty lecturer member of the Office of Intercultural Education staff. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

The issue’s lead story, “Colin Kaepernick Wants You To Know Your Rights,” was written by Petrella along with radio host Miabelle Bocicault and scholar Ameer Hasan Loggins. The trio also wrote the introductions to each Q&A story.

The entire issue was guest-edited by Kaepernick, the football player-turned-social activist, whose current efforts with his Know Your Rights camps teaches young people their legal rights and, importantly, how to exercise them.

A friend and part of Kaepernick’s inner circle, Petrella is director of engagement at American University’s Antiracist Research & Policy Center.

Read the stories:

• “,” PAPER Magazine, Fall 2019

Michael Rocque

The U.S. Attorney got the numbers wrong. Here’s a look at D.C.’s actual incarceration rate — DCist

A recent debate in Washington, D.C., saw criminal-justice reform advocates saying that D.C. imprisons more people than any of the 50 states. At the same time, the district’s U.S. Attorney said the opposite, that it sends fewer people to prison than any state.

The news website DCist turned to criminologist Michael Rocque, associate professor of sociology at �ֲ���ý, to untangle the numbers.

Michael Rocque, associate professor of sociology. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Ultimately, you can’t compare D.C. statistics to state statistics, said Rocque, “just as I would caution against comparing NYC to Maine.”

The contrasting data points were bandied about during a public debate over a D.C. Council bill that would “expand opportunities for certain violent offenders to petition for a reduced sentence,” according to the DCist story.

After its initial claim, the U.S. Attorney backtracked and admitted that it had used federal data that only counted inmates at the D.C. jail as opposed to D.C. inmates held by the U.S. Bureau of Prisons in federal facilities across the country.

Read the story:

• “,” DCist, Sept. 10, 2019

Edmund Muskie ’36

During his 1972 presidential race, Maine’s Edmund Muskie faced at least three death threats — Sun Journal

FBI files related to Edmund Muskie ’36 and released to the Sun Journal revealed that Muskie received three death threats while campaigning for the 1972 Democratic nomination for president.

“It doesn’t appear from the 1,038 pages of material released to the Sun Journal that the FBI ever tracked down two of the culprits,” wrote the paper’s Steve Collins, who obtained the files through a Freedom of Information Act request. “Federal prosecutors opted not to charge the other, a mentally ill man quickly found by agents.”

Edmund Muskie ’36 and supporters at a 1968 campaign event, location unknown. (Burton Burinsky / Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library)

Collins also learned that Muskie had a police record (sort of). “On Dec. 28, 1965, in the tiny town of Centreville on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, Muskie was issued a criminal summons at Broadwater Farms for ‘attempting to take migratory water fowl with the aid of bait,’�ĝ writes Collins.

Muskie paid the $25 fine.

Read the story:

• “,” Sun Journal, Aug. 31, 2019

Clifford Odle

‘The Petition’ addresses black liberation and white allyship in the Old State House — WBUR

Jerome Campbell of Boston public radio station WBUR sat in on a performance of The Petition, a play by Lecturer in Theater Clifford Odle that explores the contradictions of the American Revolution when it comes to slavery.

The immersive play, in which audiences sit around a table in the Old State House Museum in Boston, is about Prince Hall, a free black man who unsuccessfully petitioned the Massachusetts assembly to abolish slavery.

Lecturer in Theater Clifford Odle (right) talks with Professor of French and Francophone Studies Kirk Read during Opening Convocation on Sept 3. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

In the play, Hall’s friend and ally Joseph Warren encourages the petition but ultimately prioritizes the “liberation” of white colonists from British rule.

It’s an example of the harm of white inaction, Odle told Campbell. “Unless you are arguing and agitating for people to have the same rights that you already have, unless you are willing to put your privilege on the line, the job is not done.”

Read the story:

• “,” WBUR, Aug. 27, 2019

Julia Sleeper-Whiting ’08

Local people who are all about the work share what motivates them — Sun Journal

A Lewiston Sun Journal article on what motivates community members’ work featured Julia Sleeper-Whiting ’08, co-founder and executive director of Tree Street Youth.

Julia Sleeper ’08 (right), co-founder and executive director of Tree Street Youth, speaks in 2016 with then-Lewiston High student Binto Matan and Gene Geiger, who supported an expansion of the youth center. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

“Work is about creating solutions to things happening around us and solving challenges in the world,” Sleeper-Whiting told reporter Beth Herman. “As long as your focus remains on the greater purpose, the work itself remains relevant and meaningful.”

Read the story:

• “,” Sun Journal, Aug. 31, 2019

Ann Kranjec Fortescue ’84

New IMAS exec seeks cross-culture experiences — The Monitor

Francisco E. Jimenez of The Monitor of McAllen, Texas, profiled Ann Kranjec Fortescue ’84, the new president and executive director of the International Museum of Art and Science.

Fortescue said her 35-year career in museums was inspired in part by a �ֲ���ý course on 19th-century European history that included a visit to a historical farm.

“We spent two days on this farm, harvesting rye with a scythe and experiencing what it was like to live as closely as we could to 19th-century peasant farmers,” she told Jimenez. “That was when a switch went off in my head in terms of, ‘I could actually work in a museum and teach with objects.’”

Read the story:

• “,” The Monitor, Sept. 3, 2019

�ֲ���ý College

New students at �ֲ���ý College told to become activists — Sun Journal

The Sun Journal covered �ֲ���ý’ Opening Convocation, in which labor activist and civil rights leader Dolores Huerta received an honorary degree and delivered the keynote address.

The 89-year-old co-founder of the United Farm Workers told the incoming Class of 2023 to learn their history and engage politically to get the country “off the road to fascism.”

Dolores Huerta acknowledges applause as she’s given an honorary degree at Opening Convocation. Ready to present her with the honorary hood is Michael Murray, Phillips Professor of Economics. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

“The wonderful thing about a democracy is that we can change things,” she said. But “nothing is going to change unless you decide to change it.”

Read the story:

• “,” Sun Journal, Sept. 3, 2019

See also:

• “Convocation speaker Dolores Huerta to the Class of 2023: ‘We have the power,’�ĝ �ֲ���ýNews, Sept. 4, 2019

James F. Amaral ’80

“We want people to bake”: Baker, food writer team up to publish book — The Lincoln County News

Jessica Clifford of Maine’s Lincoln County News interviewed Borealis Breads owner Jim Amaral ’80, who wrote a cookbook with food writer Cynthia Finnemore Simonds.

Amaral told Clifford that the goal of the book, Borealis Breads: 75 Recipes for Breads, Soups, Sides, and More, is to encourage people to bake, even if it costs him business at his popular bakery.

“It’s hard not to feel good about yourself when you bake a loaf of bread, no matter how it turns out,” Amaral said. “It’s a life-affirming thing when you bake – you’re nourishing yourself, you are nourishing your family.”

Read the story:

• “,” The Lincoln County News, Sept. 9, 2019

Monuments to Confederate leaders celebrate white supremacy and should be removed from public spaces, participants in a �ֲ���ý panel agreed Monday night.

But removing such monuments would mean little without an understanding of why they were created, how racism persists today, and how to move forward.

“The value of history in relation to these debates is just as much about absence as it is about presence,” said , a lecturer in history and Mellon Diversity and Faculty Renewal Postdoctoral Fellow.

The panel discussion, which filled a room in Pettengill Hall, was held to shed light on issues of white supremacy and Confederate monuments in the wake of in Charlottesville, Va. It was sponsored by the Department of History and the Office of Equity and Diversity and moderated by Christopher Petrella ’06, lecturer in humanities and associate director of programs at the OED.

Extra chairs were needed for �ֲ���ý community members who attended “Responding to Charlottesville: Historical Perspectives,” a panel discussion on fighting racism, Confederate monuments, and activism in academics. (Theophil Syslo/�ֲ���ý College)

The wide-ranging discussion encompassed the historical and geographic context of Confederate monuments and the intersection of anti-racist activism and academia, as well as issues of activism on social media and the role of violence in protests.

Baker said focusing only on Confederate monuments risks forgetting that racism and white supremacy were not unique to the South in the 19th century. In fact, monuments to Confederate leaders were erected in the early 20th century, partly in reaction to an emerging civil rights movement.

For their part, Northerners were complicit in advancing white supremacy, both before and after the Civil War, Baker said. For example, 20th-century historians whose work sought to legitimize the idea that slavery was positive and black suffrage negative were not primarily from Southern institutions, he said.

Racism has “always been a part of America itself, and so that touches all of us,” said Lecturer in History Andrew Baker. (Theophil Syslo/�ֲ���ý College)

It is important, therefore, not only to remove Confederate monuments, but to look at history closer to home, Baker said — at, for example, Benjamin �ֲ���ý, who made his fortune in Maine selling clothing made from slave-grown cotton and later gave some of that fortune to namesake �ֲ���ý College.

People who live anywhere with a difficult racial history “generally like to say that it belonged to a different time,” Baker said. “I think we need to address that lie head on and recognize that these problems are everywhere, it’s always been a part of America itself, and so that touches all of us.”

Creating and focusing on Confederate monuments, added history department chair Margaret Creighton, meant that other stories from the Civil War are left behind. She recalled how, during fieldwork in Gettysburg, Pa., she and her students met an African American woman whose ancestors had lived in the town during the Civil War and either suffered under or fought against Confederate soldiers.

Professor of History Margaret Creighton said the presence of Confederate monuments ignores other people’s stories from the Civil War. “Their history was never written.” (Theophil Syslo/�ֲ���ý College)

“We can talk all we want about the issue of erasing monuments, but there are many people for whom monuments were never built,” Creighton said. “Their history was never written. Filmmakers never made a documentary about them.” 

Assistant Professor of History Patrick Otim, meanwhile, placed Confederate monuments in a global context. Otim said his native Uganda and other African countries are experiencing a similar conflict over their own set of monuments — ones that celebrate both European colonial powers and the dictators who took power in some countries after independence.  

Africans, he said, are paying attention to the American debate.

“It will inform the sort of discussions that are going on in different African countries,” he said. “What goes on here, because of the power of the Internet or access to information in different parts of the world, will dictate what goes on in different African countries.”

As the discussion continued, a question emerged: How can professional historians and academics fight racism, when its negative effects seem so immediate?

Assistant Professor of History Patrick Otim said similar debates over monuments are happening in African countries, including his native Uganda. “What goes on here…will dictate what goes on in different African countries,” he said. (Theophil Syslo/�ֲ���ý College)

Panelist has experience in both fields: She is a doctoral candidate in African and African American studies at Harvard who also works in a group that fights to take down symbols of white supremacy in New Orleans. McDowell said activism and academia do not have to be separate — the organizers she works with have many roles, including as researchers.

The organization, , uses the fight for monument removal as a way to push toward broader racial and economic justice.

Discussing monuments as well as subtler forms of racism can be an effective way to build a coalition, McDowell said.

“That’s their access point, to start having conversations and start understanding,” she said.

But if Confederate monuments are removed, what to do with them afterwards is a complicated question. Audience member , an art historian and assistant professor of Asian studies, said she wanted Confederate monuments to be removed from public spaces but asked the panel whether statues could be studied as art history.

Robin McDowell, a Harvard doctoral student and community organizer, said working to remove monuments can be a starting point for addressing systemic racism. “We can’t underestimate the imagination of our communities,” she said. (Theophil Syslo/�ֲ���ý College)

“We [art historians] are supposed to be the ones who know who sponsored them, what places they are in. We are supposed to think about those issues,” she said.

Baker said he generally did not want to see Confederate statues in museums but thought art historians could work to dismantle the message of Confederate statues.

“It’s a very subtle and interesting way of reflecting on how we can repurpose these monuments, maybe in ways that wouldn’t occur to the average person,” he replied. “The art historian would think carefully about how to subvert their own purpose, the reason they were put up to begin with.”

A related question emerged: What, if anything, should replace a vanquished monument?

McDowell said implementing a new vision had to involve the people such a vision would affect. In New Orleans, she said, more than 200 local artists recently met to propose replacements for white supremacist monuments in the city.

“We can’t underestimate the imagination of our communities,” she said. 

Well-educated elites are no strangers to white supremacy — The Washington Post

After the violence in Charlottesville, �ֲ���ý faculty lecturer Christopher Petrella ’06 saying that our conventional wisdom that “it’s impossible to be both a white supremacist and a well-educated white American” is “both dangerous and historically inaccurate.”

In fact, he says, white supremacy has “not gestated on the fringes of American politics” but “flourished as a social movement grounded in respectability politics and led by elites.”

Christopher Petrella ’06 makes a point during a meeting of the college’s Justice and Equity Reading Group on Sept. 13, 2017. Petrella, faculty lecturer and associate director of programs for the Office of Equity and Diversity, is the group organizer. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Believing otherwise “allows middle-class and college-educated white Americans to escape responsibility for extirpating this stain on our society.”

Petrella, who is also an associate director of programs in the Office of Equity and Diversity at �ֲ���ý, is completing his first book, on the history of white supremacy in 20th-century New England.

Social activism thrives in Maine’s fine art world — Portland Monthly

For , art critic Dan Kany interviews several Maine “art agitators,” including �ֲ���ý Museum of Art Director Dan Mills, who “represent the range and reality of Maine artists who dare to disturb, incite, and stir social engagement.”

Mills, who co-curated the first exhibition of Saudi contemporary art in New England, Phantom Punch: Contemporary Art from Saudi Arabia in Lewiston, is also an artist whose work has been exhibited in leading galleries in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles.

Mills’ “large-scale paintings on maps….use nuanced visual systems to redirect and provoke deeper understanding of demographic and map-related data,” Kany says.

Mills says that art “is only one facet or tool” for social change. “Unless the art rises to being culturally embraced beyond the art world and covered in the media, its scope is limited.”

Dan Mills’ painting “Current Wars and Conflicts Killed by Continent, Book 02,” ink, watercolor, and gouache on atlas, 15 1/4 x 22 1/2 x 2 inches.

Retiring �ֲ���ý Dance Festival director Faure “put Maine on the map” — Portland Press Herald

Laura Faure, who retires Nov. 30 after directing the �ֲ���ý Dance Festival for 30 of its 35 years, is known as “a fierce advocate for choreographers and dance in its many forms,” said Aimee Petrin, executive and artistic director at Portland Ovations.

Faure, who was profiled by , said that the “life of a dancer is a tough life, and what we offer is support and a safe space.” She added, “We support artists through the arc of their career, and I am so proud of that.”

Retiring �ֲ���ý Dance Festival Director Laura Faure poses with noted South African dancer and choreographer Vincent Mantsoe during one of her visits to Africa. Mantsoe has taken part several times in the festival’s International Visiting Artists Program. (�ֲ���ý Dance Festival)

Keyes said that Faure “helped establish the festival as a destination for dancers and choreographers to refine, perfect and expand their skills, establish new work, and experiment with ideas and collaborations.”

“We have created an environment that didn’t exist in the dance world and that is based in the democratic and egalitarian model that is �ֲ���ý College,” Faure said.

Faure will be succeeded by Shoshona Currier, who began her work in August.

Shaw’s veterinary health tech firm secures $223 million investment — Portland Press Herald

Vets First Choice of Portland, founded by CEO Ben Shaw ’00, received a $223 million investment in July that will “accelerate the company’s growth and hiring, launch new services and begin a global expansion effort into Europe and Asia,” according to .

Father and son entrepreneurs David Shaw and Ben Shaw ’00 consult before their May 5 talk, “Adventures in Business and Social Entrepreneurship,” part of the spring’s “Purposeful Work: Voices in Entrepreneurship” series. David Shaw returned to �ֲ���ý at Commencement to receive an honorary degree. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

“The venture capital funding represents the largest sum invested at one time in a privately held Maine company in at least two decades, and possibly ever,” Anderson reported.

Vets First Choice offers e-commerce pharmaceutical services to veterinary clinics.

Also in July, Shaw was recognized by Ernst & Young as a .

Atomic physicists will soon make ultracold states of matter on the space station — Science

When NASA’s $70 million Cold Atom Laboratory arrives at the International Space Station in early 2018, it will carry out a select few research experiments, including one designed by Associate Professor of Physics Nathan Lundblad.

In its Sept. 8 story, Science reporter Adrian Cho described a few of the projects, , noting that the Cold Atom Laboratory will “take advantage of weightlessness to attain record-low temperatures and break ground for ambitious studies of quantum mechanics and gravity.”

Physics major Dan Paseltiner ’16 narrates this short film about the �ֲ���ý experiment that will be aboard the Cold Atom Laboratory.

Weightlessness, plus the lab’s near-absolute-zero temperature, will “produce a long-predicted state of matter called a Bose-Einstein condensate, in which the atoms shed their individual identities and crowd en masse into a single quantum wave.”

Cho said that Lundblad’s experiment hopes to create “hollow shells of BECs,” like bubbles, something “that gravity squashes on Earth.” If successful, the shells might allow researchers “to probe the wave nature of the BEC in a new way.”

The other experiments were designed by scientists from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the universities of Colorado, Michigan, Rochester, Virginia, and California at Berkeley.

Commentary on why parents shouldn’t be told the sex of their fetus — Journal of Medical Ethics

Professor of Sociology Emily Kane, the author of The Gender Trap: Parents and the Pitfalls of Raising Boys and Girls, joined a sociological discussion about the common practice of parents learning the sex of their unborn child.

In an article published last year in the Journal of Medical Ethics, Tamara Kayali Browne of the Australian National University argued that .

Disclosure of the sex, she said, invariably leads parents to anticipate a child’s gender. Since “the conflation of sex with gender is implicit” when the sex of a fetus is disclosed, “it may be more accurate to refer to [disclosure] as misinformation.”

Professor of Sociology Emily Kane delivers her Convocation address, “Summer Posts, Fall Possibilities,” on Sept. 5, 2017 (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

In , she said that while other experts can weigh in on the feasibility of withholding such information, she agrees with Browne that both child and society would benefit by postponing “the gendered anticipation” that prenatal sex information encourages.

Given what we now know about the vast difference between gender and sex, postponing might “chip away productively at the vast network of social processes that constrain children and conflate sex with gender.”

Harvard names new diversity dean — The Harvard Crimson

Harvard Dean of Students Katherine G. O’Dair announced the appointment of Roland Davis ’92 as associate dean for diversity and inclusion, on Aug. 31.

Roland Davis ’92 is the new associate dean for diversity and inclusion at Harvard.

Davis “brings to Harvard a deep and nuanced understanding of the social, cultural, and psychological factors that impact communities around the issues of diversity and inclusion,” she wrote.

Davis’ appointment, the Crimson said, “coincides with the implementation of…penalties on members of single-gender social organizations,” such as barring members of these groups from “campus leadership positions, athletic team captaincies, and certain prestigious fellowships.”

A former dean in Student Affairs at �ֲ���ý, Davis served as the college’s founding director of the Office of Intercultural Education from 2010 to 2012.

Building products that people want to use — The Silicon Review

In its review of the 10 fastest-growing software companies, , a software engineering firm co-founded by Ben Schippers ’04.

The Review said that in the “ocean” of apps that exists today, Schipper’s company “is generating its mark by building thoughtful products” that “people want to use.”

Ben Schippers ’04 is co-founder of the Brooklyn-based software engineering firm HappyFunCorp. (Phyllis Graber Jensen)

One of HappyFunCorp’s recent products was an app allowing onto TV-based platforms, including Apple TV.

Portland’s restaurant  boom reflects the “simplicity of living here, and honoring individual ingredients” — American Way Magazine

Portland, Maine, is home to 672 dining establishments, according to , “giving it a human-to-restaurant ratio of roughly 96-to-1,” which is lower than “almost every other city in America (San Francisco can make a similar claim).”

For insights on the boom, writer Alexandra Hall turned to award-winning restaurateur Andrew Taylor ’03, who said that it’s about the “simplicity of living here, and honoring individual ingredients.” He said, “People here are averse to big: big corporations, big restaurants.”

Taylor and Mike Wiley are chef/co-owners, with their manager, Arlin Smith, of Eventide Oyster Co., The Honey Paw, and Hugo’s. The pair won a , considered an Oscar of the food world.

James Beard winner Andrew Taylor ’03 poses at his restaurant Eventide with Matthew Moretti ’06, president of Bangs Island Mussels and Wild Ocean Aquaculture, on Sept. 26 2016. Bangs mussels are featured at Eventide and exemplify Taylor’s commitment to the local food economy. (Josh Kuckens/�ֲ���ý college).

Preparing for the football season and for what’s ahead after graduation — WMTV-TV

WMTV-TV sports anchor Travis Lee , a chemistry major from Cumberland Center, Maine, who plans to enter the medical field after graduation.

Over the summer, Rasch traveled to Haiti with International Medical Relief to “get involved in some sort of medical experience outside the U.S. in a culture that I’m not used to.”

Rasch says that football, specifically a lineman’s job to communicate with teammates during “drastically changing circumstances,” will help him down the road. “I am able to communicate with people in a large group and help get people on the same page.”

“Whatever I do for a living, I want to make sure that it has a good deal of purpose. That way I can dedicate myself fully to it.”

MDI Biological Laboratory researchers win heart-drug patent — Portland Press Herald

Researcher Voot Yin ’96 and a colleague at Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory have won a patent to continue work on a drug that could solve a common and urgent medical problem: helping heart tissue regenerate after a heart attack.

Voot Yin ’96, a researcher at Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory, holds a bowl of zebrafish, a species that provided clues to MSI-1436’s possible use as a heart drug. (Photograph by MDI Biological Laboratory)

The notes that the “patent award represents a major step forward in moving the molecule MSI-1436 toward clinical trials in humans.”

The stakes are high. “There are currently no approved treatments to stimulate regeneration of heart muscle in humans,” writes reporter Dennis Hoey.

Yin’s partner is Kevin Strange, president of MDIBL, and they’re collaborating with

Yin’s work with zebrafish, who have a 70 percent match with human genetics, offered the first clues to MSI-1436’s possible use as a heart drug.

Unlike the human heart, the zebrafish heart “robustly regenerates missing or damaged tissue in as little as 30 to 60 days,” Yin explains. When he and his colleagues introduced MSI-1436 into zebrafish, the regeneration accelerated.

“The scientists believe the molecule could activate similar genes in humans,” writes Hoey.

Encouraging results have been found in mice, too. “If MSI-1436 shows similar results in humans, it will be a game-changer for patients who suffer a heart attack and/or are living with heart problems,” Yin says.

High finance, horse racing, and a “special” horse named Flipcup — Thoroughbred Daily News

As thoroughbred racing’s spotlight shifted to Saratoga Springs in August, the turf media called on Shirl Penney ’99, who shared his story of growing up in Eastport, Maine, with �ֲ���ý Magazine in 2005.

Since then, Penney founded , a firm that supports wealth-management advisers with what Forbes calls “a game-changing integrated platform of technology and services.”

Thoroughbred Daily News writer Joe Bianca, in his story “” described Penney’s life this way:

He has essentially lived two dichotomous, massively eventful lives in those 39 years, overcoming extreme poverty and immense odds as a child to establish himself in adulthood as a power player on Wall Street and a thriving presence in the thoroughbred industry.

Penney’s 5-year-old mare Flipcup “is special to us because she’s a member of our family,” Penney tells Thoroughbred Daily News. (Michael Burns Photography)

Meanwhile, WRGB-TV in Albany enlisted  Penney and his wife, Mary Ann, for a whimsical story on . (She’s sired by Milwaukee Brew, so the name does indeed reflect a certain drinking game.)

Beyond that angle, Flipcup “is special to us because she’s a member of our family,” Penney says.

“We have two daughters…they hang out with her every morning. We named her, we bred her, we’ve been around her ever since she’s been a baby. Any chance you get to go out and watch a member of your family compete, it makes it extra special.”

Penney was recently named a of the prestigious Aspen Institute.

Higher-education policy and its relevance for the future of our economy and democracy — Harvard Magazine

Against the backdrop of public discourse that’s “defined increasingly by ‘post-factual’ and policy-annihilating debate,” a new book by higher-education experts William Bowen and Michael McPherson is a satisfying read, writes President Clayton Spencer in a .

President Spencer reviews Lesson Plan in Harvard Magazine. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Bowen and McPherson’s Lesson Plan offers readers a “short, yet disarmingly rich and precise, primer on higher-education policy and its compelling relevance for the future of our economy and democracy.”

The authors, Spencer writes, believe that any course correction in higher-education policy “requires moving beyond our current preoccupation with ‘access and affordability’ — maximizing the number of people who begin college.”

Instead, policy should look at “what we need to do to increase the number of people who complete a degree.”

The experience of transitioning revealed male privilege — Lewiston Sun Journal

The Lewiston Sun Journal’s feature “Transgender in Maine” profiled several transgender Mainers, including Jenna Ginsberg ’94, who transitioned to a woman about a decade ago.

Jenna Ginsberg ’94 profiled by the Lewiston Sun Journal for its story “Transgender in Maine” (Andree Kehn / Lewiston Sun Journal)

Reporter , who was working for a Maine ski resort at the time of her transition, the experience revealed the “privilege” that she’d had as a man in that workplace.

At the resort, Ginsberg says that she had enjoyed “independence and autonomy as a man.” But as a woman, she was “told how to do things and micromanaged.”

After a dozen years of very positive performance reviews, “all of the sudden I had a negative performance review for the same types of behaviors,” she tells the Sun Journal.

“I literally went from being [called] ambitious….to being told I was pushy.”

An alpine skier who majored in philosophy and psychology at �ֲ���ý, Ginsberg now runs her own company, All Sports Events, providing support for sports events, including timing, logistics, and scoring.

Why the U.S. is right to move away from private prisons — The New Yorker

Chris Petrella ’06 is a lecturer at �ֲ���ý who this fall teaches the First-Year Seminar “This American Death,” about U.S. prison executions. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

The news media turned to Chris Petrella ’06 this week after the Department of Justice announced it would stop using private prisons.

used Petrella’s insights to explain why people of color are over-represented in private prisons to an even greater degree than in the overall prison system.

It’s because private prison companies can refuse to incarcerate people whose advanced age or poor health — factors that “serve as a proxy for race” — might cost them money.

Meanwhile, Petrella tells that lobbying efforts used by private prison companies, such as seeking to be restructured as real estate investment trusts, reveal their true nature.

Behaving like a real estate business is a “major, major problem,” he says, “because when we’re talking about incarcerating human bodies, the language of real estate is just so grievously inappropriate.”

It takes a village, whose citizens include Carlisle, to raise an Olympic champion — The Ringer

Seeking insights about the marketability of Olympic athletes, the media sought out sports agent Peter Carlisle ’91 early and often during the Rio Games.

In 2010, Peter Carlisle ’91 poses in his Portland, Maine, office in front of a poster of Michael Phelps wearing his Athens medals. (Phyllis Graber Jensen / �ֲ���ý College)

Carlisle, who represents household-name Olympians like Simone Biles and Michael Phelps, was dubbed “” by The Ringer for his work with Phelps.

Specifically, Carlisle was able to secure “major partnerships that span the four years of an Olympic cycle.” In so doing, he “brought security to his client while also giving the brands an incentive to continue to promote their investment even during the lull between the Athens and Beijing games.”

While “there is no simple equation for Olympic endorsement deals,” according to The Washington Post, “the athletes with the highest profiles” can ink several-year deals over $1 million.

, the Post says that “swimmers and women’s gymnasts typically have a leg up on other sports because of their prominence and demographic appeal.”

After Ryan Lochte and two teammates did their dumb deed in Rio, turned to Carlisle, whose work with Phelps has included efforts to raise the visibility of U.S. swimming, for context.

“The cumulative quality and nature of the exposure related to swimming certainly influences the level of interest among brands” in representing Lochte and his teammates.

Then there are athletes like U.S. shooter Kim Rhode, who won a sixth medal in Rio but won’t gain significant sponsorship.

Carlisle was quoted by in its story debunking the rumor that Rhode can’t cash in because she supports Donald Trump and the Second Amendment.

The truth, as he explains, has to do with “limited exposure. If the sport itself doesn’t provide a consistent platform for the athletes to become recognizable and maintain relevance, there’s limited value to a sponsor.”

They’re caring for an all-time high of 80 parrots of all sizes, shapes, colors, and dispositions — Bangor Daily News

“Margaret and her husband, Fritz, are the founders and sole operators of , which the couple describe as ‘assisted living for retired parrots,'” reporter Aislinn Sarnacki.

“For more than a decade,” the story continues, “they have been taking in rescued and displaced parrots and giving them a permanent home at the sanctuary, which is connected to the Buschmann house in Harmony,” about 35 miles north of Waterville.

Parrots can live for decades, which explains why the Buschmanns take in many of their birds. It’s because “people’s lives change,” Margaret says.

“The biggest source of parrots for us is older people, who have had a beloved pet for 30 years and now have to go into a nursing home or a condo that doesn’t allow birds, and they’re just beside themselves on what they’re going to do with their birds.”

Margaret and Fritz, who is the son of the late German professor August Buschmann, were married in October 1972 and moved to Harmony to raise animals on 50 acres of farmland. He’s a surveyor, and she’s a diabetes educator.