Members of the Class of 2017 arrived for their outdoor AESOP trips on Monday, Aug. 26, and began classes on Wednesday, Sept. 4. In between, they…well, take a look for yourself! — Jay Burns, �ֲ���ý Magazine editor

1. Monday, Aug. 26, 9:04 a.m.

AESOP trip leaders do triple duty. (1) They lead trips. (2) They help students move their stuff into residences. (3) And for frazzled families arriving from far and near, AESOPers offer a chill, friendly greeting. Here, Gunnar Manchester ’15 of Rehoboth, Mass., and Emile Kaldany ’16 of Washington, D.C., help out. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

2. Monday, Aug. 26, 9:40 a.m.

Charlotte Koudijs Taverna ’86 helps her son, Willem ’17, move into Rand Hall. Thirty-five students in the Class of 2017 have a parent who is a �ֲ���ý alumnus or alumna. The youngest alumni parents are George Stewart ’87 of Concord, Mass., and Erik ’87 and Susanne Morrison Jarnryd ’87 of Concord, Mass., while the 2017 cohort’s senior member is Dirk Visser ’74 of Wezembeek-Oppem, Belgium. We think the socks in the crate below, meanwhile, come from TJ Maxx. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

3. Monday, Aug. 26, 9:56 a.m.

Parents spend years getting our children to make their own bed. Then the first thing we do when arriving at �ֲ���ý? Help our children make their beds. Here, Akira Townes ’17 of Timonium, Md., and her mother, Ardinia, make her bed in Parker Hall. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College.)

4. Monday, Aug. 26, 4:07 p.m.

Yep, this is the �ֲ���ý face that first-year students saw as they were “ambushed” at the Keigwin Amphitheater by student leaders of this year’s outdoor trips. The face belongs to Sean Enos ’14 of Lynnfield, Mass., and he and his fellow leaders are about to lob water balloons at unsuspecting first-years. (Mike Bradley/�ֲ���ý College)

5. Monday, Aug. 26, 4:10 p.m.

The watery ambush sets the tone — expect unexpected fun — as AESOP coordinators, backed by their costumed comrades, explain what’s next to the assembled first-years. (Mike Bradley/�ֲ���ý College)

6. Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2:17 p.m.

Before the first tackle is made, ball booted or mile run, first-year and upperclass athletes do fitness testing. Here, football linebacker Sam Freeman ’16 of Newton, Mass., does the heavy lifting as head coach Mark Harriman watches and talks with defensive lineman Nate Friesth ’17 of Munford, Tenn. (Marc Glass/�ֲ���ý College)

7. Tuesday, Aug. 27, 6:53 p.m.

No matter where the Class of 2017 went on this year’s 48 outdoor trips around Maine and New Hampshire, they all saw the same great sunset on their first night together. Trip leader Sam Myers ’16 of Riverton, Wyo., watches the sunset at a campground just northeast of Maine’s Mount Desert Island. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

8. Wednesday, Aug. 28, 10:29 a.m.

People say college is a place where it’s safe to make mistakes. Sometimes that’s true. But here trip co-leader Bobby Lankin ’15 of West Hartford, Conn., has no room for error as he watches thunderstorms approach his troupe, one of two “Baxter Bushwackers” trips, on the Hamlin Ridge trail in Baxter State Park. A few minutes later, Lankin and co-leader Sophie Pellegrini of Potomac, Md., decide to turn back to avoid getting caught above the tree line during the storm. (Mike Bradley/�ֲ���ý College)

9. Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2:51 p.m.

Two first-years contemplate doorknob installation on their trip to work on a Habitat for Humanity project in Lamoine for a young family of four, including a daughter with a severe neurological disorder. “You’re bonding over this great project that is helping to build new lives for people, not only new houses. I think it’s just kind of perfect,” says trip leader Abby Knudsen ’16 of New York City. Pictured are Gynweth Williams ’17 of Newbury, Vt., and Misha Copeland ’17 of Spicewood, Texas. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

10. Wednesday, Aug. 28, 12:06 p.m.

Charlie don’t surf. But Joe Lawton ’17 of New York City does — now — and here he rides his very first wave, cheered by trip leader Peter Cowan ’14 of Bethel, Maine. (Marc Glass/�ֲ���ý College)

11. Wednesday, Aug. 28, 1:54 p.m.

The fog rolls in off the 59-degree ocean at Popham Beach as three students, with surfing clearly on their minds, head out. Pictured are Sadie James ’17 of Avon, Maine; Maddy Ekey ’17 of Bozeman, Mont.; and Sarah Holmes ’17 of Cumberland Center, Maine. (Marc Glass/�ֲ���ý College)

12. Thursday, Aug. 29, 2:42 p.m.

The aforementioned Baxter Bushwackers break into the clear a day after their close call with a thunderstorm, reaching the summit of Mount Katahdin. Grace Huang ’17 of Flagstaff, Ariz., is at left; Bobby Lankin at right. (Mike Bradley/�ֲ���ý College)

13. Friday, Aug. 30, 2:16 p.m.

Back on campus, the Baxter Bushwackers exchange phone numbers. For reasons of safety and security, each dorm room still has a telephone. But if you call a dorm phone and leave a voice message for a student, don’t expect a return call. The light might blink for months. Just sayin’. (Mike Bradley/�ֲ���ý College)

14. Saturday, Aug. 31, 4:35 p.m.

At the final gathering before parents depart campus, Sarah Harrison tears up as she looks at her son, Raymond ’17. She, her husband, Bill, and Raymond were listening to President Spencer describe leaving her own children at college. This is what Sarah says she was thinking: “He’s our only child, and I think President Spencer captured exactly how I was feeling as a parent. I’m so proud. I want this for him so much. It’s what we’ve been working for, hoping for, dreaming for his whole life. But it’s really hard to let him go.” (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

15. Sunday, Sept. 1, 7:43 p.m.

In the spring, getting seniors to go wild for their Senior Week photo can be a frustrating task. But first-years still aim to please. Here, the 502 members of the Class of 2017 (don’t worry, we counted them all) show their zeal for a class photo in the Gomes Chapel. Above the students are seven banners representing major religions plus an eighth showing the planet Earth, symbolizing the world’s humanity. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

16. Tuesday, Sept. 3, 4 p.m.

Heading to Convocation, Associate Professor of English Sanford Freedman has his gown over his shoulder and hood in hand, symbols of his engagement with the life of the mind. He stops to talk with landscape architect Bill Bergevin, himself outfitted in garb reflecting his own engagement with the life of campus flora. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

17. Tuesday, Sept. 3, 4:53 p.m.

The hand that’s taking notes about President Spencer’s Convocation address is not a reporter’s but a first-year’s. The note-taking student calls out Spencer’s suggestion to “live your life from the inside out,” meaning get to know yourself. And “get your hand dirty” — try different things and don’t assume life is a straight line. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

18. Tuesday, Sept. 3, 5:46 p.m.

Convocation asks the community to look ahead together. Afterward, at a memorial service, the community takes a look back together. As members of the football team watch, head coach Mark Harriman pours water from Lake Andrews on a newly planted tree honoring �ֲ���ý people who died in the previous year. The list includes Troy Pappas ’16, a freshman on Harriman’s team last year, who died on Oct. 5, 2012, from injuries suffered in a fall down a stairwell in Parker Hall. (Mike Bradley/�ֲ���ý College)

19. Tuesday, Sept. 3, 9:12 p.m.

Men’s soccer was the first Bobcat team to hit the field this fall, and here Jonathan Lin ’15 (left) of Natick, Mass., and Ethan Kass ’14 of New York City celebrate Lin’s goal during the team’s 2-0 victory over Maine Maritime. (Mike Bradley/�ֲ���ý College)

20. Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2:51 p.m.

Suddenly it was time to hit the library, where the computer workstations on the main floor have been dramatically rearranged to reflect what these students do with ease: carry on multiple conversations, work alone or in groups and get the work done. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

21. Friday, Sept. 6, 9:40 p.m.

They used to light bonfires on Mount David to celebrate this and that. Fireworks over campus (silhouetting Hathorn’s bell tower) do the trick, too, in this case celebrating the opening of the new academic year. This photo was taken by Associate Professor of Mathematics Shepley “Chip” Ross.

They’ve experienced outdoor AESOP trips around Maine, then days and nights of Orientation activities on campus. Now, as they line up for Tuesday’s Convocation, members of the Class of 2017 try to sum up what it’s been like in just two words. Or three words. Or a few more.

“The more you are able to align your work with your authentic interests and talents, the less it feels like work, and the more it feels, simply, like living your life,” �ֲ���ý President Clayton Spencer told the college’s new students during the Sept. 3 Convocation ceremony.

During an afternoon ceremony moved into Alumni Gym by a threat of rain, Spencer opened the academic year with an address that drew connections between the education that the new students are beginning and the well-harmonized lives that �ֲ���ý hopes to prepare them for.

“I like the notion that we, at colleges like �ֲ���ý, are both motivating and equipping our students to lead an examined life.”

“When we talk in our mission statement about ‘the emancipating potential of the liberal arts,'” she said, “I think of the freedom and joy one feels when you achieve that alignment between who you are and what you do.”

Spencer sounded the keynote in a program that also included words from the president of the �ֲ���ý Student Government, Brent Talbott ’14 of Menlo Park, Calif., and from Matthew Auer, who became �ֲ���ý’ vice president of academic affairs and dean of the faculty on July 1. Their audience included Auer’s fellow newbies, the 502 members of the Class of 2017.

Spencer expanded upon a theme integral to her agenda since Day One of her �ֲ���ý presidency: how a liberal arts education can help students harmonize life and work. “I like the notion that we, at colleges like �ֲ���ý, are both motivating and equipping our students to lead an examined life,” she said. “Philosopher Jonathan Lear has defined this notion elegantly as ‘living with the question of how to live.'”

President Clayton Spencers offers ‘Some Thoughts on Work’ at Convocation on Sept. 3, 2013:

She offered specific guidelines for laying groundwork for the well-aligned life. First, by all means ask the big questions about self and life — but don’t hurry the big answers. As with love in the Supremes song, you just have to wait.

Dean of the Faculty Matthew Auer in his first public appearance at �ֲ���ý. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

“Answers to the biggest, deepest, and most fundamental questions in life don’t come packaged” as such, she explained. “They sneak up on you. They emerge gradually over time, as you try things and learn things and begin to chart a course for yourself.

“So a big part of the challenge is recognizing the answers as they begin to take shape in your own life.”

Spencer used a Lewiston shoemaker, a hand sewer in one of the now-defunct shoe factories, to exemplify how intensive experience can reveal one’s interests or abilities., Richard Courtemanche discovered through learning to sew shoes, through getting his hands dirty, that he was exceptionally good at something that ended up being his life’s work.

While not every immersion in a task or a subject will unveil your true calling, nearly every one will teach you something about yourself, even the things you’re not suited for. Working as a federal prosecutor was such an experience for President Spencer. While she learned much in that role that later stood her in good stead, she realized that she was fundamentally wrong for the part.

Litigation is concerned with the past, she told the Convocation audience, but “the questions that have always grabbed me are future-oriented questions. I am an optimist and a problem-solver.”

The lesson? “Live your life from the inside out.” In other words, make choices that are true to your interests, needs and abilities.

Her final suggestion to the Class of 2017, and perhaps the meatiest philosophically, was “own your work.” She said, “We make something, and in so doing, we make meaning, and as meaning accumulates we make our lives.

Head football coach Mark Harriman pours water from Lake Andrews on a tree planted at a post-Convocation memorial service for members of the �ֲ���ý community who died in the previous year. Troy Pappas ’16, a freshman on Harriman’s team, died in October 2012. (Michael Bradley/�ֲ���ý College)

“We make arguments, we make art, we make a home and family, or, if we live in Lewiston 50 years ago, we make shoes. All of these forms of making involve translating something that we hold inside into something that can be seen and shared and appreciated by others.”

Spencer told the new students that henceforth they will be working every day with people who do that with unparalleled excellence: the �ֲ���ý faculty.

“They model in their own lives the excitement of working with ideas and the concept of pursuing a life built around one’s deepest interests and talents,” she said. “They will work with you to develop frameworks that will help you discern patterns and meaning, and they will help you sharpen skills of analysis, interpretation and collaboration that will be powerful assets throughout your life.”

In his first appearance before the entire campus community, Dean of the Faculty Auer explained why he chose to come to �ֲ���ý after heading the honors college at Indiana University. He anticipated President Spencer’s theme, the necessity of finding work that truly reflects the worker.

At his time in life, he said, “I can’t simply work” for work’s sake anymore. “It needs to be inspired. And a good place to start is with inspired people,” like those at �ֲ���ý.

BCSG President Talbott, meanwhile, advised the new students to drink deeply at the trough of opportunities that �ֲ���ý presents. The only experiences you’ll regret, he said, will be the ones you don’t live.

Guys with ties: Decorative neckwear was much in evidence among the men of 2017. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

In her closing benediction, Acting Multifaith Chaplain Emily Wright-Magoon told the crowd that “we are heirs to a harvest that nourishes and sustains us,” referring to �ֲ���ý’ long and deep academic and social community.

“Let us allow ourselves to be lifted into that bounty, bolstered by the trust that we go on together” — and she echoed the president’s theme — “our lives courageous testaments to our deepest callings.”

In addition to being the most diverse and one of the most academically accomplished classes in �ֲ���ý history, the Class of 2017 — at least the men — stood out for effecting a sartorial sea change in Convocation tradition. In short, it was tees to ties: In a pronounced shift from recent years, there was scarcely a T-shirt to be seen, while neckties, including bow ties, abounded.

Students line up for last year’s procession to Convocation, the formal opening of the school year. The Class of 2017 will become the latest entering class to participate in the tradition. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

�ֲ���ý will open the school year on Tuesday, Sept. 3, with its annual Convocation ceremony, formally welcoming the 502 members of the Class of 2017 — one of the most academically distinguished classes in the college’s history, and the most diverse ever.

The event, which will be livestreamed, begins at 4:15 p.m. on the Historic Quad, at Campus Avenue and College Street. Rain site is Alumni Gymnasium, 130 Central Ave.

Convocation activities open with the traditional colorful procession to the venue by faculty members and administrators in academic regalia along with students, to music provided by the Portland Brass Quintet.

Clayton Spencer, who last year became the eighth president of �ֲ���ý, will open the ceremony with a welcome. Later she will also deliver the Convocation address, “Some Thoughts on Work.” The address will introduce the Class of 2017 to a question that has emerged as part of Spencer’s agenda for the institution: Can we do a better job to ensure that a �ֲ���ý liberal arts education equips students with the tools they need to live and work, with passion and purpose, in today’s world?

Brent Talbott, a senior who is president of the �ֲ���ý College Student Government, and Matthew R. Auer, the college’s new vice president for academic affairs and dean of the faculty, will each deliver greetings. Emily Wright-Magoon, acting multifaith chaplain, will deliver the benediction that closes the ceremony.

The �ֲ���ý Class of 2017, by the numbers

The �ֲ���ý Office of Admission received a record 5,243 applications for the class — topping the previous record, set in 2011, by 47 — and offered admission to 1,267 of the applicants, for an admittance rate of 24.2 percent, the most selective in college history. Those who will enter represent a record “yield” rate of 39.6 percent, which colleges and universities consider very high.

Leigh Weisenburger, dean of admission and financial aid, said, “These figures reflect the constant appeal of �ֲ���ý’ innovative, rigorous liberal arts curriculum, as well as our orientations to inclusiveness and civic service, for intellectually curious and deeply engaged students. We’re thrilled to have an entering class that will so strongly reinforce these values.”

�ֲ���ý was founded in 1855 to offer higher education to women and students of color as well as men — a rarity at that time. It has never had fraternities or sororities, and all student organizations are open to all students. Each year at least a third of �ֲ���ý students take community-engaged learning courses that integrate community projects with academic learning through the college’s Harward Center for Community Partnerships.

The class comprises 271 men and 231 women.

Fifty-eight percent of the class comes from public high schools, the rest from independent high schools. Their average grade-point achievement over the course of their high school careers was 3.8, on a scale of four.

The class is the most ethnically diverse in the institution’s history, with U.S. students of color (African American, Asian American, Hispanic, Multiracial or Native American/Pacific Islander) comprising 25.5 percent of the group.

Fourteen percent of the class are the first members of their families to attend college. Approximately 10 percent have a relative who attended �ֲ���ý, a category known as “legacies.”

Geographically, the class comes from 38 U.S. states and the District of Columbia as well as 25 other countries, in these proportions:

• Mid-Atlantic states, 22.1 percent
• Midwest, 8 percent
• New England, 43 percent (47 students from Maine, including six from Lewiston and Auburn)
• Southeast, 5.4 percent
• Southwest and West, 14.1 percent
• International, 7.4 percent.

Financial aid figures for the entering class reflect �ֲ���ý’ traditional welcome to students of all family income levels. The college meets 100 percent of calculated financial aid need for all matriculants who have such need, for four years.

A record 48 percent of the class will receive need-based financial aid, with aid packages averaging $41,917 — including $38,387 in the form of �ֲ���ý grant aid that does not have to be repaid. Grants from �ֲ���ý keep the portion of financial aid provided by work and/or loans to approximately $3,530 per year.

�ֲ���ý’ “single fee” for 2013-14 — which includes tuition, fees and room and board — is $58,950, but the college’s generous financial aid substantially reduces the average net price for aid recipients. The current White House “ lists an average net price for �ֲ���ý of $21,402.

On average, 40 percent of �ֲ���ý students graduate with federal loan debt, and they carry an average of $17,070 in loans, compared to the national average of more than $26,000.