Downstairs, rhetoric students and Quimby Debate Council members, along with rhetoric professor Stephanie Kelley-Romano and debate coach Jan Hovdin, watched the debate on a large screen. Armed with rhetorical and campaign insights, they found great humor in a candidate's unorthodox support of legalized marijuana. Photo by Maddy Talias '13.

MPBN reporter A.J. Higgins listens to a candidate's comments. Photo by Rene Minnis.

Audience members in the Concert Hall take in the proceedings. Photo by Rene Minnis.

The Olin Arts Center Concert Hall stage is filled with the trappings of a political debate. Photo by Rene Minnis.

Independent candidate Eliot Cutler gets fitted with his microphone. Photo by Rene Minnis.

If the absence of Republican candidate Paul LePage from last night’s gubernatorial showdown at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ disappointed some spectators, you wouldn’t have known it from the debate watch party that took place just downstairs from the debate held in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall.

Though attentive and informed, the 50 or so students — for the most part Quimby Debate Council members and students in a campaign rhetoric course — still brought a certain wisenheimer energy to the gathering as they and their professors watched the Maine Public Broadcasting Network debate on the big screen.

Of course there were cheers whenever ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ was mentioned, and a particular candidate’s folksy appeals to the viewers at home reliably drew a response. But the laughter and exuberant mock applause practically broke through the ceiling when candidate Kevin Scott, alone among the four, expressed support for a conditional legalization of marijuana.

“I laughed too,” said Associate Professor of Rhetoric Stephanie Kelley-Romano. “It was so unexpected and unorthodox for a candidate.”

• of the Oct. 28 Maine Public Broadcasting Network gubernatorial debate at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½.

• Muskie-flavored welcome to the audience.

Featuring four of the five candidates for the Blaine House — Democrat Elizabeth Mitchell and independents Eliot Cutler, Shawn Moody and Scott — the debate held in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall capped a day at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ largely centered around the event. A crew from MPBN was on hand bright and early to start setting up in the concert hall, and ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ folks from Facility Services and Dining Services had plenty to do setting up green rooms for the debaters and prepping the Museum of Art for a welcoming reception.

Public events began with a late-afternoon presentation, by seven students, designed to give spectators context for the main event that evening. Four members of the Brooks Quimby Debate Council summarized the candidates’ positions on the economy, social issues and the environment. And three students from Kelley-Romano’s “Presidential Campaign Rhetoric” course offered tips on debate strategy and likely outcomes.

The seven had done their homework. Quimbyites Nate Sweet ’11, Sam Schleipman ’12, Spencer Collett ’13 and Daniel Lambright ’12 effectively differentiated the candidates (including LePage, who bailed out of the debate the day before), providing basic themes for each contender that were helpful in relating them to larger currents of political thought.

From Kelley-Romano’s course, Kevin McCandlish ’13, Daniel Waters ’12 and Jordan Conwell ’12 laid out debate strategy and tactics. If candidate debates offer great insights into policy, Waters noted, the real takeaway is so-called relational strategies — the language, posture and gestures candidates use when they address each other.

A debate has less to do with scoring policy points, he said, and “everything to do with how candidates are judged [as people] by the voting public.”

Partners from way back

The evening’s events picked up momentum around 6 p.m. as guests, ultimately 100 or so, converged at the Museum of Art for a reception co-hosted by ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ and MPBN. ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ President Elaine Tuttle Hansen and MPBN President Jim Dowe welcomed the visitors, both taking care to remind us that, in fact, the relationship between the two organizations goes back a ways: ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ and sister colleges Bowdoin and Colby founded WCBB, one component of what’s now MPBN, back in 1961.

“MPBN wouldn’t exist without ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½,” Dowe said, recalling that then-ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ President Charles Phillips was among a ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ group that went to Washington on the first day that licenses for public television were issued, in the early 1960s. “They waited on the steps for the doors to open” at the FCC, Dowe said.

“It’s very fitting for us to host debates at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½,” Hansen said, referring not only to the college’s long and proud debate history, but also to the fact that the city of Lewiston welcomed ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ debates in City Hall before the college had a suitable venue of its own. Now, she said, “we’re thrilled to be able to reciprocate.”

As the hennaed Moroccan women of Lalla Essaydi’s photographs looked on, guests at the reception sipped champagne and munched chilled shrimp, chocolate-dipped strawberries and mustard-rubbed lamb.

In attendance were members of local government such as Auburn Mayor Dick Gleason P’93; well-known ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ faces such as dance program founder Marcy Plavin and Professor Emeritus of Psychology and state Rep. Richard Wagner; and two of the candidates, Shawn Moody — with son James ’12 — and Kevin Scott. A second ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ student had a candidate connection too — David Cutler ’12, nephew of Eliot.

No empty podium

As showtime drew near, MPBN crew members, all in black shirts, put the final touches on the stage and camera setup. Would there be a symbolic empty podium for the absent Lepage, we asked? No, one staffer joked, “but we did get them from Marden’s.” (LePage is general manager of the discount store chain.)

By showtime, about 280 of the Olin concert hall’s 300 seats were filled. About half the audience was invited, with the rest of the seats going to members of the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ community, including some 70 students.

Associate Professor of Politics John Baughman greeted the gathering. Picking up the thread from Hansen of ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½’ debate history, he raised the spirit of a great Maine and U.S. politician who, before all that, was a debater at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½: Edmund S. Muskie ’36.

Baughman pointed out that when Muskie ran for governor in the mid-1950s, the candidates never debated one another. So even in a political season as rancorous as this one, it’s clear that there has been at least some kind of progress.

Indeed, as silly as the students got during the watch party in the basement, there was no question that each had a critical eye — in the best sense — on the discourse emanating from the auditorium upstairs.

In an age when so many potential voters shun the polls, director of debate Jan Hovden said before the event, “anything that engages people in the political process is a good thing in and of itself.”

• 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.

Through making books, Mitchell seeks to explore the idea of home. “Books are tangible and tactile; books can be picked up, moved through, understood as parts, moments or as a whole,” she says. “They are places, units, enclosures and homes for information, stories, pictures and secrets.”

Women in Control of the Maine Legislature: What Difference Will It Make? will be held at 7:30 p.m. on Feb. 5 in the Edmund S. Muskie Archives, 70 Campus Ave. The public is invited to attend free of charge.

Elizabeth Mitchell, speaker of the house; Dale McCormick, treasurer of the state of Maine; Jane Amero, minority leader of the senate; Rochelle Pingree, senate majority leader; and Carol Kontos, house majority leader, will participate in this discussion.

“In Maine, all the major positions of legislative leadership, save one, are in the hands of women,” said James Carignan, dean of the college. “It is appropriate to investigate the impact of women’s voices in the area of public policy as we cross the threshold to a new century,” Carignan said of the series which will also include lectures by three nationally recognized feminist journalists.

Helen Zia, Ms. magazine editor and social justice activist, will speak on Feb. 27. Essayist and poet Katha Pollit will speak on March 10. Journalist and author Peggy Orenstein will lecture on March 26. All talks will be given at 7:30 p.m. in the Edmund S. Muskie Archives.