With the breadth of Maine’s four seasons, ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½â€™ campus is ever-changing throughout the year. 

But, even in the most extreme weather, a few things always remain the same — such as the Adirondack chairs dotting the Historic Quad. They stay put through winter blizzards, under colorful fall foliage, and during summer heat, like reliable friends waiting for company.

For Mia Wetzel ’26 of Mashpee, Mass., those chairs evoke a feeling of community representative of her ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ experience. That’s why the biochemistry major, with a concentration in art and visual culture,  chose to depict them in her design for this year’s ivy stone, which features two empty Adirondack chairs surrounded by a cascade of falling leaves.

“The fact that they’re empty, it’s like: There’s an open chair, you never know who you’re going to meet, what’s going to happen,â€� Wetzel said. 

Since 1878, it’s been tradition for a graduating student to design a decorative stone to represent their class year. Any senior can submit an idea, and members of the senior class vote on the final design. On May 26, Wetzel’s stone joined the ranks of more than 130 stones dotting buildings around campus. In keeping with campus tradition, she helped Ron Tardif, a ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Facility Services mason, install the stone on the southeast side of Pettengill Hall. 

Though its design depicts an opportunity for new beginnings, the stone itself reflects not only the departure of the Class of 2026 but also the end of an era for Tardif, who has worked at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ since 2016. He is retiring later this year, making Wetzel’s stone the last ivy stone he will install.

“I feel blessed to have this job,â€� Tardif said. “ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ is a generous employer. To be able to interact with the students is just one benefit. We have some really good kids here, and I enjoyed installing the ivy stones with them.â€�

For her design, Wetzel wanted to depict something that was personal but also specific to the Class of 2026. She remembered how, arriving at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ in 2022, she realized that her class would be the first since the COVID-19 pandemic to have a fully in-person campus experience.

“That’s when everything started returning to normal,â€� Wetzel said. “I used that as my inspiration — the idea of connection, reconnection, after being isolated or socially distanced.â€�

The Adirondack chairs came to mind as a fitting symbol of on-campus community. ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ purchased the chairs in 2020 as a means to encourage socially distanced and safe ways to be together,  so they have always been a feature of Wetzel’s ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½. She intentionally included two chairs in her design, representing the inherent connection in being a pair.

As for the personal side of the artwork, Wetzel arrived at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ ready to slow down and form deep connections after moving twice during high school — from Zimbabwe to the U.S., then from the U.S. to Germany — for her dad’s work with the Foreign Service. The chairs, with their wide, inviting seats and spacious arms, reflect the relationships she created on campus, including with her professors, who she said have been incredibly supportive, and friends she met through academics and extracurricular activities. Wetzel was the president of the Asian Students Association for two years, a violinist with the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Orchestra, a Student Academic Support Center tutor, and, most recently, an emergency medical technician with ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ EMS.

“Sometimes the people you connect the most with are the people you least expected to,â€� Wetzel said. “That’s part of what drew me to ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½, knowing that there was a friendly atmosphere and that people can talk to whoever, and you might find a connection.â€�

Besides ivy itself, the motif most often seen on ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ ivy stones over the years is Hathorn Hall, depicted in some fashion on six stones since the tradition began with the Class of 1879. 

But as the 50th Reunion Class of 1974 set out last year to create their own, long-postponed ivy stone, there was no way, no how that ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½â€™ first building would find its way into the design.

Charles Grosvenor ’74, who designed the stone along with the late Nicki Taylor ’74, shared that insider tidbit as he introduced the class stone during a bittersweet ceremony on Saturday morning of Reunion. He got a knowing laugh from his classmates when he described what project member Karen Harris ’74 had requested: “Please, no Hathorn!�

Harris is a longtime ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ volunteer, trustee emerita, and member of 1974’s Reunion Social and Gift committees, so her “no Hathornâ€� guidance was less a rejection of tradition than a call for originality. The Class of 1974, which had been launched from ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ into a sea of American malaise in the mid-1970s — Watergate, post-Vietnam War, unfinished work for social, gender, and racial progress — would, 50 years later, strive for something their own. 

“Rather than finding it restricting,� said Grosvenor, well-known as the director of multiple and beloved The Land Before Time animated movies, “we felt it actually opened up the idea for other concepts and images to put into the stone.�

For many years, the tradition of a class designing and installing a square, granite stone on a campus building was part of a May ceremony that included speeches, odes, songs, and the planting of a sprig of ivy directly below the new stone. But by the late 1960s and into the early 1970s, Ivy Day had become something different, an increasingly raucous tradition centered on a withering roast of the senior class by juniors. 

Things got out of hand, apparently, and the event was canceled for a time in the early 1970s. During the fallow time, ivy stones for two years,1974 and 1975, were not installed. (Which is why, when Grosvenor was invited to join the ivy-stone project by classmate Jerry Quinlan ’74, he replied, “Sure, you bet, count me in. But what’s an ivy stone?�) The Class of 1975 created and installed theirs in 2006. And on June 8, 2024, at their 50th Reunion, it was, finally, the Class of 1974’s turn.

After graduating with a studio art major, Grosvenor headed to Hollywood to work in the animation industry. He knew he wanted to avoid being slotted into the painstaking work of frame-by-frame, hand-drawn animation.

He knew how to use his skill at illustration to create and tell a story. “I was drawn to storyboarding,� he said after the ceremony, describing the work of visualizing a script by creating drawings or panels that map out a film’s scenes and sequences.

Which is exactly what he and Taylor, a fellow ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ art major, did for the Class of 1974 stone, which cleverly draws on an iconic logo to tell a ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ story on a 8-inch square granite canvas. “I thought, we’ve got the Bobcat and we’ve got this name, Academia ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ina, which is classy because, well, it’s Latin. And then what can we do with that? Well, the Bobcat has a very distinguished cousin, Leo the Lionâ€� of MGM fame.

From that, Grosvenor and Taylor created a final sketch that played off the iconic MGM logo, blending a roaring Bobcat in place of Leo the Lion, and the college’s Latinized name in place of Ars Gratia Artis, “Art for Art’s Sake.� The MGM parody was one of 25 ideas the pair created, others involving the state of Maine, the letter B with ivy on it, and various Bobcat images.

At the dedication, Grosvenor was generous and thoughtful in describing the work of Taylor, who died in November 2023 after a period of declining health. Taylor, who worked in the veterinary field in western Maine, always had an artistic eye, whether using a paintbrush, camera, or quilting needle. 

With that artistic eye, and gardening talent as well, Taylor contributed to the design of the ivy tendrils that surround the illustration. She also chose the red granite while she was in intensive care at Maine Medical Center, a few days before she died.

“Nicki knew she would not be able to make it to our 50th Reunion but she loved contributing to the project,â€� said Harris, her ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ roommate and lifelong friend. Speaking to his classmates at the ceremony, Grosvenor summed it up. “Nicki did great work,â€� he said.

With that, Grosvenor turned from the lectern set up a few feet from the 1974 stone, hidden until this point by a ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ banner hanging from the Dana Hall brickwork. He walked over and removed the banner, revealing, 50 years after graduation, the 1974 ivy stone. 

“Voila! The Class of 1974 is no longer ivy stone short!�

Amelia Hawkins ’24 of Sun Valley, Idaho, wants her ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ classmates to graduate with a sense of hope, especially since many of their high school graduations four years ago were drive-by events (if that), and their first year at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ was under COVID protocols that made spending time together tough.

So Hawkins, a ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ studio arts major, created a design for their traditional ivy stone that everyone can rally around: the ducks at Lake Andrews. 

Hawkins also added ducklings, to symbolize hope and promise. Then she finished off her sketch with the class year — 2024 — fashioned into ripples floating away from the duck’s paddling webbed feet, as if sending reverberations of her positive message into the future. 

“I have always been in love with the ivy stones around campus and the different designs and how they’ve changed over time,â€� said Hawkins. “Some have buildings, and those are cool, but I wanted to do something new that I hadn’t seen — yet also something everyone sees. I immediately thought of the ducks at the Puddle.â€� 

Around 7:30 on Wednesday morning, Ron Tardif, a ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ mason with Facility Services, began his work installing the stone, first by drilling a square hole in the brick. Soon, Hawkins arrived. Despite having been up very late the night before with her friends — it being Senior Week and all — she wanted to see the installation.

Tardif appreciated the senior’s pluck and gumption. “She’s definitely mason material!â€� he boomed.

A mason of 35 years, Tardif not only loves the art of masonry, but also teaching others his craft. So Tardif encouraged Hawkins to help out. At first reluctant, she soon crouched down and helped plaster the interior sides of the empty hole with mortar. 

“People will see me doing something and come over and start asking questions. The best way to answer is: ‘Here, try it,’� Tardif said.

The ivy stone tradition at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ dates to 1878, when the juniors of the Class of 1879 installed their class stone on Hathorn Hall and planted a sprig of ivy below it. (Back then, ivy stones were installed in the junior year. And now, ivy is no longer planted.) 

Not surprising, ivy motifs as well as depictions of Hathorn Hall and its bell tower have been popular subjects through the years. Occasionally, students have brought the outside world into their stone design. 

The Class of 1946’s stone, installed in spring 1945, pays homage to the U.S. Navy, which had sailors stationed at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ during World War II. The Class of 2021 stone features a raised fist as a symbol of Black Lives Matter, and a mask to suggest the pandemic.

Until now, no stone depicts any kind of pastoral or natural scene. And that’s right in Hawkins’ wheelhouse. 

“I always tend to focus on nature. I’m drawn to nature,â€� says Hawkins, who will head to San Francisco to work as a designer at Pottery Barn Kids after graduation. “I did my whole senior thesis on the forest fires in Idaho,â€� capturing the cycle of fire and regrowth in her oil paintings. “It is an amazing cycle that captivates me every year.â€� 

Ducks begetting ducklings is another kind of cycle, and another way to feel hopeful, she says — “hope for our class, because our class has gone through a lot.â€� 

And with so much going on in the world right now, “I thought this was something everyone could relate to and enjoy in some way. I’ve always wanted to design the ivy stone and I’m thrilled that I get to have my artwork up here forever.�

This year’s ivy stone was designed by ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ senior Abby Segal, who also happens to be a professional magician. But there’s no dazzling illusion involved in the design, just the brick-and-mortar sensibility of a senior trying to tell a story about her class and COVID.

Segal, a psychology major from Chelmsford, Mass., added design elements to the stone to reflect the determined forward progress of the Class of 2023 over their four years.

On the stone, Hathorn Hall’s bell tower is crowned with a Bobcat weathervane. The weathervane is rendered as an arrow pointing to the future. “I wanted it to reflect how we moved forward despite difficulty, and I wanted it to reflect ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½,â€� Segal explains. 

At the bottom of the stone, the numerals 2023 are both shaded and unshaded, representing the halting nature of life during COVID, filled with restrictions, eased restrictions, lockdowns, and back again.  

The arrow’s nock and fletching suggest a play/pause button — the pause that COVID placed on their academic and social lives, especially in March of their first year, when ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ pivoted to remote learning. 

The arrow’s point suggests play, or even fast-forward, the way the class got on with their college life. At the top, an on/off button ties it all together, “reflecting the technological era� that defines the world that the class will graduate into.

Eager to see her design installed into the brickwork at Pettengill Hall, Segal joined ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ mason Ron Tardif on a breezy recent Wednesday to set the newest ivy stone, continuing a ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ senior class tradition that dates to 1879.

Tardif arrives with a bucket of mortar he mixed earlier in the morning, a few wooden wedges to hold the stone in place, and two tools: a rectangular margin trowel and a plasterer’s “hawk,� a flat sheet of metal for holding mortar while he works.

As Tardif starts plastering the interior sides of the square hole with mortar, Segal talks about her post-Commencement plans: more studying, but not the college kind.

Segal was one of two first-prize winners of the 2023 Bobcat Ventures competition with her pitch for funding her career in magic, specifically to inspire and encourage women to break into the male-dominated world of professional magic.

Toward that goal, she’s planning a magical summer, in the Netherlands and Sweden, to attend a few skill-building camps. The European magic scene is “very intimate and small,â€� says Segal. “It’s not as big as Chicago or L.A. or New York. But I like it because you get to know the magicians there. It’s intimate and kind of its own thing.â€�

Segal delivers closeup-style magic, steering away from fancy costumes and clouds of smoke, presenting herself as “a normal human being who also just happens to do magic.â€� 

That style lets her play off stereotypes of women in magic, as assistants or being cut in half. “The beautiful thing about women in magic is that there’s no stereotype for what a female magician should be,â€� she says.

As a student, Muskan Verma ’21 of Shimla, India, always paid attention to the ivy stones around campus, particularly the newer ones she saw while passing Pettengill Hall.

Ivy stones have been placed on campus buildings since 1879 as a rite of graduation; old or new, they feature familiar elements. Like ivy, for one, seen on most of them. Other campus features pop up occasionally, like Hathorn and its bell tower (in closeup in 2020, 1973 and 1963 and from a distance in 2019), and lantern and lamp motifs (1980, 2005, and 2014). The Class of 1999 went a little meta, sketching bricks on their design along with the ivy.

“What if ours could look different?� Verma asked herself.

The best way to make that happen, she reasoned, was to do it herself. Regardless of the outcome of the competition, even the prospect of having something she’d made etched in stone was a good motivator. “I didn’t really expect my submission to be selected,� she says. “I just wanted to give it a try.�

Yet the rhetoric and theater major’s design was indeed selected, by a vote of the senior class. (Voters did not know who the designers were.) It now adorns Pettengill itself, installed by ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ mason Ron Tardif on May 25, just to the right of the front door entrance.

It features a few very specific motifs. There’s the Bobcat (not unusual, the Bobcat can also be found on 2011’s and 1929’s stone) but just below the cat’s noble face is a sign of the times circa 2020–21: a pandemic face covering.

“At first I thought about not including anything related to COVID-19 in the design,â€� Verma says. “But it felt incomplete to me. It would be a disservice to everyone who was adversely affected by this pandemic in different ways to completely skip over a tough but important part of our ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ experience.â€�

The mask, Verma felt, was the “most universal symbol for the pandemicâ€� but it was also a reminder of one good thing: “the efforts the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ community put in to keep each other safe.â€� 

She softened it by adding a few ivy leaves growing around it, a very deliberate choice to represent how the campus community grew from the experience.  “I wanted to make it look dynamic, hopeful and a step towards better,â€� she says.

Verma also made the bold move of including a raised fist, the century-old, iconic symbol of resistance and activism made freshly ascendent in the Black Lives Matter movement. For a class that witnessed the country explode in powerful protest after the June 2020 murder of George Floyd by police officers in Minneapolis, it made great sense to Verma that the symbol be present.

â€�Our class has been around to experience and more importantly, stand up and highlight that by protesting the oppression of marginalized people,â€� she says. Included in that was taking a stand close to home, to interrogate the story of ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½â€™ founding and to issue a wake-up call to ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ “to do more in the struggle for equity, inclusion and antiracism.â€�

“To me, [the fist] symbolizes the non-violent strength of the masses. People power,� she says, mentioning causes like feminism, socialism, labor rights, and the Black Power movement. “But that’s just a personal take. I understand different people and generations associate it with different types of resistance.�

It was already resonating even before the mortar was dry. “Power to the people,” said Tardif approvingly as he put the finishing touches on the 2021 ivy stone.

This is one of the very few ivy stones to make direct reference to contemporary events. The Class of 1970 seems to feature the Earth — though it could be the sun — on its stone, perhaps in homage to Earth Day, first held in April 1970.

The 1946 stone includes what looks like a ship’s wheel, a nice nod to the presence of the Navy at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ during their years. And the 2015 stone is illustrated with palindromic binary code — 11111011111 — that signifies the numerals 2015 to reflect the digital age. 

Ultimately though, for Verma, “this was just as much a symbol of the power of the student body that makes up this college and holds the power to make change.�

Verma’s hope is that people who see the stone will think of the resilience of the Class of 2021. It should stand as a symbol, “that our work isn’t yet done and that resistance will be even more important when we are out there, not together anymore, but still a community.� Ideally, the message is personal for her classmates. “I hope the design represents at least in some ways, every single person from my class and that they are able to think of our time here when they come across it.�

Here’s a zippy tour of the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ campus as we try to locate all 15 ivy stones for the Reunion 2015 classes.

And after 30 years, the Class of 1975 takes its place in a ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ tradition dating back to the 1800s.

The mason removes the protective masking tape and smooths the mortar.

Chouinard checks the alignment. "I'm very particular," he says.

The stone is on Dana Chemistry Hall, facing Hathorn Hall.

The fingers of a working man.

Better late than never.

Thirty-one years ago, the Class of 1975 graduated from ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ without giving an ivy stone to the College. The Class of ’74, too, had left ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ without partaking of a tradition going back a century.

Why? By the late 1960s, Ivy Day had devolved (or evolved, from a student perspective) into a raucous student-only gathering in the Chapel featuring savage wit and satire. Call it a compressed version of Mayoralty, the ’50s student megablast, or a ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ version of the Dean Martin roast of a few years hence.

And the tone was, given the era, anti-establishment.

In this new ivy iteration, the junior class presented the show. In April 1969, future film and stage star John Shea ’70 orated a wicked three-part ode, delivering a pointed three-pronged jab at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ social rules that had greeted the sexual revolution with neither a wink or a nudge.

Here’s a sample: “These wonderful guardians of virtue reach atop the hill of Muse, to do their deed, kill the seed, to quell our need…. Parentis personifae…give us rest from thy thorny oppression!”

Subsequent editions upped the ribald quotient, and, not surprisingly, Ivy Day eventually went on hiatus. The linked tradition of installing a class ivy stone limped along with little fanfare, and even that tradition skipped two years, 1974 and 1975.

The ivy concept was later resurrected and thrives today in the form of a conclusion to a sober and spiritual Baccalaureate ceremony, in which the class plants an ivy and unveils its stone.

But ’75 never forgot, and in 2005 the class celebrated its 30th Reunion by giving an ivy stone to the College. Designed by Diane Kounkoulas Peterson ’75, the stone arrived over the winter and on May 4, 2006, ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ head mason Wilfred Chouinard installed the plaque.

Chouinard, a third-generation mason of French Canadian heritage, has installed ivy stones since arriving at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ in the 1986. “I’m very particular,” he said, shimming the stone and checking it with a level before applying more mortar.

Besides the annual stone installation, Chouinard’s favorite projects include the elegant brickwork in front of Lane Hall, plus projects for Lindholm House and, for his first ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ job, the entryways to Smith Hall. Like any skilled tradesman, his eye catches campus details that elude others. “Ever notice that the mortar on Coram used to be black and red?” he asked me. “Now it’s all gray.”