Mara Tieken 

School closures can hit rural communities hard — The Conversation 

Writing for The Conversation, Associate Professor of Education Mara Tieken argued that the closure of rural schools can devastate students, families, and communities.

Schools often close for reasons of poor academic performance, budget constraints, or declining enrollments. When they do, students’ relationships with peers and teachers are disrupted, absences go up, and involvement in extracurricular activities goes down, often because students have to commute longer distances. 

“In many rural communities, schools are the largest employer,” Tieken wrote. “They provide political power, and they tie people together. Once the schools are gone, the community loses all of these benefits.” 

Read the story: 

• “,” The Conversation, Jan. 9, 2020

�ֲ���ý Museum of Art 

Snow School: �ֲ���ý College makes life drawing practical, if not easy — Sun Journal 

Amy Paradysz of the Lewiston Sun Journal covered a Wednesday-night fixture sponsored by the �ֲ���ý Museum of Art: live figure drawing. 

Artists come to campus, often traveling long distances, to draw models — some are �ֲ���ý students, others community members — holding poses of various types and lengths. 

The exercise is valuable practice for a tricky but rewarding aspect of art. “It’s good for me to be reminded how challenging it is to observe and capture what I’m seeing,” said Mike Hickey of Yarmouth. “It’s good to be humbled.”

Read the story: 

• “,” Sun Journal, Dec. 29, 2019

Carissa Aoki

Racist housing practices from the 1930s linked to hotter neighborhoods today — NPR 

Neighborhoods that were subject to historical redlining — a racist housing practice that segregated cities and concentrated poor, minority, and immigrant residents — are hotter than non-redlined neighborhoods, Meg Anderson of NPR reported. 

Part of the reason for heat disparities of five degrees or more involves tree cover, according to a study coauthored by �ֲ���ý Lecturer in Environmental Studies Carissa Aoki. 

“In 37 cities around the country, formerly redlined neighborhoods have about half as many trees on average today as the highest-rated predominantly white neighborhoods on those maps,” Anderson wrote. 

Read the story: 

• “,” NPR, Jan. 14, 2020

Dorothy Foster Kern ’42

For these ‘three Dots,’ 100 years of friendship, fellowship, and fun — NPR

National and local news outlets have noticed a curious and happy occurrence: Three women named Dorothy, including Dorothy Foster Kern ’42 — all friends and all living in Auburn — celebrated their 100th birthdays in 2019.

Kern, Dorothy Buchanan, and Dorothy Murray all became centenarians in 2019, with Kern celebrating her 100th in September with a special luncheon at �ֲ���ý. 

A graduate of Auburn’s Edward Little High School, Kern was inspired to attend �ֲ���ý in part by a relative who taught at the college.

“I’m just a kid,” Kern told Maine Public’s Susan Sharon, in a piece about the “three Dots” that NPR later picked up. “I don’t feel any different than I did at 16.” 

Down East magazine also featured Kern in collaboration with Maine Public. 

“My life is quiet and happy, and I’m doing what I like to do, but I miss people — everyone who is not still here,” said Kern, who has outlived two of her five children. “In that sense, it’s lonely. I miss the children that were, but I’m happy to have the ones I’ve got. I’m lucky.” 

Read the stories: 

• “,” NPR, Dec. 22, 2019
• “,” Down East, December 2019 

Muskan Verma ’21

South-Asian Americans protest India’s citizenship bill — NBC News 

Reporting on South-Asian Americans’ protests against a bill in India that excludes Muslim immigrants from a path to citizenship, NBC News’ Mythili Sampathkumar talked to Muskan Verma ’21 of Shimla, India, a coordinator of the South Asian Students Against Fascism movement. 

Many South-Asian Americans, Sampathkumar wrote, see parallels between what is happening in India and religious and racial discrimination in the United States. Some are organizing protests in major American cities on Jan. 26, India’s Republic Day holiday. 

Verma told Sampathkumar that her group wants to send “a very strong message not just to the [Indian] government, but to the people protesting that they are not alone and that protests are not happening in a void.”

Read the story: 

• “,” NBC News, Jan. 19, 2020

When Dorothy Foster Kern ’42 arrived at �ֲ���ý for her freshman orientation, everyone was talking about the Great New England Hurricane, which had swept through just days before.��

“That’s how we got acquainted,” she says. “‘Where were you when the hurricane came?’”��

We met Kern shortly before her 100th birthday, on Sept. 23, at the same Auburn home whence she walked to �ֲ���ý 81 years ago. Kern remembers her time at �ֲ���ý fondly. “I loved it,” she says. “It’s been the key to a lot of things.”��

Dorothy Foster Kern ’42, photographed in her Auburn home in early September, celebrates her 100th birthday on Sept. 23. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

A graduate of Edward Little High School, Kern was inspired to attend �ֲ���ý in part by a relative, Thomas Angell, who taught languages at �ֲ���ý from 1873 to 1902. Annual tuition in 1938 was $250.

Dorothy Foster Kern ’42, pictured in the 1942��Mirror yearbook (Muskie Archives & Special Collections)

Kern lived at home with her family in Auburn. Each day she’d walk the three miles to campus or, rarely, pay five cents to take the brand-new city bus line. She sometimes took books from the library to study for classes, but “we had a fairly good books here for that,” she says.��

Kern threw herself into campus life. She wrote for The �ֲ���ý Student all four years. Her other activities included the Pan-Hellenic Club and the dance club, of which she was a founding member. “We all dressed in black,” she recalls, in contrast to the more colorful women’s style of skirts and blouses.��

Kern was also in Lambda Alpha, the club for the “town girls,” which had space in Hathorn Hall for off-campus women to use as a home base. For sports, she became a goaltender for an intramural field hockey club.��

Kern majored in English and took courses in German and French. “I never took a religion course,” she says with some regret. “I wish I had.”

A lifelong churchgoer, Kern enjoyed the required daily chapel services at �ֲ���ý. But she liked them for more than one reason. “You sat alphabetically,” she says. “I sat near most of the football team. That was very thrilling.”��

Kern says she mostly hung out with her high school friends, but she did make �ֲ���ý friends, including Mary Bartlett ’42, whose father, Paul, was a professor of business economics. She recalls once sharing a dance with William Worthy ’42, who went on to become a prominent journalist and civil rights activist.��

In addition to her campus activities, Kern wrote for newspapers in Lewiston and Portland — at least until a dean, concerned for her grades, told her to stop writing for the Portland papers.��

Pictured third row, second from right in the 1942 Mirror, Dorothy Foster Kern ’42 remembers the striking all-black outfits the Modern Dance Company wore. (Muskie Archives & Special Collections)

It was at the papers she met her future husband, John Kern Jr., who one day invited her ice fishing. “We got acquainted, and we fell in love,” she said.��

On a December day during her senior year, Japan attacked the U.S. Navy base at Pearl Harbor. With a journalist’s mindset, Kern covered the local angle of America’s entry into World War II, interviewing professors who had served in World War I and looking into The �ֲ���ý Student archives to see what students were talking about 25, 50, and 75 years before.��

It was “one of the ways to get a perspective on your life as a college student during the troubled ’40s,” she wrote.��

Kern recalls, shortly after graduation, going to a procession on Lisbon Street in Lewiston to see off the latest group of men joining the military. “It was this long line of men all with hats and suits,” she says. “They looked so nice.”��

Dorothy Foster Kern ’42, pictured first row, center, was the goaltender on the �ֲ���ý field hockey team. (Muskie Archives & Special Collections)

Kern’s husband, John, was among them, bound for Europe. She wouldn’t see him for four years.��

Kern worked in newspapers through the 1940s and ’50s, primarily writing for society pages, she says. By the late ’50s, she was working on the side at Edward Little High School. The school soon asked her to become the librarian, so she took classes at Colby to get certified and worked in the Edward Little library for the next 20 years.��

“It is a wonderful field in education,” she says. “‘I’ve got just the book for you,’ or, ‘You’d like this.’ You got to know the kids.”��

Dorothy Foster Kern ’42 flips through a 1939 Mirror at her Auburn home. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

She particularly enjoyed watching young romances blossom. “They started in the stacks,” she says. “That’s where they met, and then they’d get passes on some pretext. They’d come in, and they’d look in the books, and then talk in the stacks. I let them.”

John Kern, who died in 1993, worked nights at Lewiston newspapers for 54 years. Dorothy says he would get their five children out the door in the morning, go back to sleep, wake up for his shift, and get back home at 2:30 a.m.��

“I would get up to have a late second supper with him, and he’d always scold me,” she says.��

Once, John was pulled over on one of these late-night drives home. “He was going almost 25 miles an hour,” Kern says. “Evidently, that was too fast. We were so angry.”��

Dorothy Foster Kern ’42 remembers �ֲ���ý fondly; she can still sing the lyrics to “The �ֲ���ý Smoker,” a traditional song. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Still living in the home where she grew up, Kern spends her days reading, keeping up with her grandchildren and great-grandchildren (“so many!”) with the help of a wall calendar, taking care of her flowers, and attending High Street Congregational Church in Auburn.��

She still remembers the words to “The �ֲ���ý Smoker,” a traditional campus song. “Oft times at night I light my pipe / and watch the glowing grates …”��

Purposeful Work

Five ways to optimize your internship experience — Forbes

“At least 80 percent of us want purpose in our work,” says Rebecca Fraser-Thill, referencing a recent study by �ֲ���ý College and the polling firm Gallup, “and having an internship during college is the most powerful way to get there.”

A Forbes contributor who is director of faculty engagement and outreach for Purposeful Work, Fraser-Thill also notes that an “internship is only as transformational” as a student makes it.

With that in mind, she offers tips for interns, such as how to make the most of each day, “beyond the office as well as within it.”

Read the story:��

• “,” Forbes, June 27, 2019��

�ֲ���ý College

�ֲ���ý College achieves carbon neutral status — multiple outlets��

Media outlets reported on the announcement that �ֲ���ý achieved carbon neutrality — bringing the college’s net carbon emissions to zero — one year ahead of schedule.

Out of 700 colleges and universities that pledged in 2007 to go carbon neutral, �ֲ���ý is one of seven to have achieved the goal. It did so through a combination of efforts, most notably by reducing energy consumption, strengthening a culture of sustainability, and using wood-derived renewable fuel oil.

“The one that often gets overlooked, but is closest to my heart, is efficiency,” �ֲ���ý’ sustainability manager Tom Twist told Mainebiz. “That’s been our silent strength.”

Read the stories:��

• “,” Mainebiz, May 27, 2019��
• “,” Sun Journal, May 16, 2019��
• “,” Bangor Daily News, May 16, 2019��
• “,” Energy News Network, June 5, 2019

Carrie Diaz Eaton

Misinformation is everywhere. These scientists can teach you to fight BS — The Washington Post��

Ben Guarino of The Washington Post highlighted efforts by Associate Professor of Digital and Computational Studies Carrie Diaz Eaton to teach her students how to sift through misinformation in the news.

Her winter semester course, “Calling Bull in a Digital World,” was modeled on a similar course at the University of Washington.��

“The problem is not new,” Diaz Eaton told Guarino. “BS has been around forever. But it’s the way that technology has exploded that has really scaled up the amount of information and the amount of BS and how much we’re required to filter.”

One of Diaz Eaton’s students, Carol Harding ’19, learned�� to use statistical methods to make graphs�� showing Lewiston’s declining crime rate, countering public perceptions of the city.

Read the story:��

• “,”�� The Washington Post, June 24, 2019��

Louis Scolnik ’45

ACLU of Maine honors Judge Scolnik — Andover Townsman��

Andover Townsman covered the news that the ACLU of Maine has honored its founding president, Louis Scolnik ’45, with its annual award for “outstanding commitment to the protection of civil liberties.”

Scolnik, born in Lewiston and a local resident for many years, is a retired justice of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court.

Louis Scolnik ’45 is seen in 2013 at the annual luncheon for graduates of the Navy V-12 officer training program stationed at �ֲ���ý during World War II. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Scolnik was honored for a number of achievements during his long legal career including, as chair of an advisory committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights in the 1960s, efforts to end housing discrimination against African American military personnel stationed at Dow Air Force Base in Bangor.

He also had a hand in an unusual court case involving �ֲ���ý students in 1959.

• “,” Andover Townsman, June 13, 2019 ��

Jennifer Guckel Porter ’88

How to move from self-awareness to self-improvement — Harvard Business Review��

In Harvard Business Review, regular contributor Jennifer Guckel Porter ’88 took on a prickly topic: changing unproductive behavior and rewiring bad habits in the workplace.

The answer is self-management, “a conscious choice to resist a preference or habit, and instead, demonstrate a more productive behavior,” wrote Porter, who is the managing partner of The Boda Group.

“Start by recognizing your current actions, considering alternative options, and then putting in the hard work required to resist what may be most familiar or comfortable,” she wrote. “Instead, commit to effectively executing what is most productive.”��

Read the story:��

• “,” Harvard Business Review, June 19, 2019��

Kevin Lentini ’13

Married teachers win trip to Croatia — Today��

Using creativity and humor, Kevin Lentini ’13 and his wife, Kristin, won a seven-day vacation to Dubrovnik, Croatia, in a contest sponsored by NBC’s Today show and Airbnb.

Both teachers, the Lentinis submitted a video showing the pair standing at a marked-up whiteboard delivering a lesson on how to use persuasive rhetoric — specifically, how to “use persuasive rhetoric to persuade AirBnb and Today show to gift us a vacation.”

In the “logos” part of the lesson (an appeal to logic), they calculated that together they had graded 9,000 assignments this year. Conveniently, the distance from their Massachusetts schools to Dubrovnik and back is — wait for it — about 9,000 miles.��

“We know that teaching is hard,” said host Jenna Bush Hager as she congratulated the couple. “Y’all could really use a vacation.”��

Watch the video:��

• “,” Today, May 14, 2019��

Dorothy Foster Kern ’42

Three Auburn natives — all named Dorothy — turn 100 this year — Sun Journal��

The Lewiston Sun Journal reported that Dorothy Foster Kern ’42 is one of three local women named Dorothy celebrating their 100th birthdays in 2019. All three graduated from Edward Little High School and have been friendly with each other for nine decades.��

Kern worked in newspapers in the area before becoming Edward Little’s school librarian. As a child, she recalls one special treat: doughnuts.

“We had to be very careful how we spent money, but whenever we could have a doughnut, it was a real treat.”

Read the story:��

• “,” Sun Journal, May 10, 2019��

Mara Tieken��

Why more teachers should consider working in rural communities — Ed.

For a dive into the challenges, misconceptions, and promises of rural schools, Elaine McArdle of Ed., the magazine of Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, talked to Associate Professor of Education Mara Tieken.

Associate Professor of Education Mara Tieken teaches “Community Organizing for Social Justice” in May 2018. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Rural schools are often assumed to be white and one-size-fits-all, Tieken said. In fact, they are quite diverse and function as “nerve centers” of rural communities, bringing people together and tackling issues of sustainability and equity.��

“There is some really, really good work happening in rural places,” Tieken told McArdle. “We should be getting behind those good efforts and listening to people who live in rural areas and seeing their needs and strengths and what’s going well and how can we support that.”

Read the story:

• “,” Ed., Summer 2019��

Benni McComish ’20

What’s in your recycling bin? Interns will grade the contents this summer in 4 communities — Portland Press Herald��

Kate Lusignan of the Portland Press Herald covered a new internship program in four southern Maine cities and towns, in which interns peek at residents’ recycling to rate how well they’re sorting their waste. Benni McComish ’20 of Williamstown, Mass., is one of the interns.��

In the program piloted by waste management company ecomaine, interns open recycling bins and study the contents at the top. Then they tag the bins with a sticker — green for good sorting, yellow for some contaminants, red for so many non-recyclable contents that the city won’t pick it up.��

“Most often, the items they see that do not belong include paper towels and plastic bags — items that are commonly thought to be recyclable,” Lusignan wrote. “Seeing similar items in every bin implies that residents care about recycling efforts, but are unaware that certain materials are not recyclable.”��

Read the story:��

• “,” Portland Press Herald, June 19, 2019��

Joselle Deocampo-Gautam ’01��

A woman of influence works to bring women and minority groups into startup funding — Silicon Valley Business Journal��

Silicon Valley Business Journal named Joselle Deocampo-Gautam ’01, a new product innovation portfolio lead at Linkedin, one of its 100 Women of Influence.��

Deocampo-Gautam “democratize[s] finance for historically underserved and underbanked communities,” contributor Becky Bergman wrote.��

“Deocampo-Gautam is an immigrant to the U.S., as well as the first in her family to earn a college degree,” she wrote. “Never forgetting her roots, Deocampo-Gautam works to reform global finance in a way that brings more of the hidden market of women and minority groups into startup funding, global growth strategies and values-based entrepreneurship.”��

Read the story:��

• “,” Silicon Valley Business Journal, May 14, 2019��

STEM at �ֲ���ý

Lots of ‘cool science’ at �ֲ���ý spurred by federal program — Sun Journal��

Steve Collins of the Lewiston Sun Journal covered �ֲ���ý students’ and faculty’s participation in Maine INBRE, a federal- and state-funded program led by MDI Biological Laboratories that promotes biomedical research.��

The program, which helps students do high-level research, includes a wide range of projects, from a Short Term course to MDI Lab to use mouse poop to study gut microbiomes, to developing a high-resolution imaging system, to understanding aspects of nervous system cells.��

INBRE shows students that “every student can thrive, not just survive, in an academic discipline,” said Dean of the Faculty Malcolm Hill.��

Read the story:��

• “,” Sun Journal, June 9, 2019��

Nick Mazuroski ’09

Entrepreneurs on a mission: Three Maine eco-innovators out to conquer the green economy — Mainebiz

Solar entrepreneur Nick Mazuroski ’09 was one of three “eco-innovators” Mainebiz featured in order to highlight the green economy.��

Mazuroski is a part-time law student in Portland and vice president at Biomass Power Association. He also co-founded Dirigo Solar LLC, which in partnership with an Irish company is preparing to build solar power plants, employing more than 1,000 Maine residents in the process.��

Any green entrepreneurship has to make business sense, Mazuroski told reporter Renee Cordes. “We live in a capitalist society,” he said. “If the economics don’t work, you’ve got to find another way.”

Read the story:��

• “,” — Mainebiz

Sophie Claus ’19

Beverly’s Claus reflects on fantastic crew career — The Salem News

Columnist Jean DePlacido of The Salem News profiled Sophie Claus ’19, whose decision to try rowing for the first time in her first year at �ֲ���ý made her an integral part of a wildly successful team.��

A co-captain in her senior year, Claus helped lead the �ֲ���ý women to their third straight NCAA championship this year.��

“It’s been wonderful, and now my teammates are my best friends,” said Claus. “You’re out there all working hard together and moving faster than you thought you could.”

Read the story:

• “,” The Salem News, June 14, 2019��

Sameer Maskey ’02

A Conversation with Sameer Maskey — Voices in AI��

For analysis firm GigaOm’s podcast Voices in AI, Byron Reese talked to Sameer Maskey ’02, founder and CEO of fusemachines, a company that recruits artificial intelligence programmers from around the world.��

Maskey said he came to �ֲ���ý with the goal of eventually building a machine that could read a book and then discuss the book with the human, preferably in Nepali, his native language.��

Sameer Maskey ’02 works with Kristyna Alexova ’19, a 2018 Purposeful Work intern at fusemachines. (Nick Romanenko for �ֲ���ý College)

After years of studying artificial intelligence, he learned that such a machine would require artificial generalized intelligence, which means the machine can perform the same tasks as humans.��

But we’re not there and unlikely to get there soon, he says. “There’s probably some fundamental new ways of exploring things that is required.”��

Listen to the podcast:��

• “,” Voices in AI, May 16, 2019��