Michael Rocque

Megan Rapinoe did not stomp on the flag. Here’s why people got outraged regardless — Newsweek

In Newsweek, Associate Professor of Sociology Michael Rocque argued that a recent Twitter flareup — in which World Cup-winning soccer player Megan Rapinoe was accused of stomping on the American flag, when she’d done no such thing — is part of a pattern of often-uninformed outrage on social media.

“The temptation to jump to outrage is especially strong on social media, where our virtual communities of the like-minded, created by choosing our ‘friends’ and whom to follow, reinforce our preconceptions and can block any facts that get in their way,” Rocque wrote.

Michael Rocque, associate professor of sociology. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Anger spreads more easily online than other emotions, and collective anger paradoxically leads to feelings of affirmation and unity, Rocque wrote. “We’re wired to crave that collective anger.”

So before taking part in an online mob, he suggested, wait a second to get the facts.

“When we see a meme, post or tweet that sparks that familiar tingle of outrage, take a minute to look into it, verify sources or, better yet, wait to see how the story unfolds once more information is gathered.”

Read the story:

• “,” Newsweek, July 12, 2019

Joyce White Vance ’82

Prosecutors pick their battles. I chose not to pursue an ICE raid in Alabama — The Washington Post

Best-known these days for her legal insights into special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation and report on the 2016 elections, Joyce White Vance ’82 recently turned her attention to the massive Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid of food processing plants in Mississippi.

Former U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama Joyce White Vance ’82 speaks at a House Judiciary Committee hearing on the Mueller Report on Capitol Hill in June. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

A former U.S. attorney for Alabama, Vance once declined to pursue an ICE raid in her state because she failed to “see how it would be a wise use of our resources to pull away from crimes that were affecting our community in visible ways to arrest people who, while they might have lacked legal immigration status, were going to work every day.”

Noting that it took months to plan the ICE raids, Vance wondered if there aren’t other prosecutions that might have “better served the community” than “removing parents from children — children that the parents were hard at work for, so they could help them grow into productive citizens.”

Read the story:

• “,” The Washington Post, Aug. 9, 2019

Scott Allen ’84

These doctors risked their careers to expose the dangers children face in immigrant family detention — CNN

For years, Drs. Scott Allen and Pamela McPherson did their work — inspecting facilities where U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detains immigrant families — quietly.

But in 2018, the two doctors, who are medical consultants for the Department of Homeland Security’s Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, became whistleblowers.

Since then, Allen and McPherson have appeared in myriad media outlets, including The New York Times, 60 Minutes, and The Washington Post, to call attention to the harm children suffer when confined, with or without parents, to detention facilities, such as the ICE centers at the Southwest U.S. border.

“Each passing day of continued detention of children — and no acknowledgment of the risk that we have reported — alarms me,” Dr. Scott Allen ’84 told CNN in May.

“The medical community is quite unified in opposition to the detention of children. Decades of research have shown that detention is harmful to their medical and physical health,” Allen told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour in June.

For their work, Allen and McPherson, along with Scott Shuchart, received the 2019 Ridenhour Prize for Truth-Telling.

Read and watch:

• “,” CNN, May 23, 2019
• “,” The Washington Post, Dec. 19, 2018
• “,’�ĝ The New York Times, July 18, 2018

Stephanie Kelley-Romano

If the Democrats master this single strategy, they can defeat Trump in 2020 — Newsweek

Stephanie Kelley-Romano, associate professor of rhetoric, film, and screen studies, watched the second set of Democratic presidential primary debates in late July and concluded, in a Newsweek op-ed, that the candidates need to work on framing — defining the issues they’re talking about and the limits on their solutions.

Stephanie Kelley-Romano leads a “Television Criticism” class on March 6, 2019. (Theophil Syslo/�ֲ���ý College)

For example, debate moderators often framed discussions of universal healthcare as “taking away” private insurance in favor of government-funded care. It was only toward the end of these discussions that several candidates argued that universal healthcare would be a gain, not a loss.

“In the lead-up to 2020, Democrats must remember to take control of the framing of issues early, so they can focus on what it is they are trying to explain and why,” Kelley-Romano wrote.

Read the story:

• “,” Newsweek, Aug. 1, 2019

Dan Mills

An Artist’s Maps of Imperialism and Greed — Hyperallergic

Carl Little reviewed in��art news site Hyperallergic an exhibit at the Center for Maine Contemporary Art by Dan Mills, director of the �ֲ���ý College Museum of Art.

Recently named by Maine magazine as one of 50 Mainers who are “creating a brighter future for the state,” Mills creates “collaged maps,” displays of numbers related to war and colonialism overlaid on vintage maps.

“Mills delves into the devastating numbers and then converts them into chaotically beautiful cartographies,” wrote Little, a well-known Maine art critic and historian. “The central paradox of his map pieces is that, even as they record the woes of the world, they are stunning and seductive. The visuals engage; the numbers appall.”

Read the story:

• “,” Hyperallergic, Aug. 10, 2019

Rebecca Fraser-Thill

The five biggest myths about meaningful work — Forbes

Backed up by a recent study by �ֲ���ý College and Gallup on purposeful work, Rebecca Fraser-Thill explained in Forbes that meaning in work and a meaningful life go hand in hand.

Rebecca Fraser-Thill is the director of faculty engagement and outreach at �ֲ���ý’ Center for Purposeful Work and a lecturer in psychology. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Dispelling several myths, Fraser-Thill, a visiting instructor of psychology and the director of faculty engagement and outreach at �ֲ���ý’ Center for Purposeful Work, argued that meaningful work is subjective and individual — it does not have to be a helping profession, high status, low paying, or even different from what you’re doing now.

“Whether it’s simply asking a co-worker about her weekend or bringing a smile to customers in a coffee house, any act that makes us feel more connected to others also makes our work — and our lives — more meaningful,” she wrote.

Read the story:

• “,” Forbes, Aug. 7, 2019

John A. Elsesser ’80

Conversation with: John Elsesser — Journal Inquirer

Tim Leininger of the Manchester, Conn., Journal Inquirer sat down with John A. Elsesser ’80, who has been the town manager of Coventry, Conn., for more than three decades.

Elsesser, who over 30 years has improved Coventry’s trash and sewer systems as well as its school and recreation programs, mused that he took to local government, in part, because of his upbringing, as the son of a Baptist minister.

“We always had company over,” he told Leininger. “We were taught that you should do good for others, try to make an impact. There was a lot of pressure for me to become a minister, me and my brother and sisters actually. None of us did, but I think the issue of trying to make a positive difference was the core of that.”

Read the story:

• “,” Journal Inquirer, Aug. 3, 2019

Sarah Strong

Across space and time: translating Night on the Galactic Railroad — Metropolis

Kenji Miyazawa’s masterpiece Night on the Galactic Railroad is exceedingly difficult to translate, wrote Eric Margolis of English-language Japanese magazine Metropolis. The novel, about a lonely Italian boy who rides to heaven on a magical train, contains surreal imagery and sound effects, made-up words, and regional dialect.

In taking on the task of translation in 1991, Sarah Strong, who is now professor emerita of Japanese language and literature, sought to represent in English the emotions of reading the novel in Japanese.

“If something was weird, I wanted the reader to think, ‘That’s weird,’�ĝ Strong told Margolis. “What was funny? What was happy? What was sad? I needed to get as close as I could to really understanding the writing.”

Read the story:

• “,” Metropolis, Aug. 2, 2019

Stephanie Wade and Megan Guynes ’11

River story workshop held in Lewiston — Sun Journal

In early August, Stephanie Wade, assistant director of Writing at �ֲ���ý, ran a writing workshop at Tree Street Youth through the Androscoggin Land Trust.

Children at the youth center went fishing in the morning, then came back to write a story about their experiences, which Lewiston Sun Journal photographer Daryn Slover documented. Also on hand was Megan Guynes ’11, program director at Tree Street Youth.

See the photos:

• “,” Sun Journal, Aug. 1, 2019

Emily Kane

Winners overlook rigged games’ lack of fairness, study finds — Associated Press

For context on a Cornell study about winning and fairness, Associated Press reporter Seth Borenstein turned to Professor of Sociology Emily Kane.

In the study, nearly 1,000 people played a card came in which winners could throw out their worst cards and take other players’ best cards. The winners attributed their winning to talent and only acknowledged the unfairness of the game after they were allowed to exchange cards a second time.

The study “tells us something about privilege and about society,” Kane told Borenstein. “It reminds us how powerful perceptions are — it’s not just what is happening that matters, it’s often more a matter of what we think is happening,”

Read the story:

• “,” Associated Press, July 17, 2019

Mara Tieken

Despite West Virginia education reform, the extraction of rural youth to continue — The Register-Herald

Associate professor of education and rural education expert Mara Tieken spoke with reporter Erin Beck of West Virginia’s Register Herald about the state’s struggle to both promote college education and keep young people in the state.

Associate Professor of Education Mara Tieken teaches “Community Organizing for Social Justice” in May 2018. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Tieken said that few high school graduates in West Virginia are getting college degrees — there aren’t a lot of jobs in rural areas that require them, even as traditional jobs like coal mining are declining.

“If we’re really trying to support kids to go to college, we also need to make sure that there are jobs in rural places that can use that college education,” Tieken said.

Read the story:

• “,” The Register-Herald, Jul. 14, 2019

Karl Alexander ’12

Getting Bike Share Right Is a Balancing Act — U.S. 1

Karl Alexander ’12 spoke with Princeton, N.J., newspaper U.S. 1 about how bike-sharing companies can establish themselves responsibly in communities.

Alexander, marketing manager for Zagster, told reporter Diccon Hyatt that the bike-sharing company tries to move into places — like Princeton — that will already be receptive to more bicycles, and promote bike-friendliness from there.

“You have to take the time to look at what works best for the community, whether that’s bikes or scooters, or if it is something else entirely, like increasing walkability,” he said. “You have to think before you act. You’ll probably be better off in the long run.”

Read the story:

• “,” U.S. 1, July 10, 2019

A Congressman challenging an expert during a committee hearing? Not unusual.

The fact that both are �ֲ���ý alumni? Very unusual, if not unique.

The �ֲ���ý moment unfolded Monday during the House Judiciary Committee’s hearing on Robert Mueller’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and its connections to President Trump’s campaign.

The committee, whose members include newly elected Congressman Ben Cline ’94, R-Va., invited testimony from a number of legal experts, including Joyce White Vance ’82, former federal prosecutor and current law professor at the University of Alabama.

Rep. Ben Cline ’94 questions legal expert and fellow alum Joyce White Vance ’82 during a House Judiciary Committee hearing on June 10, 2019.

About 2 hours and 20 minutes into the four-plus-hour hearing, Cline addresses his questions to Vance. Their exchange follows familiar themes, including whether Mueller’s various findings rise to the legal definition of conspiracy, the distinction between collusion and conspiracy, and whether it is even the special counsel’s job to exonerate, or not, the president.

Here’s the transcript, edited for clarity:

Cline: “On Nov. 30, 2018, you tweeted, ‘At some point, all the times he said, “No collusion” are going to come back to haunt this president.’ Do you still believe that there was collusion?”

Vance: “So, it’s important to note, as Mueller does…”

Two days before the House hearing, Rep. Ben Cline ’94, R-Va., returned to �ֲ���ý for his 25th Reunion, joining fellow Congressman Jared Golden ’11 (right), D-Maine, for a public talk. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College).

Cline: “That’s a yes or no…”

Vance: “No, it’s not a yes or no answer.”

Cline: “Let me go to your next tweet…”

Vance: “There’s a difference between collusion and conspiracy…”

Cline: “OK, do you believe there was a conspiracy?”

Vance: “Mueller finds he has insufficient evidence to charge a conspiracy, but he also notes that much evidence was kept from him, that people took the Fifth Amendment, people lied to him, people destroyed evidence on applications like WhatsApp.”

Cline: “So, he didn’t exonerate…”

Vance: “He notes that if he had have the opportunity to get that evidence, he might have been able to view the situation differently.”

Cline: “As a former prosecutor, do you believe that it’s the job of a prosecutor to exonerate the potential defendant?”

The Mueller investigation is a test of the rule of law, said Joyce White Vance ’82 during a public talk last March at �ֲ���ý. (Theophil Syslo/�ֲ���ý College)

Vance: “In a typical case, where I’m looking at indicting a bank robber or a drug case, I would agree that it’s not my job.”

Cline: “On July 6, 2018, you tweeted, ‘The president sowing hatred, fear, and distrust in hopes that he can divide the country enough to survive when the truth comes out about his campaign’s collusion with Russia.’ Do you believe the truth has come out about the President’s collusion with Russia and that there is none?”

Vance: “Again, I think that there’s an enormous difference between collusion and conspiracy. There’s evidence of a lot of contact, a lot of welcoming with open arms by this president, cooperation, and help on the campaign from Russia.

“So the American people should read and draw their own conclusions about what that gap is between collusion and Mueller not having sufficient evidence to charge a conspiracy.”

Cline: “On Jan. 8, you tweeted, ‘Video clips of people saying no collusion have not aged well.’ I would argue that these tweets have not aged well. And with that, I would yield to the gentleman from Ohio.”

Whenever news emerges of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian influence on the 2016 elections, MSNBC and other outlets turn to Joyce White Vance ’82, an on-air contributor who helps guide viewers through thickets of revelations, rumors, and legal maneuverings.

The thing is, a lot of news emerges about the investigation, which makes Vance one very busy law professor and former U.S. Attorney — and often makes for a very confused public.

Inflaming emotions around the issue is the fact that the allegations involve the president of the United States. But it helps, Vance told a �ֲ���ý audience Thursday night, to look at the investigation as a process: allegations were made, an investigation is taking place, and certain people are seeing consequences.

The Mueller investigation is neither a witch hunt nor a crusade to save America, Joyce White Vance ’82 said during a public talk on March 21 in the Muskie Archives. Instead, it’s a test of the rule of law. (Theophil Syslo/�ֲ���ý College)

“We are watching the rule of law being tested,” she said. “There are some people questioning whether the rule of law is up to the task ahead of it.”

It’s widely believed that Mueller will conclude his investigation at any time and make a report to the U.S. Attorney General William Barr — which means Vance was in particularly high demand this week. Still, she managed to squeeze in a visit to her alma mater, visiting a class to talk about her work on penal reform in Alabama and then giving a public talk to a packed Muskie Archives, part of the Harward Center’s Theory into Practice speaker series.

Vance has decades of experience with and expertise in the rule of law. She was a federal prosecutor in Alabama for years before Barack Obama appointed her U.S. Attorney in the state’s northern district. In that office, she took on high-profile public corruption cases, fought the growing heroin epidemic, and prosecuted civil rights cases. In addition to her role as an MSNBC contributor, Vance is also a distinguished professor in law at the University of Alabama.

The foundation of Vance’s legal career was laid at �ֲ���ý, Vance said in an interview. Drawn to the college by an encounter with legendary debate director and rhetoric professor Robert Branham, she joined the debate team and majored in politics, writing an honors thesis under the direction of Garold Thumm, a professor emeritus of politics who died in 2012.

“I had the wonderful opportunity when I was here to be exposed to a really diverse way of thinking, a willingness to integrate views that were very different from your own,” Vance said. “Rather than just immediately discarding them, you explore them and compare your own views and see if your own views should be expanded.”

“There are some people questioning whether the rule of law is up to the task ahead of it.”

In her talk, Vance used Harvard law professor Cass Sunstein’s definition of the rule of law as a system of clear laws and fair processes: Citizens know why they might be punished, get advance notice of charges, and have ways to defend themselves in front of an unbiased tribunal.

To Sunstein’s conditions, Vance added one of her own: that no man or woman is above the law and that the same laws apply to the president of the United States as to an ordinary citizen.

“The rule of law is a lot like a playground game of basketball,” she said. “If you get so caught up in winning one round of the game that you don’t respect the game itself and the players on the other team, pretty soon there’s no more game left to play. That respect is incredibly important.”

Vance thinks the institutions that uphold the rule of law are “stretched, but so far they appear to be holding.”

Before her public talk, Joyce White Vance ’82 stopped by Visiting Assistant Professor of Economics Jonathan Kurzfeld’s course on crime and punishment, to explain her penal reform efforts as a U.S. Attorney in Alabama. At center and right are Joseph Jackson, director of the Maine Prisoner’s Advocacy Coalition, and Jesse Archer, a local defense attorney. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

That’s because, despite public denunciations of his work and changes in other key personnel, Mueller has stuck to his job, investigating Russian interference, other issues that arise, and perjury and obstruction of justice.

He’s moved remarkably quickly since his 2017 appointment, Vance pointed out. By comparison, one of Vance’s public corruption cases, which resulted in the imprisonment of enough county commissioners to make a quorum, took more than six years.

“Mueller is not going to drag the president of the United States out of the White House in handcuffs.”

In just two years, Mueller has presented two unusually detailed indictments against Russian individuals and companies — one for waging an influence campaign on the public, one for hacking the Democratic National Committee’s servers.

He’s also indicted six of Trump’s advisers (“You look at these folks, and you have to wonder what kind of vetting was going on” in their hiring, Vance said); five have been convicted of or pleaded guilty to a range of crimes.

So Mueller’s investigation is not a witch hunt, Vance said. Nor is Mueller a saint. “Mueller is not going to drag the president of the United States out of the White House in handcuffs,” she said. “He is not going to fix gridlock in Congress, and he will not create world peace.”

“He is a career prosecutor,” she added. “He’s an institutionalist, someone who’s devoted most of his adult life to serving the people of the United States.”

Joyce White Vance ’82 packed the Muskie Archives for her talk on the Mueller investigation and the rule of law. (Theophil Syslo/�ֲ���ý College)

What Mueller hasn’t done is clearly establish that Russians and Americans — particularly the president himself — were working together to influence the election. It’s rumored that Mueller will soon make a report to the Justice Department, at the very least accounting for who he did and did not indict, and why. Vance doesn’t know what will be in that report, only that it seems early to submit it.

It may be that Mueller is finished indicting people, but the investigation has turned up other crimes that jurisdictions like the Southern District of New York and the New York Attorney General’s office have taken up.

“If we wake up to a headline tomorrow morning that says Bob Mueller has finished his work and he will not be indicting any more cases,” Vance said, “that does not mean that this is over, or even close.”

Will the public get to see the report? Vance thinks so. A few things are working against a public release: Counterintelligence will stay classified, some indictments might be under seal, the DOJ typically doesn’t release information about people who �ɱ�����’t indicted, and the president might even try to keep the report under wraps by invoking executive privilege — but the department recognizes that the public needs some kind of closure.

“We should look for candidates who, at the end of the game, there’s still a game left that we can continue to play.”

“It’s possible Trump and his campaign did nothing wrong,” Vance said. “If that’s the truth, the country deserves to know that. It’s possible there was widespread criminal conduct and a full-blown conspiracy, and if so, we should know that.

“It’s also possible there was parallel play, that Russia was doing stuff, the president was doing stuff, and there was no meeting of the minds, no conspiracy, but this shady conduct that makes us uncomfortable was happening. We need to know.”

And what if the president doesn’t get indicted? That’s likely, Vance said. That could be because Trump didn’t commit a crime, or because Mueller doesn’t have enough evidence to make a convincing case that he did. Even if there was clear evidence, the DOJ has a stated policy not to indict sitting presidents.

If criminal prosecution isn’t the right tool, impeachment could be on the table: Congress has the constitutional power to remove a president who has committed “high crimes or misdemeanors,” which are different from criminal offenses.

Criminal prosecution is only one way to hold leaders accountable, Joyce White Vance said. Others include impeachment and, of course, voting. (Theophil Syslo/�ֲ���ý College)

“Impeachment is a political consideration, not a legal consideration,” Vance said. “‘High crimes and misdemeanors’ is much broader than statutes, but Congress also faces political constraints, what the citizens they represent are willing to do.”

It’s also possible that the president or those close to him did something wrong, but something that’s not grounds for prosecution or even impeachment — “awful but lawful,” Vance called it. In that case, if it offends the sensibilities of enough Americans, it’s up to the voters to remove the president in 2020.

That’s why, Vance said, it’s important to stay engaged, to try to sift through the detail and rumor, and determine who will uphold the rule of law and who will threaten it.

“We should look for candidates who, at the end of the game,” she said, leave us with a “game that we can continue to play.”

Joyce White Vance ’82

Paul Manafort’s day in court spells trouble for Trump — The Washington Post

In recent months, the news media have often turned to Joyce White Vance ’82 to explain legal maneuverings in the ongoing investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections.

Law professor and former U.S. attorney Joyce Vance ’82 speaks during a 2016 �ֲ���ý panel on criminal justice reform in Maine. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

A contributor to MSNBC and quoted frequently in outlets like NBC News, The New York Times, and The Washington Post,�� Vance served as a U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama from 2009 to 2017 and is now a Distinguished Professor of the Practice of Law at Culverhouse School of Law at the University of Alabama. on March 21.

As Politico noted in a story last summer about , their job is to “try to bring sanity to the whirlwind of information” about various aspects of the Mueller probe.

Most recently, Vance has helped untangle issues raised by the news that former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort lied to prosecutors after his plea deal.

“The open question is whether Manafort was freelancing or whether others from the campaign were involved” in contacts with the Russians in 2016, Vance tells The Washington Post.

• Related:����“,”��The Washington Post,��Feb. 14, 2019
• Related: “,”���ʴDZ����پ�����,��July 2, 2019��
• By Vance: “” Just Security, Feb. 5, 2019

Caroline Baumann ’87 and Erik Kondo ’87

Designing for Everyone — World Economic Forum Annual Meeting

Caroline Baumann ’87 is director of the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, in New York City, and she opened her presentation on inclusive design at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, by talking about her classmate Erik Kondo ’87.

In this excerpt from her address at the 2019 World Economic Forum talk, Caroline Baumann ’87 sends a message about inclusive design by sharing the example of her �ֲ���ý classmate Erik Kondo ’87.

Kondo has used a wheelchair since he was in a motorcycle accident as a �ֲ���ý student. A “keen” avid athlete before and after his accident, he participates in a range of sports, including snowboarding and martial arts, and he has also created an electric skateboard adapted for wheelchair users.

“He was not going to let this accident, or being in a wheelchair, restrict him,” said Baumann.

At the Lynch Family Skatepark in Boston, Erik Kondo ’87 rides an electric skateboard he designed. (Edward Boches)

Baumann used a quote from Kondo that urges designers to prioritize users’ agency as they create products for people with disabilities:

“We are the pilots, not the passengers.”

“Equal access is a human rights issue,” Baumann said. “Diversity is humanity’s greatest asset. But inclusion is our greatest challenge.”

• Watch Baumann’s talk: ,” weforum.org, Jan. 22, 2019

Alexandra Baldwin ’93

Alexandra Baldwin named Web.com Tour president — The Florida Times-Union

The Florida Times-Union reported that Alexandra Baldwin ’93 is the first woman to head a PGA Tour global circuit.

She was appointed president of the , a circuit of 27 tournaments that is the “primary path to PGA Tour membership,” wrote reporter Garry Smits. Baldwin was previously vice president of marketing partnerships at PGA Tour and has been a sports management executive for many years.

Baldwin told Smits she is excited to help up-and-coming golfers qualify for PGA Tour membership.

“I have an appreciation and understanding of the tremendous challenges they face on that journey,” she said. “I love working with people and developing relationships, and I think it’s important to listen to them about their goals and aspirations. There are some great success stories out there and we want to see more.”

• Read the story: “,” The Florida Times-Union, Jan. 30, 2019

Denali Nalamalapu ’17

What we take for granted —��Maine Sunday Telegram��

For “Meetinghouse,” the Maine Sunday Telegram’s monthly storytelling project, Denali Nalamalapu ’17 wrote about how living in Miri, Malaysia, on a Fulbright award changed her relationship with water.

Denali Nalamalapu ’17 teaches in Miri, Malaysia, as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant. (Courtesy of Denali Nalamalapu)

A native of Falmouth, Maine, Nalamalapu grew up drinking water that “runs clear, cool and sweet from our well,” she wrote. In Miri, where the water is unsafe to drink, she first boiled tap water and then stocked up on filtered water in the city center; she never wasted a single glass.

“So often we take for granted that which is seemingly effortlessly present in our lives,” she wrote. “We forget to acknowledge the labor involved in maintaining that illusion.”

• Read the story: “” Maine Sunday Telegram, Feb. 7, 2019

Leigh Campbell ’64

Campbell elected to the Maine Basketball Hall of Fame — Maine media

The Maine media reported on the induction of Leigh Campbell ’64 into the Maine Basketball Hall of Fame coming up in August.

Entering the hall as one of this year’s seven “Legends of the Game,” Campbell was the official �ֲ���ý basketball scorer for nearly 50 years and was also the official scorer for the annual Maine high school basketball tournament for decades.

“Leigh Campbell represents the hundreds of unsung heroes that make basketball special in Maine,” the citation reads.

Revered at �ֲ���ý for supporting generations of students on financial aid, Campbell retired as director of financial aid at �ֲ���ý in 2007. He received the Helen A. Papaioanou ’49 Distinguished Alumni Service Award at Reunion in 2016.

• Read the story: “,” Sun Journal, Feb. 6, 2019

Ron Ward ’71

Ron Ward, Falmouth: Make a new plan, Stan — Maine Sunday Telegram

Ron Ward ’71 also contributed a personal essay to Meetinghouse, about how, when he was a �ֲ���ý sophomore, his father left the family, forcing Ward, his mother, and his three siblings to fend for themselves.

Ward wrote that family friends immediately stepped up, helping his 8-year-old sister and infant brother feel a sense of stability during a time of great and unexpected change.

“The enormous help and generosity from our friends, our town, my mother’s employer, my college, much of it spontaneous, were our keys,” Ward wrote.

“Mainers with no direct stake in this outcome allowed this result.”

• Read the story: “” Maine Sunday Telegram, Jan. 17, 2019

Don Dearborn

This bird attracts his Valentine with his heart-shaped red throat sac — Geek.com

It takes the great frigatebird about 15 to 30 minutes to inflate its throat sac. (Charles J. Sharp, Wikimedia Commons)

Geek.com writer Simone Scully turned to Professor of Biology Don Dearborn to explain how the great frigatebird uses a giant inflatable red throat sac to attract a mate.

“Lots of birds have colorful ornaments, which can be colored feathers or unfeathered, exposed patches of colored skin, but the inflatable aspect of the frigate throat is unusual,” Dearborn told Scully.

When the breeding season rolls around, the frigatebird “inflates this red throat pouch, often in groups with other males, while also quivering his wings, tilting his head back, and clattering his bill as he calls out to the females that circle above him,” Scully wrote.

• Read the story: “,” Geek.com, Feb. 13, 2019

Joshua Macht ’91

How the podcast juggernaut took off — The Boston Globe

For readers of The Boston Globe, Joshua Macht ’91 laid out the current landscape of podcasts, a storytelling medium that has seen explosive growth in the past five years.

“So often, technology and capitalism push us toward ever fancier stuff,” Macht wrote.

“Yet as we ponder how technology changes society, it’s easy to overlook how human beings affect technology. A new entertainment format takes off only when it fits easily into our lives.

“For the moment, audio — with its modest production values and small files that transfer efficiently even over 2013-era phone networks — is doing just that.”

• Read the story: ”,”��The Boston Globe,��Jan. 16, 2019

In September, Joyce White Vance ’82 was sworn in as the new U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, one of the first five U.S. attorneys appointed by President Obama.

Some who know Vance say that her path to U.S. attorney began 13 years ago, when arsonists burned three primarily African-American churches in Alabama’s rural Greene County, part of a wave of church burnings in the Southeast.

At the time, Vance was an assistant U.S. attorney in the Birmingham, Ala., office. In the investigation, she worked with agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, then trained at an ATF school in Georgia that teaches prosecutors about arson and explosives.

“It was a week of hands-on training,” Vance says. “I know my way around explosive devices.” A former colleague, John Earnest, is more emphatic: Vance’s technical knowledge of bombs is “jaw-dropping.”

She put this expertise to use on Jan. 29, 1998, joining the investigation after a bomb exploded outside a Birmingham abortion clinic, killing a policeman and critically injuring a nurse. “I could hear it go off,” Vance says. “We were on the scene almost immediately.” The bomber turned out to be Eric Robert Rudolph, who had also set off the 1996 blast at Centennial Olympic Park during the Atlanta Olympics.

In the years since, Vance has investigated or prosecuted similar cases: gun trafficking between Alabama and the Northeast, bank robberies and bank fraud, and a man killed by a bomb planted in his riding lawnmower. Perhaps her most important prosecution was a civil rights conspiracy in Boaz, Ala., in which a police captain had his entire night shift taking money from Hispanics targeted for traffic stops.

Vance, who moved to the appellate division in 2002 and was later division chief, is a tough, seasoned prosecutor, says Doug Jones, a former U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama. Others call her intense and tenacious. “In the office, she has the personality you need to be an effective leader,” Jones says, “a sense of where she wants to go, what the law is, and how facts apply to that law.’’

“She has an iron will and, once she has developed her positions, well-nigh unshakeable convictions.”

And she’s cool under pressure. On Dec. 16, 1989, her father-in-law, U.S. Circuit Judge Robert Vance Sr., was assassinated by a bomb disguised as a Christmas present that was sent to his home. His wife, Helen Vance, was severely injured. Joyce Vance’s longtime friend Leslie Proll recalls Vance being a “rock. She was very, very cool under very difficult circumstances.” Proll saw the same strength when Vance’s second son was born with DiGeorge syndrome, a genetic disorder, and needed immediate open-heart surgery.

Vance has professional zeal, say her friends, but she’s no modern-day Eliot Ness, professionally consumed and personally bereft. She is the mother of four children, ages 6 to 19. She grows herbs in the yard of her Birmingham home. She’s an avid artist and knitter who dyes yarns to fantastic colors. Indeed, time at home, she says, isn’t spent cleaning. “My mother-in-law,” Vance says, “said that my children will never remember if there are dust bunnies in the corner.”

Vance learned to knit at age 4 — “I’m from a family of knitters,” she says — and when a friend needed yarn of a certain color, she rejuvenated a childhood hobby of dyeing yarn and fabrics. Her grandmother had taught her batik and tie-dyeing in the late 1960s, and Vance’s own approach to low-immersion fabric dyeing, which she calls “crackle dye,” is artistically and technically thorough, as evidenced by a detailed online article she wrote in 2006.

In this sense, Vance finds satisfaction in the intricacy of the process, whether it’s dyeing fabric or creating a collage. “It’s the process that allows my subconscious to relax,” she says.

Though she no longer sells dyed yarns and clothing online, her Web site and blog, , shows photos of yarns with gorgeous colors and whimsical names like Expelliarmus, Girl Power, and Tangled up in Blue. The site also shows her humor. Her warning against copying designs or images carries this promise: “In the event you do, I will send your children a puppy and a sack of candy.”

Vance was raised mostly by a single mother in the middle-class Los Angeles suburb of Monterey Park. At a summer high school debate program at Harvard, she met Robert Branham, then a young �ֲ���ý rhetoric professor and debate director.

She picked �ֲ���ý because of Branham, who died of cancer in 1999 at age 45. “He loved us,” she says of Branham, “but he didn’t hesitate to tell you when you were doing something stupid.”

Another mentor was Garold Thumm, professor emeritus of political science. “He was a very rigorous thinker,” says Vance, who recalls Thumm in class, his quick smile and how he folded his arms across his chest while pondering a challenging question. “He wouldn’t let you take the easy way out. He taught us to analyze an issue before taking a side, not take a side and then try to fit the argument to it.”

Her senior year, she wrote an honors thesis on fishing rights and the law of the sea for Thumm, who is now 94. He calls Vance “not only brilliant. She has an iron will and, once she has developed her positions, well-nigh unshakeable convictions.”

Vance’s own recollection of herself at �ֲ���ý, however, is of someone more vulnerable. “My high school was not the best,” she says, and “it was clear to me at �ֲ���ý that my education was not on that same level as my classmates.” She sees a young woman “struggling to learn about ways to think,” not someone who had a particularly positive assessment of herself. During this struggle, �ֲ���ý became “the most wonderful sort of a cradle environment,” she says.

Vance studied law at the University of Virginia and, in 1988, married law school classmate Robert Vance Jr., who is now a Jefferson County (Ala.) circuit judge. He is Episcopalian, and she is Jewish; their family celebrates both Jewish and Christian holidays.

On Aug. 27, her investiture as U.S. attorney was held in Birmingham at the federal building now named for her late father-in-law. His widow attended. An Episcopal priest gave the invocation, a Reform rabbi the benediction.

Also present was U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, to whom Vance gave a copy of the Birmingham Pledge, a statement about confronting racism and prejudice. A few weeks later, Holder would elevate Vance’s stature by appointing her to his nine-member national advisory committee of U.S. attorneys.

At 5-foot-1, Vance is physically “a little woman,” says friend and lawyer Barry Ragsdale, “but her personality and approach to practicing law are all outsized. I think she will be a voice throughout the nation.”

Jeff Hansen is a senior reporter for The Birmingham News.