H. Jay Burns, Editor

In the �ֲ���ý Outing Club meeting room, there was some uncertainty about the provenance of their decades-old gear — the Windsor benches, road signs, the kayak suspended from the ceiling.

This was in January, right before the BOC’s big move from Alumni Gym, its home since 1929, into renovated space in Chase Hall.

Take the vintage photo of women in formalwear. It depicts not Southern debutantes, as some BOC members thought, but the queen of a �ֲ���ý Winter Carnival.

This lapse is understandable. BOC leaders turn over every semester (and the student body every four years), slowly rinsing away historical knowledge.

Plus, as �ֲ���ý anthropologist Elizabeth Eames points out, our society relies on the written word to preserve history. The BOC’s own publications and meeting minutes notwithstanding, an oral society would tend to pass down the meeting room’s history through various “spoken, visual or kinetic” rituals, says Eames.

Long ago, �ֲ���ý history was imparted through such “age-grade” rituals, “difficult yet meaningful” initiations where elders shared �ֲ���ý knowledge with newcomers.

Back then, new students learned history during the hazing rite called “Freshman Rules.” The venerable Harry Rowe delivered a signature lecture on �ֲ���ý traditions, a practice kept up on a smaller scale by recently retired administrator Bill Hiss ’66.

Actually, it’s not essential for a group to know the history of something it reveres, says Eames’ colleague Loring Danforth.

For example, the origin of the club’s beloved “Ma Bell” award, a mangled remnant of a bicycle that goes to the BOCer who survives a risky experience, has several versions. The correct one is that Laird Allen ’83, biking in Auburn in 1981, rear-ended a telephone truck while wearing a Bell helmet, hence “Ma Bell.”

The BOC reveres the Ma Bell Award the way someone might value hearing Mass in Latin, “without understanding the words,” Danforth said.

Meeting-room items aside, kudos to the BOC for generally being keenly aware of its place in �ֲ���ý history, thanks to adviser and elder Judy Marden ’66 and BOC alumni who remind the club of its traditions and responsibilities in Maine.

Beyond the BOC, students learn �ֲ���ý history from professors who use the robust resources of the Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library in their coursework. And the athletics programs turn to the Archives to reify Bobcat history.

How �ֲ���ý’ past will influence our future is a hot topic this cold winter.

First, alumni engagement (volunteerism and fundraising) depends on students becoming alumni who understand �ֲ���ý history.

Second, President Spencer invoked our history of “standing firmly on principle and encountering the world with energy and confidence” during her inaugural address. This �ֲ���ý “mindset” readies us to “engage robustly and effectively with the forces that are reshaping our world.”

In that spirit, this issue offers stories about both the past — looking at Benjamin Mays ’20 and about the Gomes Chapel — and current concerns, including our ecopsychology-inspired cover essay about beauty, mindfulness and nature; and our take on Spencer’s inaugural message.

H. Jay Burns, Editor
magazine@bates.edu

Deep into production of this first issue of the redesigned �ֲ���ý Magazine, your comments sure caught my eye. You said you wanted to know more about “what’s happening on campus,” more “stories about students” and more about “what students are thinking.”

Three years ago, �ֲ���ý Magazine took advantage of a readership survey tool offered by the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education. We asked alumni, parents and friends much the same thing: What do you want? What are you interested in?

The results mirrored the Facebook discussion. While you expressed strong interest in staying connected with each other — through class notes, stories about alumni careers and obits — the topics that you are “very interested” or “interested” in have to do with campus life.

• faculty selection, promotion, retirements (86 percent)

• campus controversies (75 percent)

• history and traditions (74 percent)

• facilities and growth (73 percent)

• student achievements, issues and opinions (71 percent)

One reader summed up all the data: “Focus on the following things: (1) Pictures, old and new; (2) people on campus; (3) controversies or big deals on campus (4) plans for new buildings or other changes.”

Seventy percent of you prefer to read the print issue, and 11 percent prefer online — but 19 percent want both. So we’re also revamping the online presence of �ֲ���ý Magazine, trying to answer the riddle of how to meld the editorial efficiency of blog-style news posting with the compelling design of the print magazines.

Maybe the survey and Facebook comments are obvious — a version of “It’s the economy, stupid.” Still, it reinforces that you want to have a conversation about �ֲ���ý today, and you want it in the �ֲ���ý vernacular: smart, authentic, inclusive, friendly and practical.

We’ve learned less self-evident things too. Last fall at the President’s House, a group of �ֲ���ý faculty, staff and alumni talked about the magazine’s role in campus and community life.

“Lewiston is part of the �ֲ���ý story,” said multifaith chaplain Bill Blaine-Wallace. CJ Conrad ’90, vice president at a local bank, took it a step further. “Don’t apologize for �ֲ���ý’ place,” she said. So that’s why we have a �ֲ���ý in Brief section devoted to Lewiston.

Lately, �ֲ���ý landscaper Bill Bergevin has been in busy, pre-Commencement mode, and the other day he was putting down black mulch outside Chase Hall. Besides keeping weeds down and moisture in, he said, mulch highlights your plants and flowers.

Similarly, we hope the magazine’s new design helps colorful �ֲ���ý stories catch your eye. And like the occasional need to rearrange your spice cabinet, we hope the magazine delivers �ֲ���ý stories a bit more efficiently, whether it’s the story about President-elect Clayton Spencer, the fate of Memorial Commons or photographs of campus haunts.

So…please enjoy this �ֲ���ý garden. And let us know what you think.

H. Jay Burns, Editor
magazine@bates.edu

After calling Pettigrew Hall home for much of his faculty career, Sanford Freedman and his English faculty colleagues are now in Hathorn Hall.

“Fifty-six boxes,” Freedman says, explaining how much stuff he, with help from his children and a moving company, lugged the 350 feet from Pettigrew to Hathorn.

The reopening of renovated Hedge and Roger Williams halls (see page 12) started the domino effect of academic and administrative moves this summer:

From Bardwell Street, the environmental studies faculty are now in Hedge, along with philosophy and religious studies, who moved from Campus Avenue.

From Hathorn and Lane, respectively, the foreign language programs and the Off-Campus Study office have joined forces in Roger Williams.

From Campus Avenue’s Alumni House, being demolished due to structural problems, the Office of Alumni and Parent Engagement is in Hathorn.

From Schaeffer Theatre and Coram Library, the dance faculty have stepped into Pettigrew, joining the �ֲ���ý Dance Festival, which moved from Frye Street.

I’ve always thought that �ֲ���ý is pretty good at not allowing stuff, whether buildings or history, to halt the occasional regathering of faculty in different places as academic needs change.

As this issue shows, the concept of regathering resources isn’t limited to the academic realm. Starting on page 22, we explain how �ֲ���ý made great and sometimes painful changes to improve the college’s career-development program.

Elaine Tuttle Hansen, in her final interview as �ֲ���ý’ seventh president (page 16), says that “the very nature of a liberal arts college is that we are always embracing change.” New students and new faculty bring with them new approaches to teaching and learning.

Of course, each change takes something from our shared �ֲ���ý language. Many alums now hitting middle age will recall, or try to recall, that Roger Williams was the dorm that once hit High Times’ “Pot 100” list. The Bill was also known as the “Dome of the Hopers” -— just switch the first letters of “Dome” and “Hopers” to get the joke.

Yet today, because the building has been out of commission for a few years, younger students don’t even know what building “the Bill” refers to.

Still, there are threads that speak to both past and present. In Hedge more than a half-century ago, Bert Knight ’46 worked with chemistry professor Walter Lawrance. As the state-appointed “Rivermaster,” Lawrance tried to get paper companies along the Androscoggin River to limit their pollution.

This fall, the environmental studies faculty and seniors are working on a community project, again based in Hedge, that asks a bold question: What will it take, politically, economically, environmentally, and personally, to make the most of the Androscoggin River?

This fall, Sanford Freedman is teaching familiar courses like Shakespeare and 18th-century British literature. But the forces of change ensure that “every course is different every year,” he says. Each year, preparing a course is like “climbing a familiar mountain and taking a different route to the top.”

See you at the summit, Sanford.

H. Jay Burns, Editor