Thirty-nine years ago, even a hurricane couldn’t stay Jimmy Carter from a self-appointed duty: coming to �ֲ���ý to dedicate a new archive in honor of his good friend, Edmund Muskie ’36.

As Hurricane Gloria roared up the East Coast in late September 1985, threatening to thwart the former president’s trip to Maine, Carter’s reaction was, basically, “bring it on.”

“Nothing short of an absolute national catastrophe…could have prevented my coming to �ֲ���ý College,” Carter told an audience of more than 2,700 in Merrill Gymnasium on Sept. 28, 1985, during a dedication convocation for the official repository of Muskie’s papers, now known as the Edmund S. Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library.

Carter died today at age 100 at his home in Plains, Ga.

In 1985, Carter also used the occasional to speak warmly about another �ֲ���ý friend, civil rights leader Benjamin E. Mays, Class of 1920, who had died a year earlier. “I want to thank this college for making it possible for Dr. Benjamin Mays to overcome the handicaps of white supremacy and racism to take his place among the prominent leaders of our nation and our world.”

In his address, Carter described Muskie, a deeply admired colleague and friend who served as Carter’s secretary of state from May 1980 to January 1981, as representing “in a superb way the greatness of America’s character.” Muskie, he said, was “a man who had a strong and beneficial impact on my own life and on that of the nation.”

In Merrill Gym, the speakers’ platform was chock full of dignitaries. Maine Gov. Joseph Brennan was there, as was the entire Maine congressional delegation: representatives Olympia Snowe and John McKernan, and senators William Cohen and George Mitchell. Also on the platform was Frank Coffin ’40, who, as a federal judge, swore in Muskie as Carter’s new secretary of state in 1980. (Carter had visited �ֲ���ý once before, giving a campaign speech in 1975.)

As if a visit to �ֲ���ý by a former president didn’t create enough hullabaloo and hubbub, there was Hurricane Gloria. To skirt the East Coast–hugging storm, Carter first flew to Syracuse, N.Y., where the local newspaper photographed him walking through a hotel lobby in jogging shorts after a seven-mile run around Onondaga Lake.

Carter arrived on campus to the sounds of chainsaws. From early morning, �ֲ���ý community members, including students, took to the campus to clear fallen limbs before the big weekend’s events, which included traditional Back to �ֲ���ý festivities. Then-treasurer Bernie Carpenter wielded one of the saws and later wrote a thank-you letter to The �ֲ���ý Student. “Without that extra help [from students] our campus could not have looked as great as it did on Back to �ֲ���ý Weekend for our alumni and honored guests.”

During the convocation, Carter received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree, and later had a tet-a-tet with then Dean of the Faculty Carl Straub about Straub’s degree citation. The two met up, by chance, at the foot of the driveway to the President’s House as they arrived from different directions to attend a lunch hosted by �ֲ���ý President Hedley Reynolds. 

As Straub and Carter turned to walk up the steep driveway, Carter suddenly took the dean’s arm “and stopped my walk,” recalled Straub, who died in 2019. “He said he wanted to talk.”

Straub, who was a religion professor who would return to the �ֲ���ý classroom as the college’s first Griffith Professor of Environmental Studies, had piqued Carter’s interest by invoking the environment twice in his citation for Carter. 

First, he noted that “there is more than the Appalachian Trail which binds Maine to Georgia,” such as a “common heritage which rises from the simple decency of our people: We share a sense of what is good and just and beautiful.” Second, the citation praised Carter for, among other achievements as the 39th U.S. president, the “foresight to protect our natural environments, to preserve American wilderness.” 

Carter, recalled Straub, wanted to talk about the Appalachian Trail. Not surprising: In 1978, Carter signed a law giving the federal government more power to protect, expand, and improve the trail.

Straub said he took a moment to thank Carter for his leadership in establishing the Denali National Park. (In 1978, Carter used executive authority to designate 56 million acres of Alaska wilderness as federally protected national monuments and in 1980 signed a law bringing the former McKinley National Park into a larger protected area named Denali National Park and Preserve.)

It was a proud if surreal moment for Straub, having a 10-minute private audience with a former president — “while dignitaries waited at the top of the driveway to welcome [Carter].” 

Carter’s friendship with and admiration for Ed Muskie is well-chronicled in the public record, thanks in large part to the Muskie Archives. It shines through in the famous photo of the 5-foot-10 Carter hugging the 6-foot-4 Muskie during the archives dedication. 

And it comes through in quieter ways, like the April 1981 photo showing Carter, decked out in fly-fishing gear and smiling that famous Carter grin, holding a big brown trout. On the back of the photo, which Carter sent to Muskie, he wrote, “On the opening day of the season, with my new Ed Muskie self-casting rod, I caught a lot of smaller ones, plus three over 18 inches. Thanks again. I’m sure the Maine fishing will be even better. Jimmy.” 

While less well-known, the late president’s relationship with Mays was no less vital or authentic. For one, it reflected a shared Southern upbringing, wrote Damian Dominguez in a March 2023 story about the Mays–Carter friendship for the Greenwood (S.C.) Index-Journal. 

“The two shared a common sensibility: Carter grew up a rural, Southern, Baptist farmer; Mays was the son of freed slaves who became sharecroppers and grew up a Baptist in rural Epworth,” Dominguez reported. 

Carter and Mays probably got to know one another around 1970, Dominguez suggested. At the time, Mays, who had retired as president of Morehouse in 1967, was presiding over the Atlanta Board of Education — just as the federal courts ordered the desegregation of Georgia public schools — and Carter was ramping up his successful campaign for governor.

Mays pointed to Carter’s inaugural address as Georgia’s governor in 1971, when Carter said that “the time for racial discrimination is over.”

Within a few years, Mays, who had been advising U.S. presidents on racial issues since the 1950s, starting with Harry Truman, would announce his support of Carter for president, a decision that Mays explained during a talk at �ֲ���ý in February 1977 during Black Arts Week. Then age 82, Mays spoke in the Chapel (and was introduced by Marcus Bruce ’77, then a �ֲ���ý senior and now the Charles A. Dana Professor of Religious Studies).

Mays explained that he had been getting letters asking why he had supported Carter’s run for president in 1976, so he took a moment to explain his reasons. Mays pointed to Carter’s inaugural address as Georgia’s governor in 1971, when Carter said that “the time for racial discrimination is over.”

From that moment, Mays took time to “study his record, read what he said and what his mother said about Jimmy’s early years. At a time when Negroes went to the back door [of a] white house… Jimmy Carter’s black friends went in and out of of the Carter house through the front door.”

When Carter served in the Navy, Mays told his Chapel audience, his voice sounding still strong on an old cassette tape recording, “one of his friends was Black, and when he visited Jimmy Carter’s home, he was treated as a man and was a guest in the Carter home. So when he made his statement about racism in his inaugural address [as] governor, I had reasons to believe.”

Mays went on to recount the various actions Carter took as governor, including integrating the powerful Board of Regents, which controls policy for Georgia’s public university system. “He meant what he said,” Mays concluded.

After Mays’ death on March 28, 1984, Carter praised him as “my personal friend, my constructive critic, and my close adviser.”

Mays, known as the “Schoolmaster of the Movement” for mentoring Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders, told the Chapel audience that in supporting Carter he was also supporting his own life’s work, to help lead the South’s emergence from its Jim Crow past. Mays spoke of growing up when “lynching was respected by the state and condoned by the church…. I knew segregation and denigration.”

After Mays’ death on March 28, 1984, Carter praised him as “my personal friend, my constructive critic, and my close adviser.” Offering one of the eulogies at his funeral, held at Morehouse, Carter described Mays as a “monumental figure in the field of education and social justice. He inspired all who knew him.”

At Mays’ funeral, when a speaker asked all the “Morehouse men” to stand, Carter stood with the many other Morehouse degree-holders — Carter had received an honorary degree from Morehouse in 1972.

“I was proud to stand as one of the Morehouse men,” Carter said in his remarks. “Dr. Mays told me that he was proud a Morehouse man was finally in the White House. He told me, ‘You may be the first, but you won’t be the last.'”

Edmund Muskie ’36 is considered a prime mover and leading voice of modern American environmentalism. In many ways, he quite literally was the voice. 

Fifty years ago, as a U.S. senator from Maine, Muskie’s �ֲ���ý-trained voice sounded across the country. From Sacramento to Millinocket to Pensacola, he explained in lucid and compelling and logical terms why a new law to protect water from pollutants was not just good for Americans and America, but absolutely necessary for our survival.

On Oct. 18, 1972, the Clean Water Act became law, all because of Muskie, who understood to his Maine-born core that protecting the natural environment was inseparable from protecting what he called “our total human environment,” incorporating economic and other realms.

In speaking to audiences around the country — audio clips are below, from the Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library — Muskie followed an important principle of argumentation and debate learned at �ֲ���ý: Understand, respect, and speak to your audience.

“The technical term is argumentum ad populum,” says Jan Hovden, lecturer in rhetoric, film, and screen studies and director of debate at �ֲ���ý. “Muskie is appealing to the values of the common people and making sure that they are at the forefront of the arguments that he’s making.”

Muskie was a shy kid who came to �ֲ���ý from Rumford, Maine. He blossomed through public speaking and debate, taking four semesters of public speaking, all taught by Brooks Quimby, Class of 1918, a professor of argumentation and speech from 1927 to 1967, and namesake of the Quimby Debate Council at �ֲ���ý, which Hovden coaches. 

So Muskie probably heard Quimby say to him and his classmates, as the professor wrote in his book, So You Want to Debate, “Don’t mumble, be careful to pronounce every syllable.” He probably heard Quimby’s advice to “listen to ” and to “watch for poor diction, ‘git’ for ‘get.’�ĝ

A listener will also hear many pauses in Muskie’s speeches.

“He’s using it for effect,” says Hovden. Muskie is allowing his words to sink in with his audience. “Pauses are an incredibly important part of speech-giving. Like after giving a startling fact, you just want to let that sink in. You need to pause for probably three seconds. And that’s really hard for people to do.”

Muskie’s formal speaking style is a thing of the past, suggests Hovden, “very consistent with how you would expect an educated man of his stature to speak during that time period.”

Fifty years ago, science and scientists were not disputed, and Muskie gained fame for knowing the science of pollution. “Muskie was speaking when science was prominent,” says Hovden, “when being able to establish yourself as an expert about something, or as an intellectual elite, was actually seen as good. People were looking for educated people to figure things out. Whereas today, that’s just not the case.”

Speaking to Democratic supporters in October 1970 at an Elks Lodge in Millinocket, Muskie offered a raison d’être for his work to advance environmental legislation. He had been asked his one wish for Maine. He said, “I hope we find a way to create economic opportunity for all people without destroying the beauty that is this state.”

“He’s trying to emphasize the idea that these two goals are not mutually exclusive,” Hovden said. “Any path going forward, we can’t just say one or the other. We have to do both. This is what has to happen.”

Muskie insisted that it was not only possible but imperative to think about the “total human environment” — the natural, economic, health, and social environments. “He was incredibly consistent,” says Hovden. “It’s so impressive.”

March 24, 1970: Muskie speaks to the conference of the National Association of Counties

Muskie began many talks with what today are called “dad jokes.” As Hovden explains, “Jokes can be a very effective introductory part of a speech or even used throughout the speech — with some big caveats. It can’t be something that offends your audience members. The audience has to get the joke. The focus isn’t on the joke at the expense of what it is that you’re talking about. Muskie seemed to understand that.”

In March 1970 in Washington, D.C., Muskie began with a joke as he addressed 500 officials from 50 states representing local counties that depended on federal funding for anti-pollution measures. 

The joke is about “benign neglect” — a swipe at President Nixon, who was advised to adopt this laissez faire strategy on racial strife:

Transcript:
[With every new administration here in Washington] we get a whole new lexicon of phrases anyway. One of the most interesting ones, that ought not to apply certainly to this field, is the phrase “benign neglect.” 

You know, I have an old friend of mine up in Maine, he’s a Republican, too, 70 years old, who’s lived all his life on a Maine farm. And I asked him if he had heard of that phrase, benign neglect, he said he had. And I asked him if he knew what it meant. He said he did. So I asked him if he wouldn’t explain. Well, he said, “If you were standing on a bridge and watching a man drown, and did nothing about it, that would be neglect. But if at the same time you smiled, that would be benign neglect.”

Muskie sometimes uses the phrases “whole society” or “total human environment” in his call for a “total strategy to protect the total environment.”

Transcript:
And we should all understand that we are all in the same boat. That what happens to our environment must make a difference to all of us, whoever we are. And that what happens to each of us, must make a difference to the rest of us. So we must reclaim the total human environment. 

Oct. 10, 1970: Muskie speaks to citizens at an Elks Lodge in Millinocket, Maine 

Asked on a local radio show what his one wish for Maine was, Muskie replied: “To create economic opportunity for all people without destroying the beauty that is this state.” The “Ken” and “Bill” in the clip are probably fellow Democrats, then-Gov. Kenneth Curtis and then-Rep. Bill Hathaway.

Later, at the Elks Lodge, he says that after reflection, that first answer was the best one. “He’s using repetition for effect,” says Hovden. “He’s really just saying, ‘This is what has to happen, and, you know, after I’ve thought about it, yeah, that’s still what has to happen.’”

Transcript:
I was asked on your radio this afternoon, it was rather a surprise question that I understand Bill was asked and Ken was asked, if I had but one wish that I could make for Maine, what would that wish be? My answer was that I hope we find a way to create economic opportunity for all people without destroying the beauty that is this state. So I say that was my very quick reaction [applause], but now that I’ve had a few hours to think about it, I can’t think of another wish that I would make. [more applause]

In this clip, Muskie asks his audience to imagine protecting the environment “through different eyes.”

Transcript:
But the challenge that is in it for us, is that we begin to look at this precious resource through different eyes; that we begin to be more selective about the uses to which we’re willing to put it; that we begin to think more in terms of public ownership of these shorelands, both lake and ocean, to ensure that the public as a whole has reasonable access to it; that we adopt the kind of public policy that ensures that a reasonable proportion of these wildlands be retained in that state so that our children, as well as we, can remember what it’s like to camp out where you can hear a loon, to walk through miles of wilderness where you have the impression no one else has ever been.

In this clip, “Muskie appeals to Mainers’ strong feelings about their land,” says Hovden. “How Mainers love their shores, their forests, their mountains.”

He’s also talking about protecting Maine from outside interests. “I grew up in North Dakota, and it’s totally the same way,” said Hovden. “We don’t want outsiders because they won’t value natural resources the same way that we do. It’s subtle, but if you’re a Mainer you recognize it.”

Transcript:
The population pressures are suddenly going to pour people across the borders of our state, not only for recreation or summer vacations, but as a place to live. Already you’ve been reading in the Portland Sunday paper about the speculation that’s going on in Maine shorelands. And it is. 

We don’t know who the speculators are, we don’t know how much land they bought up. We don’t know what purposes they’ll put them to, but we know the prices are climbing. There’s 2,500 miles of this kind of shore. We don’t know how much of it has already been the subject of speculation. Now, when the speculators finally decide that there’s a market for some kind of commercial activity as yet undefined, to what uses are they going to put that shoreland? We don’t know. And the speculation is going to creep inward to the lake shores all over the state.

Jan. 26, 1972: Muskie speaks to voters in Pensacola, Fla., about President Nixon’s hostility to the Clean Water Act

Muskie was on the campaign trail in Florida, visiting a notorious pollution site in the early 1970s — , which was declared “dead” by the local fishing association in 1971. 

The joke about Nixon’s revolutions “not lasting very long” is a reference to Nixon calling for a “New American Revolution” in the form of unrestricted funding to states during his State of the Union address.

Transcript:
Two months ago, the Senate by a vote of 86 to nothing approved the Water Quality Act of 1971. It is a tough and far-reaching piece of legislation, the product of my subcommittee’s work. It was unanimously supported by the subcommittee, by the full committee, and by the Senate. It would do what needs to be done to clean up bodies of water like the Escambia Bay. [The legislation] was written to help you. 

But President Nixon, who a couple of years ago devoted a major part of his State of the Union message to the fight against pollution, who this year devoted, I think, one sentence to the same cause — his revolutions don’t last very long [laughter and applause] — is now making every effort and enlisting all the support he can to water down that bill on the House side of the Congress. 

Oct. 28, 1973: Muskie speaks to a nonprofit citizen’s environmental group, the Housatonic Valley Association in Newtown, Conn.

Though we’re celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Clean Water Act now, Muskie himself considered 1970’s Clean Air Act his greatest achievement. Both required assiduous defending — for example, $18 billion had been allocated by the federal government to construct municipal water treatment plants but that level of support had been undercut by the Nixon administration.

This clip is a favorite of Hovden’s for how Muskie sets himself off from the economic elites, personified by The Wall Street Journal; shows his scientific understanding of pollution issues; and makes a connection to the audience, telling them that they don’t have to understand the science to know what pollution is.

“He’s setting up the dichotomy between the economic elite and the scientists,” says Hovden. “And he’s saying, ‘Even if you all don’t believe the science or don’t understand the science, this is how you personally know. And you all know.’�ĝ 

Transcript:
The Wall Street Journal accused me of doing my scientific research by looking out the window of an airplane. And they quoted one of my recent speeches in which I had said that as I returned from Maine to the Senate following the August recess, I saw one unbroken dirty air mass covering the land, urban and rural areas alike, and darkening the sun. 

Well, I was a little upset about the editorial because The Wall Street Journal was obviously trying to impugn the standards we set in the Clean Air Act and blatantly ignored the well-documented fact that those standards were based on health data produced by the Public Health Service. 

But on second thought, I was even more upset that the Journal considered it irrelevant to public policy that dirty air is a visibly offensive intrusion upon the daily lives of millions of helpless citizens who have no choice but to breathe it. This isn’t to say that we shouldn’t get the best scientific evidence we can of the impact of pollution. We must vastly expand our knowledge. We must identify the biological limits of our environment and we must identify the margins of safety which are necessary to protect us in areas of uncertain knowledge.

But pollution is more than parts per million or gallons per hour or BOD [biological oxygen demand] or other scientific measurements. As citizens, you know what dirty water is. You know when you cannot swim in the Housatonic River, you know when those tributaries you used to fish no longer have trout. You know that’s pollution. And I’m not sure you’re interested in the exact quantity of suspended solids or the oxygen demand in the river, but [what] you are interested in is getting an unhealthy environment healthy, getting a dirty river clean. And we share that goal. And the 1972 Clean Water Act is intended to achieve that goal. 

It’s fun to hear Muskie use his physical presence, as in this clip, where you can hear him banging the lectern as he cites three finite resources.

Transcript:
What we are talking about are three finite resources: air, water, and fossil fuels.

Ultra-consistent in messaging, Muskie here talks about how the pressing energy crisis is not a reason to pivot from solving environmental issues. It’s about the total human environment.

Transcript:
We’re going to have to find renewable sources of energy at some point to deal with the energy requirements of this planet. But there is that possibility with respect to air and water. They will serve our needs only to the extent that we clean them up for reuse. Not talking about aesthetics now.

I’m not talking about what’s pretty to look at. I’m talking about two resources that are absolutely essential to human activity from simple breathing to providing the means for this industrial society to work — air and water. To the extent that you don’t clean them up for reuse, to that extent do you build up the limitations of the future. 

When newly elected Sen. Angus King, an Independent from Maine, was preparing to move into his office in the Dirksen Senate Office Building in 2013, he was offered a choice of desks. The one King picked is big and broad, with slightly curved legs that square off in an angle at the top, interrupting its otherwise perfectly rectangular shape, and end in an almost claw-like foot. 

The legs are distinctive but even more so is the desk’s rich legacy, having served as the desk of Edmund Sixtus Muskie ’36 during his time in the U.S. Senate.

The desk was command central as Muskie was working on landmark legislation, including the Clean Air and Clean Water acts, the latter of which will have its 50th anniversary this fall. Muskie chaired the Senate Subcommittee on Environmental Pollution, a role that famously earned him the nickname “Mr. Clean.” 

“There was no question in my mind this was the right choice,” King says. “If you’re ever given the option to use Edmund Muskie’s desk, you take it!”

And other Maine politicians have done exactly so: When Muskie left the Senate in 1980, after more than two decades, to become Secretary of State to President Jimmy Carter, his former assistant from the early 1960s, George Mitchell, then a federal judge in Maine, was appointed to fill Muskie’s seat in the Senate. King says Mitchell took the Muskie desk as well.

Then, when Mitchell left the Senate in 1995 and was succeeded by Olympia Snowe, she moved the desk into her office. At Muskie’s memorial service in 1996, Snowe described coming to Washington in 1979 as the new congresswoman from Maine and being touched by Muskie’s kindness and grateful for his advice. “We were congressional colleagues for only a year and a half, but our friendship lasted throughout the years.” 

The furnishings and decor around it changed — Muskie liked to hold forth from behind the desk, with visitors grouped around it in chairs, while Snowe was typically pictured in her office sitting side by side with guests in more elegant striped gold and red high backed chairs — but the desk of the senators from Maine remained the same. 

The parties did not though. As was Muskie, Mitchell is a Democrat but Snowe is a Republican. 

“This desk’s bipartisan (now tripartisan!) history is one of my favorite features,” says King. “It’s a reminder that I stand on the shoulders of giants who made it their habit to work across party lines to deliver results for our state and our nation. I’m humbled by the legacy of accomplishments left behind by the leaders who came before me.”

Muskie, who died in 1996 just shy of his 82nd birthday, would have turned 108 this week, on March 28. (Late March birthdays are another thing the two former governors of Maine have in common: King turned 78 on March 31). Muskie grew up the son of immigrants in Rumford, where his father was a tailor, before arriving at �ֲ���ý, conscious of his lack of wealth initially and needing to work his way through college, like many of his classmates during the Depression. By the time he graduated cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa in 1936, he was class president and a skilled and confident debater.

In mid-March, with the Russian invasion of Ukraine raging, King, an adroit user of Instagram who writes often soulful captions for his own photography, posted a sunlit shot of his office, showing part of the desk, his bust of Lincoln, and the rich red walls behind it, hung with paintings by Maine artists (Marguerite Robichaux and Linden Frederick). The scene, and the moment in time, prompted him to share some perspective in light of the Ukrainian crisis. “In difficult times like these,” King wrote on the post. “I find temporary refuge in history.” 

That refuge included considering Muskie’s feat in leading Maine, and the nation, “into the environmental era,” King wrote, noting that Muskie managed the first Clean Water Act to a “unanimous (!) vote in the Senate. And came to embody the idea of integrity in politics.”

There’s no question that Muskie worked at this desk as he crafted the Clean Water Act, King says. “Looking back on it, the fact that Muskie got this bill enacted into law speaks to his relentless perseverance. He held hearing after hearing on this subject, drawing from both scientific data and his personal experiences in Rumford to advocate passionately for the importance of clean water in every community across the country.”

Rumford sits on a bend of the Androscoggin River, so in his youth, Muskie could literally see (and smell) the water and air pollution generated by the small city’s pulp and paper mills.

“He eventually wore down his opposition, and the bill passed the Senate unanimously,” King says. “When I’m working on the toughest issues we face and feel like I’m at an impasse, Muskie’s example reminds me to keep going.”

It’s a true working desk then, not ostentatious. It’s solid. Like Muskie. An aide once said that ‘sham and pretense grate on him like sandpaper.’”

Some mysteries remain about the desk. No one seems to know exactly what kind of wood it is, but King says that “it’s from the early 20th century, and had been in the Russell Senate Office Building originally.” It’s double-sided, so it could accommodate two people sitting across from each other, with a footrest for each. “I’ve never used the desk for that purpose,” King says. “So I get extra room to stretch out my legs.” (A nice feature when you’re 6-foot-2.)

It’s a true working desk then, and despite the turn of its legs — which make it easy to identify in historic photos, like the one of Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan making her way into Snowe’s office for a meeting when she was still a nominee — it is not ostentatious. It’s solid. Like Muskie, who The New York Times described in its obituary as “above all, a creature of the Senate. A blunt man, with a hair trigger temper that detonated often, he nonetheless became one of the Senate’s most influential members. An aide once said that ‘sham and pretense grate on him like sandpaper.’”

Mitchell was stunned and intimidated. “I couldn’t control the shaking of my legs even though I was sitting down.

Note the mention of the temper, which was legendary. The first time George Mitchell glimpsed the desk that would eventually become his, he also saw the temper. On March 26, 1996, Mitchell shared his memory as part of the many Congressional memorial tributes to the former senator from Maine. Mitchell recalled going for an interview for a job as an assistant in Muskie’s office. He was fresh out of law school. Mitchell had been advised to prepare a memorandum on the legal aspects of an issue that was being considered by the Senate.

“I thought the memo was pretty good, but unknowingly I had made a huge mistake,” Mitchell said. “I reached a conclusion that was the opposite of the Senator’s. I had never met him but he didn’t bother with any small talk. Within minutes of our introduction, he unleashed a ferocious cross-examination. He came out from behind his desk, he towered over me, he shook his finger at me and he took my memo apart, line by line.”

Mitchell was stunned and intimidated. “I couldn’t control the shaking of my legs even though I was sitting down. I tried as best as I could to explain my point of view and we had what you might call a lively discussion. As I left he said, ‘The next time you come in here, you’ll be better prepared.’ That’s how I learned I’d been hired, and I sure was better prepared the next time.”

King says he tells visitors about the desk’s history, “often and eagerly, without any prompting.”

A few years ago, King ran into Ned Muskie, the youngest of Ed and Jane’s Muskie’s five children, in Washington, D.C., and invited him for lunch in the Senate dining room. “I said that would be incredible,” Ned Muskie says. “Because I have wonderful memories of Dad taking us there. Back then, Dad was like a rock star, even among other senators. They all wanted to interact with Dad. So our lunches would be interrupted by people like Hubert Humphrey or Sam Nunn.”

But before King and Ned Muskie went to lunch, they stopped by King’s office. Muskie remembers King telling him, “I have something special to show you. And sure enough, it was the desk.”

It was set at a different angle — “Dad had it in a very conventional way, at the end of the room” — but Ned knew it immediately. “Hell yeah,” he says. He told King about his own history with the desk. 

“I knew this desk from when I was a very little boy. Very similar to John-John Kennedy, who would sit on the stretcher below his father’s desk, I also did the same thing. Dad would be on the phone and I’d crawl under the desk. I’d tickle his feet or do something silly like that, so I have very fond memories of the desk.” 

Ned’s four siblings would sometimes join him in play under and around the desk while his father worked. “How Muskie ever got the Clean Water Act passed with kids darting back and forth, I’ll never know!” King says.

King considers the desk timeless. “Not only because it’s been passed down from senator to senator, but because the impact of the work done at this desk still affects Maine people today. Just look at the Clean Water Act: Mainers depend on the ocean, lakes, and rivers to live and work. Without this historic legislation, our waterways would not be the same today.

“Thankfully, Maine had Ed Muskie working for us. So yes, the desk is timeless. It’s a piece of history, and I’m honored to continue the tradition.”

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.’�ĝ

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

Jared Golden ’11, Ben Cline ’94, and Bob Goodlatte ’74

Two alumni take their seats in Congress, and a third retires

Three �ֲ���ý alumni — Bob Goodlatte ’74, Ben Cline ’94, and Jared Golden ’11 — were part of the comings and goings in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 3 as newly elected congressional representatives took their seats and others left office.

Amy Friedenberger of The Roanoke Times wrote a long profile of Goodlatte, a Republican who represented Virginia’s 6th Congressional District for 26 years before retiring this year.

In July 1999, Ben Cline ’94 (left) confers with Rep. Bob Goodlatte ’74, R-Va., in Goodlatte’s office in the Rayburn House Office Building. Goodlatte’s legislative director at the time, Cline now has succeeded Goodlatte as Virginia’s 6th District representative. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

“There’s plenty of good work that has been done, and I’ve been honored to be a part of it, and there’s plenty of good work that can still be done,” Goodlatte said as he prepared to leave his digs (with a view of the Capitol) in the Rayburn House Office Building.

Friedenberger also covered the swearing-in of Goodlatte’s successor, Republican Ben Cline ’94. Cline spoke of working with Democrats to reopen the government.

“I do believe we can chart a new course working together on issues where we have common ground,” he said.

Meanwhile, Steve Collins of the Lewiston Sun Journal covered Golden’s arrival at the U.S. capital, noting that the 2nd District Democrat’s first days on the job were marked by a vote for Speaker of the House (for Cheri Bustos, D-Illinois); “House”-warming gifts from two fellow Maine lawmakers, independent Sen. Angus King and Democratic Rep. Chellie Pingree; and a near-car crash on the way from the airport.

Jared Golden ’11 greets his supporters at the Gendron Franco Center in Lewiston on Nov. 6. On his right is his wife Isobel Golden ’11. (Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal)

“He said he’s going to play his part in a team effort to address issues ranging from health care to campaign finance reform,” Collins wrote.

• Read: “’,” The Roanoke Times, Dec. 22, 2019
• Read: “,” The Roanoke Times, Jan. 3, 2019
• Read:  “,” Sun Journal, Jan. 3, 2019

Lucy Brennan ’14

Town seeks to eliminate all greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 — York Weekly

The Bangor Daily News reported that the town of York, Maine, now knows it’s mostly on track to eliminate municipal greenhouse gas emissions, thanks to research conducted by AmeriCorps volunteer Lucy Brennan ’14.

Brennan, who is also the sustainability program coordinator for the city of South Portland, started out by organizing data from York’s municipal power bills. Overall, her research has shown that emissions from heating fuel, electricity, and streetlights have all gone down in recent years, but the town’s vehicle fleet remains a significant source of emissions.

The fire department has done a particularly good job — thanks in part to a solar array on its rooftop — with reducing emissions, Brennan told reporter Deborah McDermott. “There’s a really exciting story to tell here,” she said.

• Read the story: “,” York Weekly, Jan. 8, 2019

Richard A. Johnson ’78

Black Sox scandal: SF native Thom Ross paints fresh perspective of 1919 team — San Francisco Chronicle

For a review of a new art exhibit on the infamous “Black Sox” scandal of the 1919 World Series, San Francisco Chronicle reporter John Shea spoke with Richard Johnson ’78, curator of the Sports Museum in Boston and a friend of the artist, Thom Ross.

“He gets into a subject and researches it assiduously and has a real attraction to the quintessential American stories that almost morphed into fables,” Johnson told Shea. “The Black Sox seem to fit into that mold.”

• Read the story: “,” San Francisco Chronicle, Jan. 1, 2019

Chuck Radis ’75

Peaks Island doctor brings practice to pages in new book — The Forecaster

David Harry of The Forecaster talked to Chuck Radis ’75, an osteopath who practiced on the islands of Casco Bay for more than 30 years and has now written a book about his experiences.

Radis worked out of the Peaks Island Health Center, often reaching patients by police boat. He hopes the book will “provide historical background for some people who looked at the islands as upscale and homogeneous,” Radis told Harry.

Radis, who now practices rheumatology in Portland and has founded a nonprofit that works in a refugee camp in Uganda, still lives on Peaks Island.

• Read the story: “,” The Forecaster, Dec. 31, 2018

Tom Lopez ’69

After 41 seasons — and 303 wins — Tom Lopez retires as Lincoln-Sudbury football coach — The Boston Globe

After 40 years, 303 career wins, and three Massachusetts high school football Super Bowl titles, Tom Lopez ’69 is retiring as head football coach at Lincoln-Sudbury High School.

Showing that he still has football moves, head coach Tom Lopez ’69 dodges players trying to dump water on him after his 300th career victory on Oct. 19, 2018. (MetroWest Daily News and Wicked Local Staff Photo/John Walker]

Lopez started as an assistant coach at the school in 1971 and became head coach in 1978.

“I told the kids, to coach 48 years at one place, I’ve had the best job in America,” Lopez told Boston Globe reporter Brendan Hall. “I’m leaving with a lot of smiles on my face. It’s a great place to coach, a great school, great kids.”

Lopez, who won his 300th game last October, was an outstanding end for �ֲ���ý football as a student.

• Read the story: “,” The Boston Globe, Dec. 19, 2019
• Related: “,” The Milford Daily News, Dec. 30, 2019

Kelli Armstrong ’86

Salve Regina names Boston College administrator as next president — The Boston Globe

The Boston Globe and other media outlets reported that Kelli Armstrong ’86 will become president of Salve Regina University in 2019.

Armstrong, currently vice president for planning and assessment at Boston College, will be the first lay president of Salve Regina, which is affiliated with the Religious Sisters of Mercy.

The university has “created a wonderful educational environment that is unique in its preparation of students for lifelong learning with a moral compass,” Armstrong said in a statement. “Salve Regina has a bright, exciting future, and I look forward to working with the entire University community to advance its mission.”

• Read the story: “,” The Boston Globe, Dec. 14, 2018
• Related: “,” SALVEToday, Dec. 12, 2018

Brooks Quimby, Class of 1918, and Edmund Muskie ’36

How a �ֲ���ý professor forged Edmund Muskie’s career — Sun Journal

After a �ֲ���ý panel on the legacy of Edmund Muskie ’36, Steve Collins of the Lewiston Sun Journal dived into the college’s Edmund S. Muskie Archives to explore the relationship between the statesman and his �ֲ���ý mentor: legendary rhetoric and speech professor Brooks Quimby, Class of 1918.

Rhetoric and speech professor Brooks Quimby, Class of 1918, reads The �ֲ���ý Student in February 1955. (Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library)

Muskie said in a 1957 speech that Quimby, who debated at �ֲ���ý as a student and returned as a coach and professor for 40 years, helped him transform from a “shy boy” into a confident, articulate speaker able to take on the 20th century’s most pressing challenges.

“Above all, (Quimby) taught us to seek fulfillment for ourselves by developing our capacity to make a contribution to the world about us,” Muskie said. “He inspired us to do so, as he still does, by his own example.”

• Read the story: “,” Sun Journal, Jan. 12, 2019

�ֲ���ý College Museum of Art

Artists interpret human impact on the Earth at �ֲ���ý — Portland Press Herald

Arts reporter Bob Keyes covered the �ֲ���ý College Museum of Art exhibit Anthropocenic: Art About the Natural World in the Human Era.

“Watering Hole (Social Species in the Late Anthropocene),” a 2017 oil painting by Laurie Hogin, appears in the Museum of Art exhibition Anthropocenic.

“Some scientists believe we have moved past the Holocene epoch and into a new one known as the Anthropocene, an epoch defined by significant human impact on the Earth’s geology and ecosystems, including climate change,” Keyes wrote.

• Read the story: “,” MaineToday, Dec. 24, 2018

Elizabeth Rynecki ’91

A crusade to recover Jewish art lost during the Holocaust — Haaretz

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz interviewed Elizabeth Rynecki ’91 ahead of the premiere in Jerusalem of a documentary about Rynecki’s quest to track down the many lost paintings of her great-grandfather, a Polish artist who died in the Holocaust.

“My great-grandfather’s paintings were survivors…with no voice,” she said.

Moshe Rynecki, who lived in Warsaw, was able to hide some 800 of his paintings before the war. Though members of his family survived, including his wife, only a fraction of his paintings have been recovered.

Elizabeth Rynecki ’91 holds her great-grandfather’s self-portrait at the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw. (Photograph by Sławomir Grünberg)

Attracting widespread media attention, Elizabeth’s efforts to recover more of her great-grandfather’s paintings include a database of his works and the book Chasing Portraits: A Great-Granddaughter’s Quest for Her Lost Art Legacy.

The paintings “are a powerful reflection of life in Poland before the war that not many people are aware of,” she said. “I felt that I could rescue that legacy and share it with the world.”

• Read the story: “,”  Haaretz, Nov. 25, 2018
  
• Related: “,” New York Times, Aug. 18, 2016

Edmund Muskie ’36

Muskie’s 1968 vice presidential campaign recalled at �ֲ���ý College forum — Sun Journal

Steve Collins of the Lewiston Sun Journal covered a �ֲ���ý panel celebrating the 1968 vice presidential campaign of U.S. Sen. Edmund Muskie ’36, featuring experts and people who had worked with Muskie on the campaign trail.

Edmund Muskie ’36 and supporters at a 1968 campaign event. The location is perhaps New York City; third from left is perhaps Shirley Chisholm, then running for her first term as a Congresswoman. (Burton Burinsky / Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library)

The panelists described a politician who worked to bridge divides and calm clashes, “reaching out to both sides,” said Charles Micoleau, a campaign staffer and later Muskie’s chief of staff.

Hubert Humphrey and Muskie lost the ’68 race to Richard Nixon by less than 1 percent, and Muskie lost his own bid for the presidency in the 1972 Democratic primary. But his high profile and prestige was “a real driving force, a hammer pounding the Clean Air Act through the committee and the Senate” in 1970, said Eliot Cutler, who was Muskie’s assistant press secretary.

“We are the lucky ones who are still here,” Cutler said. Muskie’s role in the history of the 20th century “shaped all of us.”

• Read the story: “,” Lewiston Sun Journal, Nov. 29, 2018.
• Related: “8 reasons why Edmund Muskie ’36 was an amazing political candidate in 1968,” �ֲ���ý News, Dec. 5, 2018

Rebecca Herzig

To shave, or not to shave? How a new generation of women are embracing body hair — Vogue

Women are taking an increasingly laissez-faire approach to body hair, wrote Maya Singer of Vogue. For a historical perspective on women and shaving, she turned to Professor of Gender and Sexuality Studies Rebecca Herzig, author of Plucked: A History of Hair Removal.

Professor of Gender and Sexuality Studies Rebecca Herzig discusses a field project with a student in 2016. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Hairlessness didn’t become a beauty standard until after WWII, Herzig wrote in Plucked. Some second-wave feminists in the 1970s revolted against this standard by condemning shaving entirely, whereas the early 2000s were given to the “Brazilian wax tyranny,” Singer wrote.

Singer characterizes the present age as one of, “I’ll shave if I want to,” and razor companies are taking notice.

“One way to characterize what we’re seeing may be that women are now encouraged to ask—and increasingly expect—brands to fulfill their needs,” Herzig said.

• Read the story: “,” �մDz��ܱ�,��Dec. 10, 2018
• Related: “‘Plucked’: Race, gender, science, medicine converge in history of hair removal,” �ֲ���ý News, Feb. 4, 2015

Rebecca Fraser-Thill

Should you go back to work for your old company? — MarketWatch

For a list of factors to keep in mind if you’re thinking about returning to a previous workplace, MarketWatch writer Meera Jagannathan turned to Lecturer in Psychology Rebecca Fraser-Thill, a Pivot career coach.

Lecturer in Psychology Rebecca Fraser-Thill speaks about �ֲ���ý’ Purposeful Work initiative at the 2016 new student Orientation. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Fraser-Thill recommended asking friends and family what you were like at your old job, thinking about the relationship you had with your old boss, comparing your current workplace to your old workplace, and — if you decide to make the move back — framing the decision positively.

“You’ve taken a moment to really consider your path, and you are intentionally and actively choosing this former employer,” she told Jagannathan.

• Read the story: “” MarketWatch, Oct. 15, 2018

Nathan Tefft

‘It’s Just Math’ — Mainers recreate ranked-choice voting results to test the process — Maine Public

When some argued that Maine’s new ranked-choice voting process is an inaccessable “black box,” Associate Professor of Economics Nathan Tefft replicated the election results on his own and sent his calculations to Maine Public.

Associate Professor of Economics Nathan Tefft teaches a class in 2016. (Josh Kucken/�ֲ���ý College)

Using publicly available voting data and a common open-source programming language, Tefft exactly replicated the results of the election, which used the innovative ranked-choice format for the first time to proclaim Jared Golden ’11 the winner. (Another Mainer did the same using Microsoft Excel.)

“It’s an important idea for me to support trust and confidence in the vote counting process,” Tefft told reporter Steve Mistler. “So I certainly wanted it to be as transparent as possible.”

• Read the story: “” Maine Public, Dec. 2, 2018

Vicki Losick ’01

MDI researcher will use fruit flies to study macular degeneration — Bangor Daily News

The Bangor Daily News covered Vicki Losick ’01, a researcher at the MDI Biological Institute who received a $50,000 grant to use fruit flies to study age-related eye diseases.

Vicki Losick ’01

The grant, awarded by the William Procter Scientific Innovation Fund, will allow Losick to model the “cellular dysfunction” that occurs in age-related macular degeneration, among other causes of blindness. She’ll use fruit flies in her work, since macular degeneration takes hold more quickly due to the creatures’ shorter lifespans.

“With the aging of the population, age-related macular degeneration is increasingly being viewed as an impending epidemic,” Losick said in a press release. “I am deeply grateful to the Procter Fund for supporting research that could lead to the identification of the genetic and cellular causes underlying retinal dysfunction.”

• Read the story: “,” Bangor Daily News, Nov. 30, 2018

Lisa Utzschneider ’90

Lisa Utzschneider becomes CEO of ad-verification firm — Variety

�ֲ���ý alumna and trustee Lisa Utzschneider ’90 has been named CEO of Integral Ad Science, a company that measures the value of digital advertisements and helps prevent fraud, the entertainment trade magazine Variety reported.

Lisa Utzschneider ’90 speaks during a �ֲ���ý Boston Business Network panel on women in leadership in 2017. (Paige Brown ’96 for �ֲ���ý College)

Utzschneider was most recently chief revenue officer at Yahoo and has held executive roles at Microsoft and Amazon. Last year, she was on a �ֲ���ý panel about women and leadership.

“As CEO, Utzschneider will focus on expanding IAS into new global markets and pushing into new ad formats, including over-the-top video and audio,” according to Variety.

• Read the story: “,” �ղ�������ٲ�,��Dec. 12, 2018
• Related: “To be an effective leader, be prepared, speak up, and aim big, �ֲ���ý panelists say,” �ֲ���ý News, Oct. 5, 2017

Martin Benes ’07

Wednesday Workout: hitting the trails with U.S. Para-Nordic and Head Coach Martin Benes — FasterSkier

Writer Gabby Naranja reached out to Martin Benes ’07, who recently joined the coaching staff of U.S. Paralympics Nordic skiing. U.S. Paralympics is a division of the U.S. Olympic Committee

An assistant ski coach at �ֲ���ý from 2009 to 2011 and most recently the Nordic ski director at Sugar Bowl Academy, Benes told Naranja that the coaching philosophy for a para-athlete is the same as for a non-disabled athlete.

“The training principles don’t really change,” Benes said. “Yes, there are things to be aware of physiologically, but in terms of the core principles, it’s not that different.”

“With this level of athlete,” he added, “you’re helping guide them and giving them the framework to be successful and helping them be their own best coaches.”

• Read the story: “,” FasterSkier, Dec. 5, 2018

Larry DiGiammarino ’82

Catching up with…Larry DiGiammarino — The Boston Globe

The Globe’s Marvin Pave chatted with Larry DiGiammarino ’82, who holds or shares �ֲ���ý football records for career and single-game receptions, as well as career and single-game touchdown receptions. He was named a Kodak Little All-American, the ECAC and New England Football Writers Player of the Year, and a Scholar Athlete of the Year by the Maine Sports Hall of Fame.

Now, DiGiammarino is a real-estate attorney in Marblehead, Mass., where he’s on the school committee and the youth football and softball boards.

“I learned through sports to never give up and stay as positive as I can,’’ he told Pave. “If things don’t work out today, there’s always tomorrow.”

• Read the story: “,” The Boston Globe, Nov. 29, 2018

Kristy Andrews ’12

Young camp professionals: choosing careers in Maine, fulfilling commitments to kids — Bangor Daily News

In the Bangor Daily News blog Summer in Maine, Kristine Millard talked to Kristy Andrews ’12, assistant director of Camp Wawenock in Raymond, Maine.

Andrews spent her childhood summers at Camp Wawenock and later became a counselor, working there before and after a stint as an English teacher in Chile. Now, she’s one of a few year-round employees at the camp.

Andrews spoke to the community the camp offers girls, allowing them to “be their true selves.”

“There’s a whole group of people who love you and support you,” she said.

• Read the story: “,” Bangor Daily News, Nov. 13, 2018

Paul Erickson ’74

Don’t Mess With Me: The Strange Lives of Venomous Sea Creatures — Kirkus Reviews

Kirkus reviewed the latest book for middle grades by Paul Erickson ’74: Don’t Mess With Me, which catalogs 28 venomous sea creatures from the deadly blue-ringed octopus to sea jellies.

“He goes on, now following the phylum order, to introduce a variety of other sea creatures including bloodworms, the blind remipede (the first known venomous crustacean), the crown of thorns sea star, the bluespotted stingray, the reef stonefish, and the lionfish,” the review says.

“Though the text in this entry in an admirable series may be challenging for young readers, the subject has guaranteed kid appeal,” it added.

• Read the review: “,” Kirkus Reviews, Dec. 4, 2018

As the Democratic National Convention ended on Aug. 29, 1968, and the presidential campaign kicked off, many believed that the Democratic ticket — Hubert Humphrey running for president and U.S. Sen. Edmund Muskie ’36 of Maine for vice president — was dead on arrival.

“We were supposed to lose,” says Don Nicoll, Muskie’s campaign manager.

But no one figured on Muskie.

Through the late summer and early fall of 1968, a span of just a few weeks, Muskie delivered a dazzling performance that nearly turned the tables on presidential frontrunner Richard Nixon, who would win the election by less than 1 percent of the popular vote.

That was the conclusion of a Nov. 29 panel discussion at �ֲ���ý celebrating the 50th anniversary of Muskie’s vice presidential campaign.

In early September 1968, the Democrats were in dire straits. The first polls had Republicans Nixon and running mate Spiro Agnew leading the Democrats, 43 percent to 28 percent.

As President Lyndon Johnson’s vice president, Humphrey had inherited some of his polling problems: Johnson was so unpopular due to the Vietnam War that he’d declined to run for a second term.

Muskie ran one of the “exemplary national campaigns of modern times.”

The Democrats also were fighting a rearguard action against independent George Wallace of Alabama. Polling at 18 percent, Wallace was courting blue-collar voters with his populist and racist rhetoric.

The Democratic ticket looked doomed.

Democratic vice presidential candidate Edmund Muskie ’36 speaks to supporters in Kennedy Park in Lewiston on Nov. 3, 1968, two days before the election. (Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library)

But the Democrats closed the gap, with Muskie running one of the “exemplary national campaigns of modern times,” said Muskie scholar Joel Goldstein during the discussion at the Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library.

+Panelists for the 1968 Muskie Campaign Event

“He outperformed not only the other candidates for national office that year but virtually every other national candidate in my lifetime and, I suspect, in most lifetimes.”

Here are eight takeaways from the panel, which featured former Muskie staffers and confidants as well as Goldstein.

1. On the campaign trail, Muskie was more a preacher, less a debater.

Muskie is often framed as a fierce rhetorical combatant. And why not: He was a great debater at �ֲ���ý and a legend in the U.S. Senate.

“The Muskie legend is that he was a great debater who had a superb legal mind. He was and he did,” said Eliot Cutler, an assistant press secretary during the campaign who was on Muskie’s Senate staff for six years. “But a political campaign is more about the pulpit than the rostrum.”

Edmund Muskie ’36 and supporters at a 1968 campaign event. The location is perhaps New York City; third from left is perhaps Shirley Chisholm, then running for her first term as a Congresswoman. (Burton Burinsky / Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library)

Watching and hearing Muskie connect with voters in 1968 — “in Polish halls, on college campuses, with organized labor, and liberals disaffected by the Vietnam War and Lyndon Johnson — was an extraordinary experience. And that was all about his values, vision, and voice.”

In 1968, “Muskie wasn’t a dater reaching into voters’ heads, but rather a preacher touching their hearts and stoking their souls,” said Cutler. “He was the best preacher ever.”

2. He would not dog-whistle or play to fear.

In a series of events in early October, Muskie spoke to blue-collar Democrats in Chicago, Camden, N.J., Philadelphia, and Yonkers who were slipping away from the party.

Once part of the Roosevelt’s New Deal coalition, these older voters were now “tempted by the Wallace candidacy,” said Goldstein, which was “fanning resentment about racial policies” of the Johnson administration and the decisions of the Supreme Court under Earl Warren.

Supporters of Hubert Humphrey and Edmund Muskie ’36 greet Muskie on a campaign stop in Wichita Falls, Texas, on Oct. 29, 1968. (Jimmy Cochran / University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Midwestern State University)

Speaking to these voters, Muskie talked about his father, Stephen Marciszewski, a Polish immigrant who became a tailor in Rumford in the early 1900s.

“My father did not come here looking for fear,” Muskie would say. “He came here to escape fear and to find freedom. He did not come here looking for hatred. He came here to escape it and to find freedom.

“He did not come here seeking to deny other people opportunity. He came here to find it for himself, thinking it was available to all people who lived in America. He came here believing that freedom here was freedom for everyone.”

3. He looked and sounded the part.

Cutler called Muskie’s voice “sonorous with an extraordinary, remarkable range.”

“I see a lot of young people here today. All you know about Ed Muskie is what you’ve read in books,” said Harold Pachios, who supervised advance operations for the Muskie campaign in 1968. “You see him up there above the mantel,” pointing to Muskie’s portrait in the archives.

“He was impressive looking and highly intelligent,” said Pachios, who later became a prominent Maine lawyer. “But, oh, could he speak. Could he speak! He had the voice, a wonderful voice. He had impeccable timing, a cadence, a remarkable gift of cadence. He was rational, honest, and a solid human being.”

This is an edited version of Muskie’s powerful speech accepting the vice presidential nomination at the Democratic National Convention on Aug. 28, 1968.

Indeed, Muskie’s acceptance speech at the 1968 Democratic National Convention was a tour de force.

Making American society work, he said, “is not easy….It means learning to live with, to understand, and respect many different kinds of human beings…and accept them all as equals. It means learning to trust each other, to work with each other, to think of each other as neighbors.”

4. He had something to say.

Muskie “crept into the consciousness of the American electorate” in 1968, said Cutler.

And that was a “consequence of what I call the ‘open-mic’ character of American democracy,” he said. “If you have something to say and can connect with the American people, you can become a powerful and significant voice. And you don’t have to be loud and bombastic. Muskie demonstrated that in 1968.”

5. He bridged the gap between dissent and disloyalty.

The violence outside the Democratic National Convention in Chicago left some Americans bewildered and wary of the anti-war protests, said Goldstein. Nixon and Wallace pounced, telling Americans to equate protest with disloyalty. “America: love it or leave it,” was their refrain.

Muskie, however, didn’t let the older generation off the hook. Speaking to “fat-cat groups,” the “Brie and Chablis crowd,” Muskie would say that the protesters “have honest doubts about the American system, which often closed doors to the disadvantaged.”

Indeed, “many of the inequities are your fault and mine,” Muskie said, imploring his audiences to listen seriously to the critiques and to encourage meaningful participation by the young to improve America.

He wasn’t letting the protesters off the hook, either.

This pin for the Humphrey-Muskie campaign has the phrase “Sock It To ‘Em,” probably a reference to Richard Nixon’s appearance on the TV show Laugh In, in which he delivered one of the show’s trademark lines, “Sock it to me.” (Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library)

To audiences of mostly high school students, he would remind them that while “you are privileged to kick the government around,” with that privilege comes “the duty and responsibility of using your head, your heart, your capacity for understanding to do what is best for everyone concerned.”

So when asked by college students if he supported the emergent idea of an all-volunteer Army in lieu of the draft (which Nixon was promising), Muskie didn’t pander.

While a volunteer Army might satisfy the self-interests of privileged, mostly white college students, it wasn’t fair. Muskie supported a program of national service supported by a lottery to spread the obligation of service more equitably through society.

6. When Muskie did debate, he used his �ֲ���ý education.

Muskie learned to debate from Brooks Quimby, Class of 1918. The namesake of the Quimby Debate Council, Quimby was a speech and rhetoric professor from 1927 to 1967.

Quimby taught his debaters to persuade an audience, not to defeat an opponent.

Rhetoric and speech professor Brooks Quimby, Class of 1918, reads The �ֲ���ý Student in February 1955. (Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library)

“Persuasion: This was the key to Ed Muskie,” said Nicoll, the ’68 campaign manager. “A political campaign isn’t about beating an opponent. It’s about persuasion. That was the way he operated, and he learned it right here under Brooks Quimby.”

Persuasion means putting the audience first. Under Quimby, �ֲ���ý took a “leading roll in the effort to…diminish the perception of intercollegiate debate where ‘winning is everything and the audience is nothing,’�ĝ wrote Robert Branham in Stanton’s Elm, a history of �ֲ���ý debate.

7. He was willing and able to connect with anyone willing to listen.

On Sept. 25, in Washington, Pa., Muskie famously invited a college-student heckler to join him on stage.

Like other young Democrats, the hecklers that day were angry that the party — and its candidates — weren’t aggressively opposing the Vietnam War.

As the hecklers taunted Muskie, the candidate asked them to give him a chance to tell his story. “You have a chance. We don’t,” one reportedly yelled.

As Edmund Muskie ’36 addresses the audience in Washington, Pa., college student Rick Brody (left), invited to speak by Muskie, prepares for his turn at the lectern. (Mel Chemowitz/Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library)

Muskie told the protesters to send one of their own to the stage to state his position. The ensuing discussion — with Muskie insisting that the otherwise partisan audience respect the student, Rick Brody — was reported nationally on television and in print.

The moment was both “a campaign metaphor” and an “application of a commitment to and practice of civil discourse that defined Muskie’s public service,” said Goldstein, where “information and ideas were tools of civil discourse, and civil discourse was the indispensible instrument of democracy and constitutional government.”

As Muskie would often say, “It’s better to discuss a question without settling it than settle a question without discussing it.”

8. Muskie was allowed to be — nay, demanded to be — Muskie.

Authenticity is prized in many spheres of American culture, but rarely in political campaigns. Yet in 1968, Muskie was able to be “his own man,” recalled Jane Fenderson Cabot, a campaign intern and later a member of Muskie’s Senate staff. In fact, he demanded it. “He didn’t want to be ‘bent out of shape.’ I remember hearing that a lot.”

“He told listeners what he thought, not what they wanted to hear,” said Goldstein, the Vincent C. Immel Professor of Law at St. Louis University School of Law.

Edmund Muskie ’36 listens to a speech during a campaign visit to Wichita Falls, Texas, on Oct. 29, 1968. (Jimmy W. Cochran / University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Midwestern State University)

“He told the older generation that they’d screwed up society and should listen to their scruffy kids. He told the scruffy kids to be constructive and responsible.”

The press took notice. “Muskie is revealing himself by simply being himself — nothing more and nothing different,” wrote syndicated columnist Roscoe Drummond in October. “He doesn’t have to think of what is prudent to say…. He speaks his convictions — because he just can’t do otherwise.”

Forty-five years ago this fall, the Clean Water Act became law thanks to the work of U.S. Sen. Ed Muskie ’36 of Maine. That we know.

Less well-known is that President Nixon initially vetoed the act, calling the legislation “extreme and needless overspending.” (The veto is so little known that some websites credit Nixon with signing the bill.)

In the Senate, Muskie led the rapid and successful override effort, and the bill became a law on Oct. 18, 1972. Muskie ridiculed Nixon’s opposition, using speech-making tactics likely learned as a �ֲ���ý debater, including these pointed rhetorical questions, each starting with “Can we…?,” a technique known as anaphora:

“Can we afford clean water? Can we afford rivers and lakes and streams and oceans which continue to make possible life on this planet? Can we afford life itself”?

Today, environmental economists like Lynne Lewis, the Elmer Campbell Professor of Economics at �ֲ���ý, are adding oomph to Muskie’s blistering rebuttal by measuring the financial benefits of clean water, at a time of ongoing

�ֲ���ý environmental economist Lynne Lewis (left) speaks during a media event at Veterans Memorial Park along the Androscoggin River in Lewiston on Oct. 18. Also speaking were, from left, Dick Anderson, former Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife biologist; Natalie Lounsbury of River Rise Farm in Turner; Lisa Pohlmann, executive director of the Natural Resources Council of Maine; and Beckie Conrad ’82, president and CEO of the Lewiston Auburn Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce. (Courtesy of Lynne Lewis)

Last month, on the 45th anniversary of Muskie’s landmark Clean Water Act, Lewis offered some of that evidence as she spoke at a press event sponsored by the Natural Resources Council of Maine and held along the Androscoggin River:

Good morning. I am an environmental economist. Many people I meet ask what that is. Environmental economics is, in part, focused on measuring the costs and benefits of environmental policies. The Clean Water Act, authored by Sen. Edmund Muskie, a graduate of �ֲ���ý College here in Lewiston, has been enormously successful in economics terms — meaning providing economic benefits well in excess of the costs of compliance.

The Clean Water Act provides billions of dollars in economic benefits annually, by protecting the water we drink and in which we fish, swim, boat in, and live near.

For a state like Maine that is literally filled with rivers, lakes, streams, and coastline, clean water provides enormous economic value to our state in the form of reduced health care costs, improved recreational opportunities and tax revenues to the state from increased tourism. From my research and that of others, it is clear that clean water significantly increases waterfront property values for both homeowners and businesses.

Thriving businesses and community events take place along rivers such as this. These revenue sources did not exist before the Clean Water Act. The Clean Water Act has resulted in a rebounding of river herring and other sea-run fish, contributing to the health of our Gulf of Maine fisheries.

The crowd-pleasing success of the Great Falls Balloon Festival underscores the value of a cleaned-up Androscoggin River. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

According to a study by the University of Maine, our lakes contribute an estimated $3.5 billion to Maine’s economy annually, supporting 52,000 jobs. Clean coastal waters support the thousands of lobstering and fishing jobs that deliver landings of more than $700 million annually.

As a result of the clean water quality in Maine, the Portland Water District is one of only 50 water districts in the U.S., out of 50,000, that can forgo having a filtration plant. It would cost $70 million to build a filtration plant and an additional $1 million a year to maintain and operate that plant.

The Clean Water Act has done more to clean up our lakes, streams and rivers than any other single piece of environmental regulation.

Scott Pruitt’s efforts to cut EPA funding for programs that keep Maine’s waters clean, and undo a major water protection rule are examples of his moves to quickly and stealthily dismantle environmental regulations at the expense of those of us who benefit from them.

The Clean Water Rule, enacted by the Obama administration, was designed to take the existing federal protections on large water bodies and expand them to include the wetlands and small tributaries that flow into these larger waters. This rule closed loopholes that had left more than 55 percent of Maine’s stream miles and thousands of acres of wetlands at risk for pollution, thus threatening the drinking water of Mainers across the state.

Back in 2015, the EPA and the U.S. Department of the Army issued a report examining the costs and benefits of expanding the protected waters of the U.S. The original estimate concluded that the water protections would indeed come at an economic cost — between $236 million and $465 million annually.

But it also concluded, in , that the economic benefits of preventing water pollution would be much greater: between $555 million and $572 million.

It’s no surprise that the benefits of protecting America’s rivers, lakes, and streams far outweigh the costs. Whether we’re fishing or swimming or just drinking the water that comes from our taps, protecting our streams and wetlands is a win for all Mainers.

The need for clean water is not controversial. Our own Sen. Muskie, the driving force behind the Clean Water Act, knew this. We can’t afford to go backward on clean water protections. The Clean Water Act benefits all of us.

Held at Veterans Memorial Park on the Androscoggin — Exhibit A when it comes to the beneficial effects of Muskie’s landmark legislation — the gathering’s speakers also included Rebecca Conrad ’82, CEO and president of the Lewiston Auburn Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce. No stranger to the area — she co-owned an Auburn business for 20 years and has worked at �ֲ���ý — Conrad said she knows “firsthand the river’s power and potential as an economic driver in the community.”

The late Edmund Muskie ’36 was born 100 years ago — March 28, 1914, to be exact.

With help from the Edmund S. Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library, we celebrate this statesman’s 100th birthday by offering six things everyone should know about our 1936 alumnus and long-serving Maine governor, U.S. senator and U.S. secretary of state.

Among various Muskie remembrances this month was Muskie Archives director Pat Webber’s appearance on Maine public radio’s Maine Calling for “”

Here are six things to remember about Edmund Sixtus Muskie:

1. He was from a Maine family that was sending its first children to college

Edmund Muskie is at back left with his siblings and his mother, Josephine. (Photograph courtesy of the Edmund S. Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library)

Ed Muskie was the son of Poland-born Stephen Marciszewski, who changed his name to Muskie when he emigrated to the U.S., and Josephine Cznarnecka, the daughter of a Polish-American family in Buffalo, N.Y.

Muskie’s father, a master tailor who owned a shop in Rumford, was outspoken in his support of Democratic Party ideology even though it conflicted with many of his customers’ Republican beliefs.

2. Politics and the role of government were on his mind at �ֲ���ý

Edmund Muskie ’36 (left) and Charles Taylor ’36 study in their freshman-year room in Roger Williams Hall. Muskie later lived in Parker Hall. (Photograph courtesy of Edmund S. Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library)

Muskie, then known as “Eddie,” lived in Roger Williams Hall and then in Parker Hall. He was president of his class, a standout debater, and graduated cum laude in 1936.

His honors thesis in history and government made two points: (1) the U.S. needed a comprehensive national system of social security, including health, unemployment and old-age insurance, and (2) the U.S. Constitution needed to be amended to give Congress the power to check the Supreme Court’s power of judicial review, since the court had shown its propensity to strike down similar New Deal legislation earlier in the 1930s.

With the Depression a vivid reality, Muskie wrote that “the individual, without aid, cannot protect himself against the inevitable hazards which are his destiny as a member of our modern order.”

3. He revived Maine’s Democratic Party

Edmund Muskie won the Maine governorship in 1954 thanks to hard campaigning and support from savvy advisers like Frank Coffin ’40 (right). In this 1956 photo, the “Muskie Coffin” sign refers to Muskie’s reelection as governor and Coffin’s being chair of the Maine Democratic State Committee. (Photograph courtesy of Edmund S. Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library)

In 1954, Maine Democrats were looking for a candidate to run for governor, and they recruited Muskie — but only after all other potential candidates declined.

A Democrat hadn’t been governor in nearly 20 years, and only one had been elected in the preceding 40 years.

Muskie was a weak candidate in more ways than one: He was still recovering from the physical and financial effects of a broken back suffered in 1953.

But Muskie won, thanks to hard campaigning, support from savvy advisers like Frank Coffin ’40 (above) and Don Nicoll, and an intimate knowledge of the state gained during his direction of the Office of Price Stabilization. The win gained national attention, and he appeared on a new morning TV show: NBC’s Today.

Although Maine remained a bastion of Republican politics through much of his career, Muskie nevertheless garnered 60 percent or more of the popular vote in each of his four senatorial elections.

4. He was called “Mr. Clean”

In this early 1960s image, U.S. Sen. Edmund Muskie ’36 and Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall, with an unidentified park ranger, visit Maine’s Cadillac Mountain, located within Acadia National Park. (Photograph courtesy of Edmund S. Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library)

Muskie was the grandfather of modern environmental legislation. As a senator, he sponsored both the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act, which fundamentally established our federal government’s duties to preserve and protect the environment.

On the floor of the Senate after Muskie’s death in 1996, Sen. Max Baucus, D-Montana, said that “because of the work of Ed Muskie, our children are growing up in a more healthy and beautiful America.”

5. He was targeted by Nixon’s “dirty tricks” in 1972

Popular memory holds that Muskie’s campaign collapsed after he allegedly teared up during a New Hampshire press conference, but the reasons are more complex, including dirty tricks by President Nixon’s Committee for the Reelection of the President. (Photograph courtesy of Edmund S. Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library)

A front-runner for the 1972 presidential nomination, Muskie and his campaign were targeted by Nixon’s Committee for the Reelection of the President and its program of “dirty tricks.” That included the so-called “Canuck Letter” — that accused Muskie of making derogatory remarks about Maine’s French-Canadian citizens.

It is thought that Muskie’s campaign floundered in New Hampshire after he reportedly teared up while delivering a withering criticism of the conservative Union Leader, which had published an unscrupulous attack on Muskie’s wife, Jane.

In her 2003 autobiography, Madeleine Albright, who worked for the 1972 Muskie campaign and later as a Senate staffer, said that “today a male politician who cried while defending his wife would probably go up in the polls.”

6. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom

In May 1980, Edmund Muskie ’36 is sworn in as U.S. secretary of state by his longtime friend and adviser, Frank Coffin ’40, a U.S. circuit judge at the time. Looking on are, from left, President Jimmy Carter; Muskie’s daughter, Ellen Muskie Allen; and his wife, Jane Muskie. (Bill Fitzpatrick/The White House, courtesy Edmund S. Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library)

In 1981, President Jimmy Carter awarded Muskie the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America’s highest civilian award.

Years later, in his eulogy of Muskie, Carter said that of all the people he’d ever known, Muskie was the most qualified person to serve as president. However, he added, “I don’t believe that many presidents in history have contributed as much to the quality of life of people in our nation and around the world.”

Muskie once said that “there are only two types of politics. They are not radical or reactionary, or conservative and liberal, or even Democratic or Republican. They are only the politics of fear, and the politics of trust.”

One of the landmark environmental laws developed by the late U.S. Sen. Edmund Muskie, the Clean Water Act turns 40 in mid-October 2012.

�ֲ���ý College, from which Muskie graduated in 1936, presents a panel discussion exploring the history and future of the Clean Water Act at 7:30 p.m. Monday, Oct. 1, in the Edmund S. Muskie Archives, 70 Campus Ave.

The event is open to the public at no cost. An installment of the Harward Center for Community Partnerships’ Civic Forum series, the event is jointly sponsored with the history department, the environmental studies program and the Muskie Archives. For more information, please call 207-786-6202.

The panelists are:

• Stephen Hinchman, an attorney who works with the Androscoggin River Alliance, an organization dedicated to the health of the river, the local economy and local communities;
• Pete Didisheim, advocacy director of the Natural Resources Council of Maine, one of Maine’s best-known environmental advocacy organizations;
• Emily Figdor, director of Environment Maine, a research, education and advocacy organization;
• and John Storer, engineer for the city of Auburn’s water and sewerage districts and the Lake Auburn Watershed Protection Commission.

A native of Rumford, Maine, Muskie grew up well-aware of the sorry condition of the Androscoggin River, rendered one of the nation’s dirtiest waterways by decades of municipal and industrial pollution. An early champion of environmental protection, Muskie spearheaded the Clean Air Act of 1970 and later the Clean Water Act.

Today, while not pristine, the Androscoggin is dramatically healthier and is increasingly the focus of recreational and economic development initiatives.

Coinciding with growing public awareness of environmental issues and the establishment of the federal Environmental Protection Agency, these laws were instrumental both in reducing pollution of the nation’s air and waters, and establishing the pro-environmental mindset that continues to shape U.S. society and policymaking today.