Michael Rocque

Continuing a year of forceful 乐播传媒 commentary on issues of race and mass incarceration, Assistant Professor of Sociology Michael Rocque’s op-ed column in the Bangor Daily News criticizes U.S. public schools for taking the kind of “” that the American criminal justice system has since the 1970s.

“Similar to the criminal justice system, stark disparities, particularly with respect to race, exist in school discipline,” Rocque writes.

At Bangor High School, for example, blacks represent 2.5 percent of the student body, yet “…are black students,” Rocque writes.

Do black students really misbehave more than their fellow students? Current research “tends to suggest not,” he writes.

At Bangor High School, black students represent 2.5 percent of the student body but account for 12 percent of out-of-school suspensions, according to the U.S. Department of Education’s Civil Rights Data Collection.

Rather, the numbers suggest that Bangor, like other U.S. education systems, has made a troubling “turn toward mass punishment,” where there’s “less [concern] with individual treatment,” he writes, and more focus on “rhetoric and strategies like ‘three strikes and you’re out’ and ‘zero-tolerance.'”

Those approaches “look good on paper but have failed in application.”

More important, he concludes, “we need to have a broader conversation about why our society in general has turned to exclusionary methods of control instead of more inclusive, reintegrative approaches.”

乐播传媒 Admission

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TIME magazine reporter Eliza Gray quotes Dean of Admission and Financial Aid Leigh Weisenberger and 乐播传媒 President Clayton Spencer in a story about “a major shift in the hypercompetitive, overstressed ,” namely, allowing students to share their creative voices in the medium of choice, which usually is digital.

Dean of Admission and Financial Aid Leigh Weisenburger.

乐播传媒 and nearly 100 peer schools, including the Ivy League, have formed the Coalition for Access, Affordability and Success, whose aim, Gray writes, “is to increase economic and racial diversity on campus, and to make the application process more relevant and less frenzied.”

“For us, it is about keeping up with the student population and the way they live their lives.”

For one, the coalition will launch a “proprietary application process that will encourage earlier preparation and creative materials,” like personal videos and digital portfolios. (乐播传媒 will introduce the optional process in 2017).

Weisenburger tells Gray that “for us, it is about keeping up with the student population and the way they live their lives….They do it in technology.鈥�

The coalition also plans to launch free online tools “designed to help lower-income students plan for college earlier and narrow the gap with their more privileged peers.”

Spencer speaks to concerns that any change in the admission process will be leveraged by the wealthy applicants. 鈥淲hat you don鈥檛 want is highly produced TED talks from privileged kids,鈥� says Spencer. 鈥淎ll of these things are potential expanders of access, and all of them have to be regarded critically.鈥�

乐播传媒 has a long history of trying to maintain a level playing field in admission.

In 1990, the college dropped standardized test requirements because it believed, and later was able to prove, that standardized tests are less effective predictors of college success than an applicant’s high school transcript and, worse, tend to narrow student access to higher education.

Ruth Goss Leavitt ’41

Ruth Goss Leavitt ’41, age 97, is the new holder of the Boston Post Cane in Turner, Maine.

If you’re a New Englander of a certain age, you know exactly what that means. If not, here’s the quick explanation.

The entry for Ruth Goss Leavitt ’41 in the 1941 Mirror yearbook. (Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library)

In 1909, the Boston Post newspaper gave handsome, inscribed canes to a few hundred New England towns, asking each town leader to give the cane to the town’s oldest man. Thus a tradition was born (women were included in 1930), as the towns ceremoniously presented their cane to each successive senior-most citizen.

The Sun Journal asked Leavitt if there is a secret to her longevity. 鈥淣ot really. I鈥檝e just taken life as it comes.鈥�

乐播传媒 Mail

Last week’s Boston Globe‘s story about the featured alumni from the 1970s to the 1990s talking about the glory days of 乐播传媒 mailboxes and mail from home.

Reporter Laura Krantz tells about the Chase Hall mailbox belonging to Steven Girvin ’71, today the Eugene Higgins Professor of Physics and Applied Physics at Yale.

Then, writes Krantz, “he said yes to a blind date in 1969 with a girl from Lewiston. After that date (and a few more), the box began to fill with love letters from the woman who became his wife.”

The 乐播传媒 package center “hums with eager expectation.”

Today, the emotion, angst, and excitement of mail call happens at the college’s package center in Chase Hall, a space once home to Dining Services’ recycling operation.

The postman rings rarely for the mailboxes in Chase Hall. Instead, the excitement is in the package center. (Sarah Crosby/乐播传媒 College)

The center “hums with eager expectation,” writes Krantz, “as students queue 鈥� sometimes 40 at once 鈥� to retrieve care packages from home, Amazon deliveries, and other boxes.”

This fall, 乐播传媒 will open a new Post and Print Center, including a package center, in one of the new residence halls on Campus Avenue. (To the curious: No decision has been made about the fate of the old mailboxes.) While the new center will be sans mailboxes, the space where students receive packages will be welcoming and well-appointed.

Bobcat Ventures

“I think there’s a perception liberal arts students can’t be entrepreneurs,” Creighton Foulkes ’17 tells Kathryn Skelton of the Lewiston Sun Journal. “We want to spread the message that it is possible and it can be done and help give them the tools to do it.”

As judge Ross Brockman ’11 listens, Julia Grace ’17 of Chevy Chase, Md., and Sean Antonuccio ’17 of Las Vegas pitch HouseCat, a platform to connect NESCAC students looking for summer housing. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/乐播传媒 College)

Foulkes, a leader of Bobcat Ventures, spoke to Skelton during the club’s $11,000 pitch competition on April 2.

Nima Olumi ’17 of Newton, Mass., won first place of $7,500 with his startup Lightyear Strategies, a marketing and branding company.

Second prize ($2,500) went to an idea for a campus smoothie cart, and third ($1,000) to a drone-based image production firm.

Funded by alumni and parent gifts, the competition was judged by:

• entrepreneur Daniel Vannoni ’05, founder of Housequarters and co-founder of other data-centric and healthcare start-ups in the Boston area;
• Ross Brockman ’11, co-founder of Downeast Cider House;
• Jack Keigwin ’59, a 乐播传媒 trustee emeritus who built family-owned FH French Co. into a major commercial real estate firm in Rhode Island and became a entrepreneurship professor at Bryant College.

Hope French ’18 of London plays convict Dabby Bryant in a scene from Our Country’s Good. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/乐播传媒 College)

In an early scene in Our Country’s Good, a group of correctional officers debate whether they will allow their convicts to stage a play. Their debate centers on two essential matters: first, the value of theater to teach morality 鈥� and second, the value of teaching morality to convicts in the first place.

Their conversation takes place in the late 18th century, but the questions they pose still resonate today.

“It will prove a most excellent experiment,” declares one officer. And so it does.

Colette Girardin 鈥�16 as 2nd Lt. William Faddy.

Ceria Kurtz 鈥�19 of Jakarta, Indonesia, as convict Meg Long and Sam Myers 鈥�16 as 2nd Lt. Ralph Clark.

Colette Girardin 鈥�16 of East Moriches, N.Y., as convict Duckling Smith and Nick Muccio 鈥�16 of Concord, N.H., as midshipman Harry Brewer.

At left, Sam Myers 鈥�16 of Riverton, Wyo., plays 2nd Lt. Ralph Clark, and Johan Mohtarudin '16 of Bukit Damansara, Malaysia, is convict Black Caesar.

Gavin Schuerch 鈥�18 as the Spirit of the Aborigine and Michael Driscal '19 as an Aboriginal Australian.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Theater Sally Wood directs the 乐播传媒 production, presented during a year when the college has dedicated a variety of events to the examination of incarceration. take place March 10鈥�14.

Written in 1988 by British playwright Timberlake Wertenbaker, Our Country’s Good ran on Broadway in 1991 and received Tony and New York Drama Critics Circle awards. The story is based upon true events: Wertenbaker adapted the play from Thomas Keneally’s historical novel The Playmaker.

“It’s a touching tale that almost seems too incredible to be true,” a New York Times reviewer said of the 1991 production.

Sally Wood, visiting assistant professor of theater at 乐播传媒 and director of the mainstage production “Our Country’s Good,” introduces the play to a dress rehearsal audience on March 9, 2016. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/乐播传媒 College)

The play is set in the first British penal colony established in Australia. Convicts are sent from England to live there in exile, but the British officers in charge question how best to manage them all as they build a new community from scratch.

Wood emphasizes the struggle for these characters to maintain hope amidst what amounted to a lifelong prison sentence. “They’ve been trained that there’s no hope,” she says.

Once the convicts are in Australia, she notes, “it’s not like you get a free ride back.” In such an environment, though, Wood believes that hope remained possible: “You make your own paradise.”

In casting the play, Wood followed the lead of prior professional productions, which double-cast almost every actor as both a convict and an officer. This casting style creates a shifting power dynamic for the actors and for the audience. “It’s a huge status play,” says Wood. “In one scene, they’ve got all the power, and in the next scene they have none.”

Lt. Ralph Clark, played by Sam Myers ’16 of Riverton, Wyo., decides to put on a production of the 1706 play The Recruiting Officer in an effort to impress his boss, Capt. Phillips. Phillips, portrayed by Michael Driscal ’19 of Cleveland, believes in redemption.

Clark aims to prove that the convicts are capable of growth and redemption. But casting, rehearsing, and defending the play proves challenging. Clark “has such a tough time,” says Wood, who has directed for Portland Stage Company and served as artistic director at the Theater at Monmouth.

“It really is like herding cats.”

Also in the cast are:

• seniors Allie Freed of Magnolia, Mass., Colette Girardin of East Moriches, N.Y., Colin McIntire of Darien, Conn., Johan Mohtarudin of Bukit Damansara, Malaysia, Nick Muccio of Concord, N.H., and Mara Woollard of Portsmouth, Va.;
• one junior, Dan Peeples of Piermont, N.Y., and three sophomores, Hope French of London, Gavin Schuerch of Norwalk, Conn., and Nate Stephenson of Ellsworth, Maine;
• and first-year student Ceri Kurtz ’19 of Jakarta, Indonesia.

Before coming to 乐播传媒, Wood had choreographed fight scenes for over 20 productions. Although Our Country’s Good has no fight sequences, Wood’s experience helps to demonstrate the shifting power structures at play.

“We keep talking about having to advocate for your character,” Wood says

“Stage combat is all power,” Wood says. “Usually somebody having a lot of power and somebody having hardly any. And so that definitely comes to play in this.”

Wood stressed to her cast the need to dig into each character’s decision-making. Rather than criticizing their choices, she implored her cast to justify those choices as though they were their own.

“We keep talking about having to advocate for your character,” Wood says. “Even if you’re playing somebody who, on an ideological level, you don’t agree with them, when you’re acting that role you have to advocate for them.”

“If we do our job right, there are no villains.”

Much of the play focuses on a central moral debate: can convicts be redeemed? Wood hopes that audiences debate the characters’ choices, just as the cast has done. After audiences leave the play, she says, “I hope they have an argument.

“If we do our job right, there are no villains 鈥� you can still see, however much as you don’t agree with it, that the other person has a point.”

Our Country’s Good runs March 10鈥�14 in five performances: 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Monday, 5 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday in Gannett Theater, 329 College St. Seating is limited. A donation of $5 is requested. For more information, please contact 207-786-6161.

Assistant Professor of Sociology Michael Rocque and colleague Chris Petrella 鈥�06, a First-Year Seminar lecturer at 乐播传媒, comment on the 2016 乐播传媒 MLK Day theme, “Mass Incarceration and Black Citizenship.”

Rocque, a co-chair of the MLK Day Planning Committee, researches criminological theory, racial disparities in the criminal justice system, and desistance from crime.

An essayist and media commentator who of inequity in law enforcement and the criminal justice system, Rocque has said that he’s 鈥�driven by a desire to assist in the quest for social justice.鈥�

Petrella is a doctoral candidate at the University of California, Berkeley, where he studies the relationship among race, incarceration, and modern capitalism. He’s been sought out for media stories on how private prisons

His doctoral dissertation looks at “Courts, Contracts, and Corporate Corrections: The Paradox of the Private Prison State.”

William Jelani Cobb gives the Martin Luther King Jr. Day keynote address at 乐播传媒 on Jan. 18. (Peter Morenus/University of Connecticut)

Why did 乐播传媒 choose “Mass Incarceration and Black Citizenship” as the organizing principle for its 2016 Martin Luther King Jr. Day observance?

“Incarceration materializes and polices the boundaries of black citizenship in formal and informal ways,” explains Chris Petrella ’06, a First-Year Seminar lecturer at 乐播传媒.

“The relationship of black citizenship to incarceration forces uncomfortable questions about the ways in which democracy produces forms of freedom and unfreedom simultaneously,” says Petrella. He is a doctoral candidate at the University of California, Berkeley, where he studies the relationship among race, incarceration, and modern capitalism.

“The prison is the pre-eminent site where the paradox of black citizenship takes on a material form.”

In three days of programming beginning Jan. 17, the college will scrutinize the MLK Day theme through workshops, panel discussions, films, and other activities.

A highlight of the 乐播传媒 observance is an appearance by William Jelani Cobb, a nationally known commentator on race, politics, culture, and history, who will give the livestreamed keynote address at 9 a.m. on the 18th in the Peter J. Gomes Chapel.

Assistant Professor of Sociology Michael Rocque and colleague Chris Petrella 鈥�06, a First-Year Seminar lecturer at 乐播传媒, comment on the 2016 乐播传媒 MLK Day theme, “Mass Incarceration and Black Citizenship.”

乐播传媒’ programming begins on Sunday, Jan. 17, with events including a 7 p.m. worship service at the Gomes Chapel, and concludes Tuesday, Jan. 19, with the annual Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Read-In at Martel School.

On the Jan. 18 MLK Day holiday, in addition to Cobb’s address, events include:
鈥⒙犅� 聽two sessions of concurrent workshops exploring race, law, justice and reform;
鈥⒙犅� 聽a 3:45 p.m. debate between students from 乐播传媒 and Morehouse colleges;
鈥⒙犅� 聽and a 7:30 p.m. performance by the student group Sankofa, which uses dance, music, spoken word, and more to explore stories of the African diaspora.

Although admission is free, tickets are required for the debate and the Sankofa performance. Ticket information and the full schedule of programming appear on 乐播传媒’ MLK Day homepage.

For further information, please call 207-786-6400.

William Jelani Cobb

Cobb’s keynote address for the 乐播传媒 MLK Day observance is titled The Half Life of Freedom. A staff writer for The New Yorker, where he uses the byline Jelani Cobb, he is also the author of the books The Substance of Hope: Barack Obama and the Paradox of Progress (Bloomsbury, 2010) and To The Break of Dawn: A Freestyle on the Hip Hop Aesthetic (New York University Press, 2007).

Cobb is an associate professor of history and the director of the Africana Studies Institute at the University of Connecticut. In his research and teaching, he specializes in post-Civil War African American history, 20th-century American politics, and the history of the Cold War.

Cobb’s writing has appeared in The Daily Beast, The Washington Post, Essence, Vibe, The Progressive, and TheRoot.com, and he has been featured on MSNBC, National Public Radio, CNN, Al Jazeera, CBS News, and other major broadcast outlets.

Born and raised in Queens, N.Y., Cobb was educated at Jamaica High School, Howard University in Washington, D.C., and Rutgers University, where he received a doctorate in American history in May 2003.

Mass Incarceration and Black Citizenship

Members of the 乐播传媒 and Lewiston-Auburn communities share their views in the Muskie Archives during the 2015 MLK Day workshop “Perspectives on Ferguson.” (Phyllis Graber Jensen/乐播传媒 College)

In the United States, race and confinement have been historically intertwined, beginning with slavery and leading to today’s marked racial disparities in incarceration rates. Incarceration, and contact with the criminal justice system more broadly, is a fact of life for many African American males in inner cities.

The U.S. currently has the highest incarceration rate in the world, with American prisons and jails accounting for 25 percent of prisoners globally.

Moreover, while African Americans represent about 13 percent of the U.S. population, they constitute 37 percent of the imprisoned population.

This year’s MLK Day programming “will help students and guests understand the historic roots of the structures of mass incarceration that are apparent today,” says Mara Tieken, assistant professor of education at 乐播传媒 and a co-chair of the MLK Day planning committee.

“In so doing, they’ll begin to realize that there’s nothing accidental or happenstance about our racialized prison system — these are inequities the U.S. has created,” she says.

“I hope they’ll also come to see the potential for creating a more racially equitable society as they hear from folks living, learning, and working in the prison system.”

More about MLK Day 2016 events

Workshops will explore the “Mass Incarceration and Black Citizenship” theme from a variety of angles. Providing context are a Jan. 17 screening of the 2012 documentary Broken on All Sides (2 p.m., Olin Arts Center, Room 104) and, the following day, the workshop “Prison 101,” an introduction to the topic (8 a.m., Gomes Chapel).

The intersections of youth, race and the criminal justice system are at issue in three workshops, including a performance of and discussion of a play, performed by residents of the Long Creek Youth Development Center, that examines race through the eyes of incarcerated individuals.

The Monday afternoon debate by students from 乐播传媒 and Morehouse colleges, and the evening performance by Sankofa, are among the best-attended MLK Day events at 乐播传媒.

Zoe Seaman-Grant ’17 of the Brooks Quimby Debate Council and Jonathan Carlisle, Morehouse College Class of 2017, are shown during the 2015 Rev. Benjamin Elijah Mays debate on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/乐播传媒 College)

Taking place at 3:45 p.m. Jan. 18 in the Olin Concert Hall, the Rev. Benjamin Elijah Mays ’20 Debate (named in honor of the 乐播传媒 alumnus who became a mentor to King and president of Morehouse) this year takes on the motion: “To ameliorate racial discrimination in the criminal justice system, this聽house believes that police reform is more important than prison reform. ”

Sankofa explores the history and diverse array of experience of the African diaspora through forms of expression including dance, music, theater, and spoken word.

Sankofa’s annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day production has become a symbol of pride for members of the African diaspora at 乐播传媒, and an educational and diversifying experience for the entire 乐播传媒 community.

Co-directors Olivier Brillant ’17 and Annakay Wright ’17 accept the audience’s appreciation after the 2015 Sankofa production on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, “Black Voice: The Life of Evelyn Ola Johnson.” (Phyllis Graber Jensen/乐播传媒 College)

Titled All That We Are: The Afro-Woman’s Story, this year’s production brings to light the experiences and stories of women of the African diaspora, internationally linked by the theme of storytelling and friendship. An open dress rehearsal takes place at 4 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 17, and the actual performance at 7:30 p.m. on the 18th, both in Schaeffer Theatre. Tickets are required for both.

Roland Fryer Jr. is the Henry Lee Professor of Economics at Harvard.

At a time of close and passionate scrutiny directed at relations between police and African Americans, a Harvard economist known for pioneering research into racial inequality gives a talk titled Understanding Racial Differences in Police Use of Force on Nov. 8 in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall.

The speaker is Roland G. Fryer Jr., Henry Lee Professor of Economics at Harvard and the 2015 recipient of the American Economic Association’s John 乐播传媒 Clark Medal.

• Tickets for this event are sold out, but some seats will likely be available on a first-come, first-served basis.

Considered second only to the Nobel Prize in economic science, that honor is awarded annually to an American economist younger than 40 who is judged to have made a significant contribution to the field of economics.

The AEA praised Fryer for being “bold and fearless” in his use of economic theory and new data, lauded his “creative and entrepreneurial edge,” and credited him with producing “the most important work in recent years on combating the racial divide, one of America’s most profound and long-lasting social problems.”

The event is sponsored by the Office of the President, the Office of Intercultural Education, the Dean of the Faculty, and the departments of economics, psychology, and sociology at 乐播传媒.

“Valuable to Have More Data”

乐播传媒 Associate Professor of Psychology Michael Sargent speaks on value of research being conducted by Roland Fryer on the topic of racial differences in police use of force.

High-profile incidents of police use of force since August 2014 have intensified the national dialogue about race and police work. In his 乐播传媒 address, Fryer will explore, through data from several cities and counties, whether there are racial differences in police use of force. He’ll discuss the preliminary analysis of the research and factors that may account for any racial differences in varying levels of force.

In a 2011 interview with WBUR-FM, Fryer explained that he seeks to do “whatever it takes to understand root causes of disparity in America. I wake up every day . . . [wanting to] understand, how can we make it such that everyone in America has a shot at the American dream?”

Fryer’s best-known research to date seeks to address racial disparities in student success.

Fryer, whose work has been widely cited by the media outlets and in congressional testimony, combines economic theory, empirical evidence, and randomized experiments to help design more effective government policies. When he was 30, he was the youngest-ever African American to receive tenure at Harvard, and he received a MacArthur Foundation “genius grant” in 2011.

Fryer’s best-known research to date seeks to address racial disparities in student success. Fryer has shown that while black and white children start out with equal potential for succeeding in school, black children overall fall behind over time 鈥� and discrimination is less to blame for that disparity than it once was.

Instead, explanations for the racial gap include such social factors as the belief among some black students that studying hard is “acting white.” While this phenomenon was long considered an urban myth, Fryer found that, in fact, it’s true: While white students with good grades tend to have more friends than their lower-scoring peers, good grades mean fewer friends for black students.

Based on a study of 40 charter schools in New York, Fryer went on to propose five areas of emphasis that were accountable for 40 percent of those schools’ success with students 鈥� including such steps as increasing students’ time in school and focusing the culture on preparing students for their future.

“He realized the power of economics to study race.”

The teenage Fryer “hung out with a bad crowd,” The Economist wrote in a May 2 profile. “Surrounded by drug dealers and getting into fights, he used to sell counterfeit handbags to make a bit of extra cash. Asked by a friend where he would be at 30, he replied that he would probably be dead.” (In fact, at age 30, Fryer was tenured at Harvard.)

Attending the University of Texas at Arlington on an athletics scholarship, Fryer discovered a passion for scholarship and a voracious appetite for work. He earned an economics degree in two and a half years and moved on to Penn State for a graduate degree. “It was there, early on, that he realized the power of economics to study race,” Stephen J. Dubner wrote in a 2005 New York Times profile.

Fryer is the founding director of the Education Innovation Laboratory (EdLabs), dedicated to providing scientific evidence to support good decisions in education in the United States, particularly those pertaining to minority students and students living in poverty.

Fryer has also worked as the chief equality officer in New York City’s Department of Education. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a recipient of the Calv贸-Armengol Prize and the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers.