For the past three years, the 乐播传媒 College men’s rowing team has stood by as the women’s team has qualified for, and excelled in, the NCAA Women’s Rowing Championships. Since the NCAA doesn’t sponsor championships in men’s rowing, it would be听understandable if there might have been mixed emotions about seeing their teammates get to extend their season in something resembling the limelight.

“These guys are very supportive and respectful of the women, but I’m sure it was difficult to watch sometimes, knowing that they might never have an opportunity to perform on such a stage,” said 乐播传媒 head coach Peter Steenstra.

But the teammates from the Class of 2009 had a different idea for the way their senior year could end differently: competing across the ocean, in the prestigious Henley Royal Regatta in Henley-on-Thames, England.

First, the Bobcats had to prove themselves worthy of the trip to Steenstra (admission is open). “My reply was simple — finish in the top three at New Englands and top four at ECACs and you’ll have earned it,” the coach said.

They took care of that part. The听team enjoyed its finest ever year of competition, earning the bronze medal (and third place in the NESCAC) at the New England Rowing Championships. “There is no question in my mind that this is the best crew to ever come out of our boathouse, and these guys have earned the opportunity to compete on the international level,” said Steenstra.

Of the 58 entries for The Temple Challenge Cup, one of the eight, NCAA Basketball Tournament bracket-style competitions (or “knock-out draws”) within the Henley Royal Regatta, five are from the U.S.: 乐播传媒, Brown (freshmen), Princeton (lightweights), Kent School (high school), and WPI. Most boats are from the U.K., but there are handfuls from Ireland, Holland and Australia too. An original field of 58 boats will dwindle to 32 after June 26 qualifying involving only British and Irish boats. The 32 surviving boats will pair off for one-on-one, single-elimination races every day starting July 1 until July 5, when a champion will be crowned. (See all the entries at .)

The team is pumped, to say the least, and aside from the one week following graduation, have been doing two practice sessions a day since May 12. “I’m sure they would be the first to tell you that they are in the best shape of their lives,” quipped Steenstra.

There will be no sightseeing for the team, only preparation and competition on the biggest stage of their lives. “Only if you compete for your country’s national team will you reach a higher level of competition,” said Steenstra. “I want the guys to appreciate the opportunity but not be intimidated.听 We know almost nothing about the crews we are racing, and each race will be run like our one chance to win it all.”

If you鈥檝e been paying attention to education news, you know that boys are falling behind academically. You鈥檝e heard they are lagging in reading and writing, graduating from high school at lower rates than girls, and filling fewer seats in college classrooms.

No doubt you鈥檝e also heard theories about the causes of this phenomenon, from the rise of feminism to the departure of fathers from the home. You鈥檝e also heard ideas about how to reverse it, from same-sex classes to more male teachers.

What you probably haven鈥檛 heard is what boys think about it. Until now.More than 540 Maine boys and young men shared their views on schooling in a yearlong research project whose preliminary findings, released at a statewide education conference at 乐播传媒 last October, are attracting queries from teachers across North America.

The study confirms what researchers suspected 鈥� boys鈥� underachievement parallels a sense of disenfranchisement in their schools 鈥� and it offers some surprises. Defying stereotype, for example, boys do care what teachers think of them. When boys have good relationships with their teachers, it has much to do with their love of a class.

“Our boys are saying they want people to connect with them,” says Professor of Psychology Georgia Nigro, 乐播传媒鈥� representative to the Maine Boys Network, the consortium of policy analysts, educators, and youth-service professionals that sponsored the study. “They love it if someone 鈥� it doesn鈥檛 have to be a male teacher 鈥� knows and shares their interests.”

The project is significant not only for adding a vital piece to the national discussion, but also for its ambitious reach: Hundreds of boys offered opinions about the teaching techniques that engage them 鈥� or lose them. Nigro, with Maren Vouga 鈥�09 of Louisville, Ky., and Erin Bonney 鈥�09 of Sudbury, Mass., conducted a daunting analysis of the discussions, identifying common themes as well as classroom strategies that some Maine teachers are already putting to use.

“That鈥檚 where Georgia took the lead,” says Mark Tappan, a Colby College professor of education who performed the data analysis with Nigro and Stephan Derochers, assistant professor of psychology at the University of Maine鈥揊armington. “She developed a way to critically examine
the interviews. We were so lucky to have her expertise.”

Their findings appear in the October 2008 report “The Gender Divide in Academic Engagement: Perspectives from Maine Boys and Young Men.”

To read the report go to http://www.boystomen.info/ and scroll down to the report.

Children have been at the center of Nigro鈥檚 research at 乐播传媒. She has studied children鈥檚 memory to develop interview methods that improve preschoolers鈥� recall and resistance to misinformation. She
also developed a project to raise middle-school girls鈥� awareness of careers in math and science.

Her concerns about boys date to 1997, when she helped to interpret a survey of Lewiston sixth-graders鈥� attitudes toward school and their future. (The survey had been designed and implemented by 乐播传媒 students under the direction of Professor of Political Science Douglas Hodgkin, now retired.)

“I was struck by the gender difference,” Nigro recalls. “Twenty-five percent of male students felt excluded in the classroom, that their opinions weren鈥檛 valued.”

When the survey was presented publicly to Lewiston residents, however, their attention went to other findings 鈥� understandably, since the national focus at that time was on improving girls鈥� education and career opportunities. “People thought paying attention to boys would take away from the attention that was being paid, and still needed to be paid, to girls,” Nigro says.

The Maine Boys Network study was her long-awaited opportunity. She and students from her “Action Research” psychology course were among numerous facilitators convening focus groups in elementary schools, middle schools, high schools, and colleges during 2007鈥�08. “The boys were thoroughly engaged,” she reports. “They took it seriously, but they also had fun. They appreciated that someone was asking the questions we were asking.”

Students shared, among other things, their yearnings for a kinesthetic but challenging curriculum; variety and freedom in their assignments; caring, fair teachers; and the same respectful treatment that they thought girls received.

“Sometimes I wanted to go off-script and intervene,” Nigro confesses. “One middle-school boy asked, 鈥榃hy do I have to study science? I want to be a lobsterman.鈥� I asked him, 鈥楧on鈥檛 you think a lobsterman needs to know what鈥檚 happening in the oceans, what鈥檚 happening to the fish? That鈥檚 science.鈥� I could have gone on with an entire science lesson, but I stopped myself.”

That exchange was among many poignant moments from gatherings that often stretched to two hours 鈥� with students begging for more time. “That boy was getting the message that you鈥檙e a nobody if you don鈥檛 go on with education,” Nigro reflects. “Yet the somebodies in his life 鈥� his father, his uncles, his grandfather 鈥� hadn鈥檛 gone on in education. It made me see that we have to listen to them and think about how we convey the message that higher education is important.”

“There鈥檚 not going to be a single quick fix,” Nigro believes. “It鈥檚 not going to be single-sex schools or classrooms. That may work for some boys, but it鈥檚 not one size fits all. The teaching the boys want is simply good teaching. It doesn鈥檛 have to be tailored to boys. Good teaching embraces a variety of approaches to reach different kids, whatever their needs are. Everyone, boys and girls, benefit.”

As one reader responded, “A key virtue of this year’s special focus is that it opens doors to action even as it loads responsibility onto our shoulders. Hurrah for 乐播传媒 and a liberal education!”

More such stories 鈥� audio and video 鈥� are online, as is a multimedia story from the magazine feature “Wake Up Call,” about Professor of German Denis Sweet’s experiential Short Term course.
[More on food…]
[More on course…]

Dear Colleagues and Friends of 乐播传媒,

As the unprecedented economic upheaval and uncertainty of the world today continues, I know that we are all anxious about the future, for individuals and the institutions within which we live and work.听 Although no one can foresee the outcome of the current situation, I want you to know that the College is making every effort possible to manage our budget and finances so that 乐播传媒 sustains its strong position.听 We are focused on protecting our most important resource: our faculty and staff, together with our current, former, and prospective students and their families.听 Fortunately we have 乐播传媒 people, structures, habits and values already in place to guide us successfully through good times and bad.

In the weeks since I last wrote to the campus, members of the senior administration and the Treasurer鈥檚 office have begun working intensely and collaboratively on both the budget for next year and our multi-year budget plan.听 As many of you know, we had already decided to adjust our annual budgeting cycle so that we begin to prepare for the next fiscal year (in this instance, FY 2010) in the fall.听 This decision is timely, as it allows us more opportunity to understand and then adjust, thoughtfully and strategically, to the current and anticipated effects on our revenues.
Like all of our peer institutions, we know our endowment revenues will be down next year and, we expect, in at least the next few years to come.听 Our endowment spending policy, as I have explained, is designed to spread the effect of both positive and negative market conditions across several years, which will help us to navigate the immediate situation and also give us more time to prepare for changing conditions whose effects are as yet unknown.

Fundraising is another key source of revenue for the College.听 While these are unprecedented times, research and experience indicate that there is very little correlation between economic downturns and decreased giving.听 With that in mind, I have asked our development staff to keep apace with their efforts to meet our core constituents and move toward goals that were set prior to the current global crisis.听 In addition, we are asking our alumni, parents, and friends to consider, if at all possible, increasing their commitment to the 乐播传媒 Fund.听 At a time of under-performance in our endowment, it is increasingly critical that we meet or surpass our goals, so that we can support our budget with the expendable dollars realized through the Fund.

Even as we redouble efforts on the revenue side, we must also take a hard look at expenses.听听 In a recent memo calling for budget requests for next year, we have underscored the four high-level and closely inter-connected priorities I outlined when I wrote to you a month ago:听 Within the resources available, we must work to support as strongly as possible the quality and innovation of our academic programs, the availability of financial aid to promote our goals of access and affordability, faculty and staff compensation, and annual recurring capital maintenance.听 To ensure all these priorities in a time of uncertain revenues, next year鈥檚 operating budgets, in the aggregate, must at least remain flat.听 Since we must also plan for uncontrollable potential increases in costs such as essential travel, food, utilities, and insurance, we have also asked all areas to reduce their operating budgets where possible, seeking further efficiencies and thinking about what can be deferred.听 We welcome all of your good ideas, no matter how small they seem, about immediate savings.听 The short-term, practical, local, and seemingly small steps we take now, together with continued investment in the most important things we do, will cumulatively ensure our stability and productivity.

We have already heard good ideas from some areas of the College for containing or reducing expenditures, and I encourage all of you to share any suggestions for potential efficiencies with Doug Ginevan. We have been able to take advantage of a few opportunities that have recently arisen; with lower interest rates available, for example, we have changed all our remaining variable debt to a fixed rate of 4.7 percent, and with lower energy prices, we have locked in favorable gas rates for the next two years.听 We will continue to seek other such opportunities as they may arise.

Looking at the longer term, in the face of greater uncertainty about future revenues and costs, Senior Staff has been considering a range of possibilities.听 We are currently testing a variety of assumptions about how different situations might affect us and looking at options we may wish to exercise in the future.听听 Our goal is to remain flexible and resilient, prepared for multiple contingencies.

We will be discussing both the FY10 budget planning and this longer-term contingency planning with the campus Budget and Finance Advisory Committee. We are grateful to have established this committee five years ago, so that we have a dedicated group of faculty, staff, and students charged with the sharing of information and advice. The committee is in the process of preparing an initial communication to the campus about its work and will be discussing plans for further conversation, including the likelihood of meetings with various constituencies at the beginning of next semester.

We are also fortunate to have an informed, active, and concerned Board of Trustees.听 Both the Investment Committee and the Budget and Finance Committee continue to monitor the situation and oversee our processes and plans.听 The economic situation will be an important focus of our January Board meeting.

I am also pleased to report that the three campus-wide planning initiatives announced this fall, under the leadership of faculty and staff teams, are already enthusiastically pursuing the possibilities of emerging opportunities, both short and long term.听 This work is only more important in a time of economic uncertainty.听 If we agree on priorities, look forward, understand our distinctiveness, and invest in the things that will keep 乐播传媒 strong and growing, we will all benefit.

At a time like this, I am especially mindful of how often colleagues and friends outside of 乐播传媒 look to us to see how we have managed to become and remain a top-tier college with a distinguished reputation for academics and forward-looking educational values, despite the fact that we are less wealthy than our peers.听 Our over-performance is undoubtedly fueled by our high levels of creativity and aspiration, our dissatisfaction with reductive answers, our lack of complacency, and our preference for self-questioning rather than self-congratulating.

With this in mind, let me reiterate that our people are our greatest resource.听 乐播传媒 faculty, staff, students, trustees, alumni and other supporters are characteristically restless innovators, striving to take any pursuit to the highest possible level. We share a predisposition to live with the uncomfortable sense that we haven鈥檛 done enough, haven鈥檛 pushed hard enough, haven鈥檛 arrived at our dreamed-of destination.听 We are and are known to be what some have called a 鈥渓earning organization鈥濃�攐ne that welcomes and leverages the forces of uncertainty and challenge.听 Particularly as we look forward to the changes in higher education looming large in the present and future, our creative response to change, new ideas and new ways of doing things, will be critical.

Thank you for all you do.听 We are in this together, and I am confident we can meet these challenges as we have met many others over the course of many years.

Warm regards,

Elaine Tuttle Hansen
President

The election at 乐播传媒

Hey all. Regardless of what presidential candidate you supported there is no doubt that Tuesday night was a special night for America. To see Barack Obama, an African-American, be elected as President of the United States,听is truly something remarkable. Whether you鈥檙e a Republican or a Democrat, this is a historic moment in our country鈥檚 history and one that I know I will never forget.

I watched the results come in with close to 200 other 乐播传媒ies in the Mays Center on a large projector. The atmosphere was festive and it was amazing being there and watching with so many other people who had voted for the first time and were so invested in the presidential race. I will leave you with these pictures and a video that I took with my new camera so you have an idea of what it was like. Until next time鈥� once again congratulations to Barack Obama.

A gift qualifies if:

* The gift is made on or after the date the IRA owner attains the age of 70 1/2

* The gift is from a traditional IRA or Roth IRA

* The distribution is limited to $100,000 per taxpayer per year

* The distribution is made between January 1, 2008 and December 31, 2009

* The distribution is transferred directly from the IRA to a qualified charity

* The gift is outright; transfers to donor advised funds, support organizations,听and charitable remainder trusts and for charitable gift annuities do not qualify.

The donor cannot receive a charitable income tax deduction for the distribution and the distribution does not apply to planned gifts. The distribution may be used to satisfy the plan owners minimum required distribution for the year.

Prior to the new legislation, individuals withdrawing $100,000 from their IRAs and contributing it to charity would have had to include the $100,000 in their income and would have been allowed a federal charitable income-tax deduction of up to $100,000 (subject to limits of deductibility) to offset the inclusion. Ostensibly, for most taxpayers, the net result was zero tax implication 鈥� a “wash” for all practical purposes. But for those taxpayers unable to use some or all of the charitable deduction, the new law presents a significant opportunity.

So, who benefits from the Pension Protection Act of 2006 and its extension via the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008?

* Individuals who are required to take minimum withdrawals but don’t need additional income can satisfy the distribution requirement with a transfer to charity.

* Individuals who usually give up to 50 percent of their adjusted gross income 鈥� the ceiling on the allowable charitable deduction for any year 鈥� can now give up to $100,000 more from their IRA accounts, which is not subject to this limitation or taxed as a distribution. This could enable taxpayers to avoid up to $35,000 ($100,000 x 35 percent) in federal income tax on IRA distributions for this and next year.

* Individuals who live in states where a charitable deduction is not available (check with your advisor) for state tax purposes. The new act can result in savings of up to $7,000 in some cases because the direct transfer of $100,000 from your IRA to charity will not show up in adjusted gross income.

* Individuals who do not itemize and who make a charitable gift in an amount less than the standard deduction ($10,300 for married couples, $5,150 for single filers) will benefit from a transfer directly from their IRA to charity.

* Individuals whose major assets reside in their IRAs will find it convenient this year and next to make direct transfers to charity from their IRAs without the hassle of having to report the transfer on their income-tax returns.

This is only a summary of the rollover provisions of recent legislation. To learn more about how this will impact your gift planning with 乐播传媒 College, or to discuss other 乐播传媒 charitable giving options with a member of our staff, please call us at 800-762-3145 or e-mail us at plannedgiving@bates.edu.

The class taking a lunch break at Rip Gorge outside of Baxter State Park

From Graham: Another cool class I am taking this year is called Field Geology in Maine. What鈥檚 awesome about it is how the course introduces you to the principles of geology while working in the field. Therefore, it isn鈥檛 the same old 鈥渞ocks in a box鈥� kind of geology that sounds oh-so boring. Instead, the professor has the philosophy that the best way to learn geology is by doing it. About once a month, our lab will go out on a field trip to the coast, Baxter State Park, or even Acadia National Park. Here we collect data on a subject that we are learning about in lectures and take samples back to the lab and learn about its history. Before this class I knew NOTHING about geology, and already I am keeping a field notebook and identifying all kinds of rock types, formations, and seeing more in my natural surroundings than ever before.

-Graham

I have a few pictures from some of the field trips we have taken so far this year. I鈥檒l try to get some better ones on the trips to come. So, keep checking back and I鈥檒l have more soon!听

听

My lab during a sea kayaking field trip, we ended up writing a report on the formation we are standing around

Tyler Fish '96

In March of 2009, Tyler Fish ’96 and John Huston will attempt to become the first Americans to ski unsupported to the North Pole.

The expedition will cover 475 miles in approximately 55 days … and will endeavor to inspire people to embrace challenge. Using the live online expedition journal, this story will focus on the mental approach to seemingly insurmountable challenges.

The Global Lens 2008 film series, a touring program of narrative feature films from Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, Europe and Asia, resumes at 乐播传媒 College with the 2006听Filipino drama The Bet Collector at 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 23, Room听104 of the Olin Arts Center, 75 Russell St.

The 乐播传媒 College Museum of Art presents the series in cooperation with the college’s Multicultural Center. The public is welcome to all of the films at no charge. For more information, please call 207-786-6158.

The series is assembled and distributed by the Global Film Initiative, a U.S.鈥揵ased nonprofit organization promoting independent filmmaking in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. Founded in 2002 with the mission of promoting cross-cultural understanding through cinema, each year the initiative not only presents the film series but awards grants to deserving filmmakers from around the world. For more information, please visit the initiative’s .

In The Bet Collector, Amy, a family matriarch, makes ends meet by running a small convenience store out of her home. But in a struggling economy customers are scarce, and without the help of her husband or pregnant daughter, she is forced to supplement the family income by collecting bets for an illegal numbers game.

In this starkly realistic narrative, director Jeffrey Jeturian presents a captivating portrait of a once-proud woman, haunted by memories of a dead son and hounded by the police, and her fragile and lonely life as a kubrador (bet collector) on the streets of Manila.

The Global Lens series, now in its fifth year, premiered at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in January and is traveling around the country to more than 40 locations. and view the series trailer and individual film trailers.

All of the 乐播传媒 screenings begin at 7 p.m. Here’s the rest of the series:

Bunny Chow (South Africa, 2006), Monday, Oct. 27, Olin 104.

The Custodian (Argentina, 2006), Thursday, Oct. 30, Olin 105.

The Fish Fall in Love (Iran, 2006), Wednesday, Nov. 5, Olin 104.

Kept & Dreamless (Argentina, 2005), Thursday, Nov. 6, Olin 105.

The Kite (Lebanon, 2004), Wednesday, Nov. 12, Olin 104.

Let the Wind Blow (India, 2004), Wednesday, Nov. 19, Olin 104.

Luxury Car (China, 2006), Wednesday, Dec. 3, Olin 105.

Opera Jawa (Indonesia, 2006), Thursday, Dec. 4, Olin 105.