Elizabeth Strout ’77, Litt.D. ’10

In Elizabeth Strout’s new novel, My Name Is Lucy Barton, the author “articulates for her readers — albeit often circumspectly, perhaps the only way — the Gordian knot of family, binding together fear and misery, solace and love,” writes reviewer Claire Messud of The New York Times Book Review.

The setting is a hospital room, where Lucy Barton is recovering from an illness, and her estranged mother arrives for a visit.

That simple premise, The Washington Post‘s Lily King writes, generates “old-fashioned, uncomplicated” storytelling, but only at first.

Befitting the complexity of mother-daughter relationships, the novel soon becomes “smart and cagey in every way…yet nothing is tentative or haphazard. [Strout] is in supreme and magnificent command of this novel at all times.”

Associate Professor of Psychology Michael Sargent

ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ psychology professor Michael Sargent “used to think storytelling was a bogus art form for bad comedians,” writes Down East reporter Sara Anne Donnelly.

Holding a bowl with the names of storytelling hopefuls, psychology professor Michael Sargent kicks off an edition of The Corner, an occasional storytelling event at She Doesn’t Like Guthries in Lewiston. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

Not now. Sargent, the founder and ringmaster of , which offers storytelling events at She Doesn’t Like Guthries, a downtown Lewiston restaurant, “got hooked” on storytelling shows on NPR, and “wanted something like that in Lewiston. So he made it.”

In a , Sargent tells Donnelly that the experience of storytelling “makes connections sneak up on me. Suddenly I realize that I’m feeling a form of connection that was unexpected, in someone who I might never have even met before then. And it feels good.â€�

Peter Gault ’11 and Elise Kornack ’09

Peter Gault ’11 and Elise Kornack ’09 were named to Forbes‘ 30 Under 30 list in respective categories: , who is co-founder of an open-source literacy tool, and , co-owner of , a Michelin-starred restaurant in Brooklyn.

Quill has a double dose of ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ talent. Ryan Novas ’11 is a co-founder and serves as operations director. Last summer, the founders offered ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Purposeful Work internships to Jane Spardel ’17 of Verona, N.J., and Rebeccah Bassell ’16 of Mechanicsville, Va.

In 2014, Downeast Cider’s Tyler Mosher ’11 and brothers Matt Brockman ’08 and Ross Brockman ’11 earned a nod from Forbes, as did Peter Simon ’10, co-founder of Industry City Distillery, in 2013.

John Tooker ’92

When bugs don’t eat slugs, there’s a problem afoot

A Newsweek story cites research by insect ecologist John Tooker ’92 to explain why slugs have become a big problem on soybean farms.

Tooker has co-authored a study that has found a reason. An insecticide intended to kill seed-eating bugs is getting into the food chain and killing the predatory beetles that eat slugs.

Thus uneaten and thus unchecked, slugs are tearing into soybean crops.

A slug munches on a soybean seedling. (Nick Sloff/Penn State)

A focuses on Tooker’s research, which was published in the

The insecticides are neonicotinoids (they’ve also been linked to the die-offs of honeybees). Newsweek says that so-called neonics are used on “about half of America’s soybean seeds and 95 percent of corn seeds, the two biggest cash crops for commercial farms in the country.”

Turns out that slugs can consume neonics and survive. The poison remains in the slugs’ system, which kills or poisons the ground beetles that would eat them.

And here’s an irony: There’s evidence that neonics aren’t even needed. The EPA said last year that neonics provide “little or no overall benefits” and Tooker told Newsweek that “one of my main concerns with neonics is that they’ve been used regardless of need.”

From the scholarly article:

[T]his indiscriminate use can have unintended consequences, with measurable costs for farmers. Using neonicotinoids only when and where they are needed, guided by a strong understanding of the underlying ecology, provides potential to harness their strengths and limit their weaknesses to achieve more sustainable pest control.

An associate professor of entomology at the Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences, Tooker was a biology major at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½.

His adviser, Sharon Kinsman, “gave me a start in plant-based research,” he says. (Plant-based research also helped Tooker meet his future wife, Megan Weaver ’92, as they did research together, looking at burrs and cockleburs, at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½-Morse Mountain. “We actually got together after the project was done,” John says, “but spending all that time together did not hurt!”)

Rebecca Herzig

The race to remove hair

ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ faculty member Rebecca Herzig is getting media attention for her new book exploring our complicated relationship with hair removal.

Herzig’s book is Plucked: A History of Hair Removal (New York University Press, 2015). She is the college’s Christian A. Johnson Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies.

The Times of London, , and have published reviews, and she’s been interviewed by , and, on Feb. 10, by

During the SCPR radio interview, a listener posted a comment on the show’s Facebook page, saying that a local middle school science teacher told her students that Asians “are a more evolved race, as evidenced by their reduced amount of body hair.”

Host Larry Mantle asked Herzig to comment on that anecdote, and she noted that skewed ideas about race, evolution and hair may have begun as a reaction to Charles Darwin. She said:

Darwin changed the way people thought about the human relationship to animals. When they saw that there was a continuum, rather than a bright line separating humans and animals, it became more culturally important to maintain that boundary, and hair was a perfect way to do it: You can literally shave off your animalness to help maintain that boundary.

And if hair removal became a way to affirm our human identity, it’s not hard to imagine how hairlessness might become linked, in some minds, with ideas about human evolution or racial superiority.

Elise Kornack ’09

Take Root grabs hold of New York City diners

An art and visual culture major before she became a chef, Elise Kornack exhibited “Head to Toe,” wire and graphite on paper, during the 2009 Senior Exhibition.

New York City food writers are taking note of Take Root, the Brooklyn restaurant run by Elise Kornack ’09 and her wife, Anna Hieronimus.

The restaurant has received a great , and last fall got a “best new restaurant” nod from Esquire.

Kornack herself was featured recently by , a profile that traces her career from ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ art major to Brooklyn restaurateur.

A tiny place in Carroll Gardens, Take Root is as intimate as a ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ first-year seminar. It seats just 12 and offers one seating per night, Thursday through Saturday.

Food Republic writer Richard Martin says that his meal at Take Root “was not the precious market-driven set menu place I was expecting.”

He continues: “For all the accolades and chatter, Kornack’s cooking is ultimately personal and thoughtful rather than flashy or stylized. It’s a refreshing approach, and one that puts her at odds with the wizards of the city’s other heralded tasting menus, where foams, trompe l’oeil and technique are part of the show.”

Fourteen studio art majors from ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College show work from their yearlong thesis projects in the annual Senior Exhibition.

The exhibition runs through May 30. The museum is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. [More]

• Opening reception: Friday, April 10, at 6 p.m.
• ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College Museum of Art, 75 Russell St.

Fourteen studio art majors from ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College show work from their yearlong thesis projects in the annual Senior Exhibition. The show opens with a reception at 6 p.m. Friday, April 10, in the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College Museum of Art, 75 Russell St.

The exhibition runs through May 30. Open to the public at no cost, the museum’s regular hours are from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. For more information, please call 207-786-6158 or visit www.bates.edu/museum.xml.

The Senior Exhibition artists are:

[intlink id=”7426″ type=”post”]H. Lincoln Benedict[/intlink] of Shaftsbury, Vt.;

[intlink id=”7443″ type=”post”]Sarah Codraro[/intlink] of Hancock, Maine;

[intlink id=”7466″ type=”post”]Hannah Davis[/intlink] of Bainbridge Island, Wa.;

[intlink id=”7928″ type=”post”]Ryan Dean[/intlink] of Cranston, R.I.;

[intlink id=”7973″ type=”post”]William Gardner[/intlink] of Waitsfield, Vt.;

[intlink id=”8230″ type=”post”]Rachel Kaplan[/intlink] of Westport, Conn.;

[intlink id=”8237″ type=”post”]Jessica Kase[/intlink] of Chappaqua, N.Y.;

[intlink id=”8244″ type=”post”]Elise Kornack[/intlink] of Dover, Mass.;

[intlink id=”8317″ type=”post”]Madeline McLean[/intlink] of Evergreen, Colo.;

[intlink id=”8263″ type=”post”]Elizabeth Mitchell[/intlink] of Auburn, Maine;

[intlink id=”8269″ type=”post”]Hwei Ling Ng[/intlink] of Selangor, Malaysia;

[intlink id=”8280″ type=”post”]Tyler Schoen[/intlink] of Wilton, Maine;

[intlink id=”8311″ type=”post”]Jason Tsichlis[/intlink] of Winchester, Mass.;

and [intlink id=”8290″ type=”post”]Margot Webel[/intlink] of Locust Valley, N.Y.

As their senior thesis requirement, studio art majors at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ create a substantial and cohesive body of work through studio practice and critical inquiry. The yearlong process is overseen by faculty and culminates in this exhibition.

The requirement allows students to develop independence and consistency. They achieve greater depth with their artwork and learn to work both critically and productively.