Purposeful Work

Five ways to optimize your internship experience — Forbes

“At least 80 percent of us want purpose in our work,” says Rebecca Fraser-Thill, referencing a recent study by �ֲ���ý College and the polling firm Gallup, “and having an internship during college is the most powerful way to get there.”

A Forbes contributor who is director of faculty engagement and outreach for Purposeful Work, Fraser-Thill also notes that an “internship is only as transformational” as a student makes it.

With that in mind, she offers tips for interns, such as how to make the most of each day, “beyond the office as well as within it.”

Read the story:��

• “,” Forbes, June 27, 2019��

�ֲ���ý College

�ֲ���ý College achieves carbon neutral status — multiple outlets��

Media outlets reported on the announcement that �ֲ���ý achieved carbon neutrality — bringing the college’s net carbon emissions to zero — one year ahead of schedule.

Out of 700 colleges and universities that pledged in 2007 to go carbon neutral, �ֲ���ý is one of seven to have achieved the goal. It did so through a combination of efforts, most notably by reducing energy consumption, strengthening a culture of sustainability, and using wood-derived renewable fuel oil.

“The one that often gets overlooked, but is closest to my heart, is efficiency,” �ֲ���ý’ sustainability manager Tom Twist told Mainebiz. “That’s been our silent strength.”

Read the stories:��

• “,” Mainebiz, May 27, 2019��
• “,” Sun Journal, May 16, 2019��
• “,” Bangor Daily News, May 16, 2019��
• “,” Energy News Network, June 5, 2019

Carrie Diaz Eaton

Misinformation is everywhere. These scientists can teach you to fight BS — The Washington Post��

Ben Guarino of The Washington Post highlighted efforts by Associate Professor of Digital and Computational Studies Carrie Diaz Eaton to teach her students how to sift through misinformation in the news.

Her winter semester course, “Calling Bull in a Digital World,” was modeled on a similar course at the University of Washington.��

“The problem is not new,” Diaz Eaton told Guarino. “BS has been around forever. But it’s the way that technology has exploded that has really scaled up the amount of information and the amount of BS and how much we’re required to filter.”

One of Diaz Eaton’s students, Carol Harding ’19, learned�� to use statistical methods to make graphs�� showing Lewiston’s declining crime rate, countering public perceptions of the city.

Read the story:��

• “,”�� The Washington Post, June 24, 2019��

Louis Scolnik ’45

ACLU of Maine honors Judge Scolnik — Andover Townsman��

Andover Townsman covered the news that the ACLU of Maine has honored its founding president, Louis Scolnik ’45, with its annual award for “outstanding commitment to the protection of civil liberties.”

Scolnik, born in Lewiston and a local resident for many years, is a retired justice of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court.

Louis Scolnik ’45 is seen in 2013 at the annual luncheon for graduates of the Navy V-12 officer training program stationed at �ֲ���ý during World War II. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Scolnik was honored for a number of achievements during his long legal career including, as chair of an advisory committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights in the 1960s, efforts to end housing discrimination against African American military personnel stationed at Dow Air Force Base in Bangor.

He also had a hand in an unusual court case involving �ֲ���ý students in 1959.

• “,” Andover Townsman, June 13, 2019 ��

Jennifer Guckel Porter ’88

How to move from self-awareness to self-improvement — Harvard Business Review��

In Harvard Business Review, regular contributor Jennifer Guckel Porter ’88 took on a prickly topic: changing unproductive behavior and rewiring bad habits in the workplace.

The answer is self-management, “a conscious choice to resist a preference or habit, and instead, demonstrate a more productive behavior,” wrote Porter, who is the managing partner of The Boda Group.

“Start by recognizing your current actions, considering alternative options, and then putting in the hard work required to resist what may be most familiar or comfortable,” she wrote. “Instead, commit to effectively executing what is most productive.”��

Read the story:��

• “,” Harvard Business Review, June 19, 2019��

Kevin Lentini ’13

Married teachers win trip to Croatia — Today��

Using creativity and humor, Kevin Lentini ’13 and his wife, Kristin, won a seven-day vacation to Dubrovnik, Croatia, in a contest sponsored by NBC’s Today show and Airbnb.

Both teachers, the Lentinis submitted a video showing the pair standing at a marked-up whiteboard delivering a lesson on how to use persuasive rhetoric — specifically, how to “use persuasive rhetoric to persuade AirBnb and Today show to gift us a vacation.”

In the “logos” part of the lesson (an appeal to logic), they calculated that together they had graded 9,000 assignments this year. Conveniently, the distance from their Massachusetts schools to Dubrovnik and back is — wait for it — about 9,000 miles.��

“We know that teaching is hard,” said host Jenna Bush Hager as she congratulated the couple. “Y’all could really use a vacation.”��

Watch the video:��

• “,” Today, May 14, 2019��

Dorothy Foster Kern ’42

Three Auburn natives — all named Dorothy — turn 100 this year — Sun Journal��

The Lewiston Sun Journal reported that Dorothy Foster Kern ’42 is one of three local women named Dorothy celebrating their 100th birthdays in 2019. All three graduated from Edward Little High School and have been friendly with each other for nine decades.��

Kern worked in newspapers in the area before becoming Edward Little’s school librarian. As a child, she recalls one special treat: doughnuts.

“We had to be very careful how we spent money, but whenever we could have a doughnut, it was a real treat.”

Read the story:��

• “,” Sun Journal, May 10, 2019��

Mara Tieken��

Why more teachers should consider working in rural communities — Ed.

For a dive into the challenges, misconceptions, and promises of rural schools, Elaine McArdle of Ed., the magazine of Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, talked to Associate Professor of Education Mara Tieken.

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

Rural schools are often assumed to be white and one-size-fits-all, Tieken said. In fact, they are quite diverse and function as “nerve centers” of rural communities, bringing people together and tackling issues of sustainability and equity.��

“There is some really, really good work happening in rural places,” Tieken told McArdle. “We should be getting behind those good efforts and listening to people who live in rural areas and seeing their needs and strengths and what’s going well and how can we support that.”

Read the story:

• “,” Ed., Summer 2019��

Benni McComish ’20

What’s in your recycling bin? Interns will grade the contents this summer in 4 communities — Portland Press Herald��

Kate Lusignan of the Portland Press Herald covered a new internship program in four southern Maine cities and towns, in which interns peek at residents’ recycling to rate how well they’re sorting their waste. Benni McComish ’20 of Williamstown, Mass., is one of the interns.��

In the program piloted by waste management company ecomaine, interns open recycling bins and study the contents at the top. Then they tag the bins with a sticker — green for good sorting, yellow for some contaminants, red for so many non-recyclable contents that the city won’t pick it up.��

“Most often, the items they see that do not belong include paper towels and plastic bags — items that are commonly thought to be recyclable,” Lusignan wrote. “Seeing similar items in every bin implies that residents care about recycling efforts, but are unaware that certain materials are not recyclable.”��

Read the story:��

• “,” Portland Press Herald, June 19, 2019��

Joselle Deocampo-Gautam ’01��

A woman of influence works to bring women and minority groups into startup funding — Silicon Valley Business Journal��

Silicon Valley Business Journal named Joselle Deocampo-Gautam ’01, a new product innovation portfolio lead at Linkedin, one of its 100 Women of Influence.��

Deocampo-Gautam “democratize[s] finance for historically underserved and underbanked communities,” contributor Becky Bergman wrote.��

“Deocampo-Gautam is an immigrant to the U.S., as well as the first in her family to earn a college degree,” she wrote. “Never forgetting her roots, Deocampo-Gautam works to reform global finance in a way that brings more of the hidden market of women and minority groups into startup funding, global growth strategies and values-based entrepreneurship.”��

Read the story:��

• “,” Silicon Valley Business Journal, May 14, 2019��

STEM at �ֲ���ý

Lots of ‘cool science’ at �ֲ���ý spurred by federal program — Sun Journal��

Steve Collins of the Lewiston Sun Journal covered �ֲ���ý students’ and faculty’s participation in Maine INBRE, a federal- and state-funded program led by MDI Biological Laboratories that promotes biomedical research.��

The program, which helps students do high-level research, includes a wide range of projects, from a Short Term course to MDI Lab to use mouse poop to study gut microbiomes, to developing a high-resolution imaging system, to understanding aspects of nervous system cells.��

INBRE shows students that “every student can thrive, not just survive, in an academic discipline,” said Dean of the Faculty Malcolm Hill.��

Read the story:��

• “,” Sun Journal, June 9, 2019��

Nick Mazuroski ’09

Entrepreneurs on a mission: Three Maine eco-innovators out to conquer the green economy — Mainebiz

Solar entrepreneur Nick Mazuroski ’09 was one of three “eco-innovators” Mainebiz featured in order to highlight the green economy.��

Mazuroski is a part-time law student in Portland and vice president at Biomass Power Association. He also co-founded Dirigo Solar LLC, which in partnership with an Irish company is preparing to build solar power plants, employing more than 1,000 Maine residents in the process.��

Any green entrepreneurship has to make business sense, Mazuroski told reporter Renee Cordes. “We live in a capitalist society,” he said. “If the economics don’t work, you’ve got to find another way.”

Read the story:��

• “,” — Mainebiz

Sophie Claus ’19

Beverly’s Claus reflects on fantastic crew career — The Salem News

Columnist Jean DePlacido of The Salem News profiled Sophie Claus ’19, whose decision to try rowing for the first time in her first year at �ֲ���ý made her an integral part of a wildly successful team.��

A co-captain in her senior year, Claus helped lead the �ֲ���ý women to their third straight NCAA championship this year.��

“It’s been wonderful, and now my teammates are my best friends,” said Claus. “You’re out there all working hard together and moving faster than you thought you could.”

Read the story:

• “,” The Salem News, June 14, 2019��

Sameer Maskey ’02

A Conversation with Sameer Maskey — Voices in AI��

For analysis firm GigaOm’s podcast Voices in AI, Byron Reese talked to Sameer Maskey ’02, founder and CEO of fusemachines, a company that recruits artificial intelligence programmers from around the world.��

Maskey said he came to �ֲ���ý with the goal of eventually building a machine that could read a book and then discuss the book with the human, preferably in Nepali, his native language.��

Sameer Maskey ’02 works with Kristyna Alexova ’19, a 2018 Purposeful Work intern at fusemachines. (Nick Romanenko for �ֲ���ý College)

After years of studying artificial intelligence, he learned that such a machine would require artificial generalized intelligence, which means the machine can perform the same tasks as humans.��

But we’re not there and unlikely to get there soon, he says. “There’s probably some fundamental new ways of exploring things that is required.”��

Listen to the podcast:��

• “,” Voices in AI, May 16, 2019��

Andy Kageleiry ’12

The Lewiston Sun Journal reported on a campus talk by Andy Kageleiry ’12, a senior analyst with the consulting firm to support the appeal of New England quarterback Tom Brady’s four-game suspension.

The NFL had tried to suspend Brady for allegedly being part of a scheme to use intentionally deflated, and thus easier to handle, footballs last season, specifically in a Jan. 18 playoff game vs. the Indianapolis Colts.

Andy Kageleiry ’12 of Analysis Group gives a talk on Sept. 30 at �ֲ���ý about “Deflategate: Assessing the Quality of the NFL’s Statistical Evidence.” (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Brady and the NFLPA won the appeal, as we know.

And while U.S. District Court Judge Richard M. Berman’s ruling to vacate the suspension did not address whether or not the balls were tampered with, the experts put onto the case by Analysis Group, according to the Sun Journal story, did offer an answer.

They “were able to demonstrate, through statistical reasoning, that the Patriots balls may have shown less PSI mainly because their balls were tested minutes — and possibly several minutes — before the Colts’ balls were examined.”

The story quotes Kageleiry, a magna cum laude economics major, saying that the whole experience was “kind of a fun case. Kind of an unusual case.”

Analysis Group’s chairman and cofounder is Bruce Stangle ’70, and the talk was sponsored by the Department of Economics.

Michael Lieber ’92

Giving equal time to the other side of the line of scrimmage, Indianapolis native Mike Lieber ’92 has created a line of “.

Michael Lieber ’92 shows off his Deflatriots gear at Back to �ֲ���ý on Oct. 3 as he hangs out with Ira Waldman ’73. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College).

that “plenty of people loathe the New England Patriots. Plenty of them would love to rub DeflateGate in Tom Brady’s face.

“But none, perhaps, have taken it to the extreme that Indy native Mike Lieber has — starting a full-fledged company whose mission statement is, as he puts it, ‘to really tweak the Patriots.'”

Lieber, a lawyer and litigator in Chicago by day, partnered with fellow alumnus Quoc Tran ’95 on the sideline business selling hats, T-shirts, and other gear that mocks the Patriots.

“I’ve been waiting 25 years.”

Reporter Dana Hunsinger Benbow reports that the crucible of attending �ֲ���ý also motivated Lieber.

As a �ֲ���ý student, he was razzed by New Englanders “every time the Boston Celtics beat the Indiana Pacers or the Patriots beat the Colts.”

Lieber tells her that “I’ve been waiting 25 years for my revenge and it’s finally here.”

Ross Brockman ’11

Brockman, who cofounded Downeast Cider House, as the company grows and as he can’t be as hands-on as he once was.

“It’s weird the first time you have an employee. I was like, ‘I don’t know if I trust someone else to sweep the floor. I do it certain way.”

Still, he and the company want to keep it real.

“The typical picture on social media of, like, a can of cider on the beach — that’s boring. It’s not us,” he tells the Globe. “I’d rather hear an inside story about the company or see something real. I hate lying to people. It feels disgusting to be corny. Sometimes it gets us into trouble, because I’m too honest and I say too much, but that’s just my personality.”

In 2014, the Downeast leadership — Tyler Mosher ’11, Brockman, and his brother Matt ’08�� — were named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list in the Food and Wine category. Based in Charlestown, Mass., the company recently announced it would open a new production facility in East Boston.

Rebecca Fraser-Thill

Advice for budding entrepreneurs on how to face criticism includes a tip from psychology faculty member Rebecca Fraser-Thill, director of program design for the Purposeful Work initiative at �ֲ���ý.

Fraser-Thrill tells Huffington Post blogger Kenny Kline that the people who most dread being criticized are often the quickest to judge other people. So if you’re less focused on being critical of others, their criticism will have less impact on you in general.

Nick Mazuroski ’09

Nick Mazuroski and a business partner founded the year-old Rwanda Bean Co., a coffee bean wholesaler.

Portland Press Herald video reporter Susan Kimball says that “by buying coffee beans directly from a farmer’s cooperative in the western Rwandan province of Karora, they cut out the middleman coffee broker and pay the farmers more.”

Kimball notes that Mazuroski and his partner and friend Mike Mwenedata, a survivor of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda who came to the U.S. in 2009, have also “pledged to return 50 percent of the company’s profits to the farming community to support local schools, health care, and clean water.”

Jay Hartshorn

Jay Hartshorn is head coach of women’s cross country and track and field. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

, head coach of women’s cross country and track and field. Hartshorn grew up in Lexington, Mass., where her father, Bob Hartshorn, a longtime boys’ soccer coach at Lexington High, is in the Massachusetts High School Soccer Coaches Hall of Fame.

She tells Pave that “I loved watching soccer with my dad when I was little, and he had a unique, fun style of coaching that I definitely inherited.”

James Reuter ’75

The Bethel Citizen writes about two local bicyclists including Jim Reuter ’75, in the 2015 Paris-Brest-Paris Randonneur.

The PBP attracts some 6,000 bicyclists, who ride more than 1,230 kilometers over four days. Reuter tells the newspaper that some of the strongest participants were the oldest.

“The oldest finisher was an 80-year-old Frenchman,” he tells the paper, adding that “I think, especially for endurance events, being older is only an asset. You gain so much wisdom as you age, and you come to know your own body better, and what it can do.”

�ֲ���ý and Koru

First Round Review, in an article advising firms to look past traditional markers like GPA in their hiring practices, shares a telling anecdote about a �ֲ���ý graduate who was just OK on paper but turned out to be a great hire.

The article, “,” quotes Kristen Hamilton, the co-founder and CEO of Koru, an immersive business-training program designed for young job seekers that �ֲ���ý partnered with in 2014.

The article’s premise is that promising job candidates often turn out to be paper tigers, so “it’s time to rethink what qualities actually make someone a great employee.”

Hamilton tells the story of the �ֲ���ý alumnus who worked with Koru. A rhetoric major with no business experience, he had lived in the woods on his own wits “but he wouldn’t have known that he could translate that into something that would be exciting for a software company.”

After completing Koru’s training program and learning how those experiences and his liberal arts education can be marketable job skills, he is now in sales at Smartsheet, “and he’s nailing it,” the article says.

Jimmy Lathrop ’94

In a Q&A with the Jimmy Lathrop talks about the joys and pressures of solo practice in the Park Slope neighborhood.

A litigator, his areas include real estate, foreclosure defense, elder law, guardianship proceedings and landlord/tenant issues. He likes the fast pace of his work. “Anywhere else you’d be like a Ferrari stuck in traffic,” he says.

“Here you hit the ground running. There is no shortage of people with problems in Brooklyn so there is never a lack of work. It’s a real thrill because you can spend every day in court on trial going full speed as much as you want.”

Lathrop has been recognized for his pro bono work from the Brooklyn Bar Association and received a Distinguished Service Award from the BBA in 2011.