A selection of recent mentions of ŔÖ˛Ľ´ŤĂ˝ people in the news, including coverage of new poetry from a faculty member along with commentaries on the homelessness crisis, the Trump administration’s spending bill, and rural students in higher education.

Myronn Hardy

Deep water: ‘Threshold with Fog,’ by Myronn Hardy — Portland Press Herald

In July, new work from Associate Professor of English Myronn Hardy was . Megan Grumbling, the curator of the Press Herald’s series, describes the poem titled “Threshold with Fog” as “hazy” and praises Hardy’s imagery. “I love this poem’s vivid, dream-like imagery, and how it cross-fades between scenes, leaving us feeling as lyrically displaced and uncertain as the speaker,” Grumbling writes. 

Hardy told ŔÖ˛Ľ´ŤĂ˝ News he finished writing “Threshold with Fog” about a year ago and that it has been a busy time for him, poetry-wise.  “I’m currently writing poem after poem,” he says. As yet, he doesn’t have a new collection in mind. “I don’t know if a new collection is forming. This usually takes years to discover.” His inspiration for this poem, he says, was “thinking about being lost in the Leuthold Forest Preserve. And what it may mean to be found and guided by a stranger.” (Leuthold Forest Preserve is a spot in the wilds of Maine, southwest of Jackman.)

Hardy’s most recent collection, Aurora Americana (2023), was called “a clear-eyed vantage of America” by Rebecca Morgan Frank in her review for the Poetry Foundation. 

Paul Schofield 

The homelessness crisis is a crisis of democracy — Jacobin

Associate Professor of Philosophy Paul Schofield , his for this quarterly magazine and website. For this piece, he interviewed homeless people in Olympia, Wash., offering a political and philosophical analysis of American homelessness and our current at-risk democracy. 

“Homeless people find themselves in what we might call a state of internal exile — cast out of, and excluded from, the society in which they physically remain,” Schofield writes. 

The people he interviews speak of horrific, rat-infested, living conditions, the lack of response from law enforcement to violence committed against homeless people, and the double-edged sword of government-provided transitional housing. “If they can tell us we’re not allowed outside, then where are we all supposed to go?” one man Schofield interviewed asked, framing the central question of the article. 

Where can people go when the left and right alike are uncomfortable coexisting with them? How can our society fix a problem that we have attempted to resolve using both extreme sympathy and extreme shame? Schofield offers a solution: “What’s needed is a broad, sustained transformational effort designed to bring those pushed to the margins back into the fold and to prevent people from being pushed out in the first place. What’s needed is a politics that is focused not just on keeping people alive, but on enabling everyone to flourish as the social beings they are.”

Geoff Swift 

How Trump’s big bill will reshape the affordability of Maine higher education —  Portland Press Herald 

In July, Geoff Swift, the vice president for finance and administration and treasurer at ŔÖ˛Ľ´ŤĂ˝, commented on changes in taxation to college endowments under the Trump administration in . The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” ultimately removed taxes on endowments for colleges with fewer than 3,000 students. But under various earlier Republican proposals on endowment taxes, Maine colleges including ŔÖ˛Ľ´ŤĂ˝, Bowdoin, and Colby, could have been impacted by the bill. The endowment tax was introduced under the first Trump administration, and it taxed the endowments of private schools with at least 500 students and endowments worth $500,000 per student or more at a rate of 1.4 percent on their annual investment income. That included Bowdoin and Colby colleges, but not ŔÖ˛Ľ´ŤĂ˝. Some politicians had advocated raising that tax into double digits, but ultimately the tax was capped at 8 percent on the wealthiest schools.

ŔÖ˛Ľ´ŤĂ˝ will not be taxed under the bill, but Swift spoke out against endowment taxes in principle, saying they limit opportunities to extend access and aid to students with financial need. “Still, no matter how many students an institution enrolls, taxing endowments is not good policy,” Swift told the Press Herald. “While the taxed universities will feel the impact most acutely — it will stress their economics — indirect impacts will eventually reach other colleges, some of which might not have the resources to weather it.”

Mara Tieken

— Maine Calling

In late June, Professor of Education Mara Tieken was a panelist on an episode of , Maine Public’s weekday call-in show, focused on rural students. The episode examined the “options and goals” for rural students in higher education.

Tieken studies rural education and students; her book Educated Out: How Rural Students Navigate Elite Colleges—And What It Costs Them, published by the University of Chicago Press and released in May, is a study exploring the ways that geography impacts the experiences of first-generation students from rural communities — from access to higher education, experiences during college, and postgraduation opportunities.

In August, Tieken, who received the 2024 Kroepsch Award for Excellence in Teaching, was , the publication of Harvard Graduate School of Education, where she received both her master’s in education and her doctorate. When asked what she most hoped readers of Educated Out would come away with, Tieken gave this answer:

“ąő’d like readers to, first, come away with a more nuanced and complex understanding of rural America and a willingness to question many of the rural stereotypes. I also hope that they gain an awareness of how geography shapes college opportunity and, perhaps, some things we can do about that. For rural students reading this book, I hope that it validates some of their experiences. I want them to know that they’re not alone and that any challenges or barriers they face might reflect the larger geography of opportunity, which doesn’t favor folks from rural and remote places. I also want them to know that we — policymakers, practitioners, and researchers — have some real work to do to make colleges more accessible and inclusive, and we’ll need their leadership on this.”

Associate Professor of Philosophy Paul Schofield has become an expert source on the social and moral issues surrounding homelessness, writing opinion pieces on what he calls the “unique injustice” associated with being unhoused and prompting further conversation on the topic.

In August, a Seattle publication featured a profile of a photographer who chronicles the homeless in his community. The author of that profile had learned about photographer J.M. Simpson from Schofield’s posts on X about him.

ŔÖ˛Ľ´ŤĂ˝ News had a conversation with Schofield about his exploration of homelessness in America — including his widely distributed Washington Post opinion piece — and the ways he hopes to deepen the progressive response to the issue.

BN: In April you , formerly known as Twitter, about photographer J.M. Simpson’s work in Washington State, humanizing the lives of unhoused people living communally and otherwise. Your first post was shared something like 24,000 times, and it drew the notice of a writer for Seattle Metropolitan magazine who contacted Simpson and that ran last month. How did you come to know Simpson’s work?

Schofield: ąő’d and when you do that, you get some e-mails! Some were encouraging, some were angry, and some were just attempts to share thoughts.

One came from a formerly unhoused individual who linked to something he’d written. After a little back and forth, he told me I should look at the photography of someone he knew. Now, I didn’t really know what to expect—this was a more or less random person telling me to look at his friend’s pictures, and my expectations were low, quite honestly. But I got in contact with the friend and when I opened up the attachments to his e-mail I was absolutely astounded. It was just a wonderful gift that fell right into my lap!

BN: Were you surprised by how widely your posts were shared? Have you been in touch with Simpson since the Seattle Met piece appeared? 

Schofield: It took off more than I could have hoped. But I was intentionally aiming to get a wider audience for his work and so I thought for a while about when and how to write a thread that might get some attention.

I asked Simpson ahead of time if he was OK with this, and he said, “Sure.” After the post went viral, I told him about it (he’s not on Twitter/X), and he said that was great, but his main hope was that this would bring more attention to the issue of homelessness.

Some people say things like that just because that’s what you’re supposed to say. But I feel like he really meant it. How odd! At any rate, I was glad his work got so much recognition (in addition to being glad about bringing attention to the issue, of course). And yes, he and I have talked recently. We’ve Zoomed several times in the last few months, and I’m going out to Olympia during fall break to meet with him and to visit the encampments out there. Hopefully some collaboration will come out of it.

BN: This issue has seemingly become a key part of your scholarship. In 2022 you were featured in the University of New Hampshire’s Philosophy Colloquium Series, arguing that homelessness should be considered in a different light than other social justice matters because it tests our democratic commitments as a liberal democracy.

This May, you gave a talk entitled “Homelessness and the Lewiston Auburn Community: Can We Move Forward Together?” that was , What sparked your interest in this topic? Is it a typical subject for a philosopher to tackle?

“I began thinking philosophically about the ways in which homelessness was a unique form of injustice and not just an instance of extreme poverty.” — Paul Schofield

Schofield: During COVID, while we were all told to go to our homes and stay there, I read some stories about how unhoused individuals had nowhere to go and how this was creating an enormous burden for them. Mostly out of boredom, to be honest (the early days of COVID were boring), I began volunteering at a food pantry and soup kitchen. It seemed like a way to be helpful.

But I’m a philosopher, and so while I was scooping mashed potatoes or handing out bags of apples, I began thinking philosophically about the ways in which homelessness was a unique form of injustice and not just an instance of extreme poverty.

Homelessness, it seemed to me, was more like wholesale exclusion from society. So much of what we do in society presumes that people have a home to go to (like when we all retreat to our homes during a pandemic). This point seems even more relevant now that the Supreme Court has said cities can make laws prohibiting sleeping outdoors — if there’s such a law, and you don’t have somewhere to go, it’s as if your very right to exist has been taken away!

“Progressives should be more concerned about the crime and disorder that results from homelessness because crime and disorder make it hard for everyone to live together peacefully.” — Paul Schofield

Anyway, I started talking about these ideas with people while volunteering and they encouraged me to write about them. So that’s what I’m doing now. There’s been some writing by philosophers about homelessness, but not a ton. It’s been rewarding to think and write on a topic that hasn’t already been debated to death.

BN: That Washington Post piece from November 2023 spread far and wide. Many other publications republished it. What was the impact of such a prominent opinion piece placement?

Schofield: The basic idea in the piece was that progressives should be more concerned about the crime and disorder that results from homelessness because crime and disorder make it hard for everyone to live together peacefully. Crime and disorder also generate resentment toward those who are unhoused, making it more difficult to address the problem in a decent way.

I heard from a lot of readers when the piece came out. Some of the reactions were unsurprising — there were people who resent the homeless and were happy that I was (they believed) affirming their resentment, and there were those who were angry that I was giving aid and comfort to conservatives.

That said, I received a lot of thoughtful feedback from people who see the homelessness in their community and the strife it creates, but want to be humane toward those who are suffering. These correspondences made me realize the extent to which people are genuinely conflicted about homelessness and are struggling with how to deal with it. I hope the op-ed helped them think through things a little bit.

BN: You were on in April, talking about the social contract and common decency and that op-ed came up. You told listeners you were trying to make a progressive case for taking seriously those sorts of complaints. Which relates to the social contract. Can you elaborate? 

Schofield: I strongly believe that we should have compassion for those who are unhoused. But I also think we need to consider things from the perspective of the parents who can’t let their child play in the park because there are syringes everywhere, or the woman who is working as a cashier and is afraid to walk home from her night shift because there are people with mental-health troubles on the streets who harass her. Their perspectives matter and a productive conversation with them will take their worries seriously.

BN: As you continue to explore this topic, what comes next? A book?

Schofield: I have been working on a book tentatively called Exiled in Their Own Land: How Our Unhoused Citizens Get Excluded from Everything and the Need for a Homeless Civil Rights Movement. My agent and I are approaching publishers as we speak. Stay tuned!

This month’s selection of media coverage highlighting the insight, expertise and achievements of ŔÖ˛Ľ´ŤĂ˝ professors has a little bit of everything, from the presidential election to personal economics, news about a top literary award, and even, a major fish tale.

For a creative writing professor who is also a novelist, there’s nothing like being in the running for a major book award to spread the word about your novel in a wide variety of publications. That’s what happened to Lecturer in English Jessica Anthony ’96 this week when her novel The Most was longlisted for the National Book Award.

Meanwhile, economics professor Paul Shea weighed in on American personal savings rates for Marketplace and the newest issue of The Atlantic includes a deep dive by Tyler Austin Harper, assistant professor of environmental studies, into the secret world of extreme fishing. Wetsuit required. Read below to learn more and get links to coverage of other faculty members in the news.

Jessica Anthony ’96

National Book Foundation announces the longlist for the 2024 National Book Award for Fiction — People

The fourth novel by Lecturer in English Jessica Anthony ’96, The Most, made the National Book Foundation’s longlist of 10 books for its 2024 Fiction prize. The news was featured in numerous outlets, including , and , along with .

Here’s what the had to say about Anthony’s book:

“This year’s Fiction Longlist features two titles that interrogate the role of gender in marriage, in sex, and in artmaking. On an unusually warm Sunday in November, housewife, mother, and former tennis champion Kathleen Beckett puts on her old, red bathing suit, enters her apartment complex’s semi-abandoned pool, and refuses to come out. Set over the course of eight hours, Jessica Anthony’s The Most paints an intimate portrait of marriage in the late 1950s — and the secrets, expectations, and lost loves that tells the story of one seemingly unremarkable couple and a larger cultural moment.”

The finalists will be announced Oct. 1.

For more on Anthony’s much-lauded novel, and her insights into her craft, see earlier coverage from ŔÖ˛Ľ´ŤĂ˝ News.

Paul Shea

Americans are spending a lot and not saving much. Economists aren’t too worried. Yet — Marketplace

Marketplace tapped into Dowling Family Professor of Economics Paul Shea’s expertise for a story about news from the Bureau of Economic Analysis . The savings rate in July was only 2.9 percent, while at the same time consumer spending increased.

“The spending part is a sign of a strong economy,” Marketplace‘s story read. “But the data shows we’re continuing to buy stuff while not putting money away. You can see the problem here.”

Paraphrasing Shea’s reassurances, Marketplace reporter Caleigh Wells wrote “it’s not that saving rates are frighteningly low, it’s just that they’re coming down from when they were really high early in the pandemic, when people had money to spend and nothing to spend it on. Now things are different.”

Then she quoted Shea directly: “The average household is, in a way, normalizing. They’re starting to move towards more normal levels of debt.”

Francesco Duina

Who cares about inequality, and what should we do if we want less of it? —Researching Sociology

Writing for the blog Researching Sociology, Dana Professor of Sociology Francesco Duina and colleague Cary Wu . 

Historically in America, across party lines, the richer one was, the less worried they were about income inequality. “In 1987, for instance, poorer Democrats and Republicans [both] perceived income differentials to be too big,” the scholars write.

But now, party affiliation plays a huge role in how people view income inequality. Across all income levels, “those who identify as Democrats care a great deal about income inequality while those who identify themselves as Republicans…care a lot less.” But “concern [about income inequality] among poorer Republicans has actually dropped over time.”

For the blog post, the scholars drew from their recent article, , “Political Polarization and the Dynamics Between Actual Income and Perceived Income Inequality in the United States, 1987 to 2021.”

John Baughman

Maine political scholars see no precedent for divisive, unpredictable presidential race — Portland Press Herald

Published prior to President Joe Biden dropping out of the presidential race, , associate professor of politics, and other Maine politics scholars about the fraught race.

Baughman spoke to comparisons to the 1968 election, when incumbent Lyndon Johnson declined to seek a second term. While comparisons to the 1968 election are valid, today’s political climate is driven more by negative partisanship than in the past, Baughman said.

“I don’t want to overplay how fraught politics are today in light of what was happening then with Vietnam and civil rights, but I think there is one thing different now that is important to consider, and that’s the role of negative partisanship in driving behavior of voters.”

Tyler Austin Harper

Inside the dangerous, secretive world of extreme fishing — The Atlantic

Tyler Austin Harper, an assistant professor of environmental studies who is a contributing writer at The Atlantic, writes about his penchant for . Eighty nights a year no less.

This despite some expert guidance he got when first getting into the sport of “wetsuiting” a few years ago: “The advice I received from another fisherman was simply: śŮ´Ç˛Ô’t.”

Wetsuiting is a form of saltwater fishing that involves wearing a wetsuit and wading or swimming out to offshore rocks — almost exclusively at night, often during storms — to access deeper water or faster currents than can be reached in traditional waders.

For Harper, the quarry is striped bass, a popular gamefish that migrates every spring, mostly from the Chesapeake and Delaware bays, to as far north as Maine, and back down again in the fall.

White Dudes for Harris’ was a missed opportunity — The Atlantic

Harper, who also has an interest in politics, wrote in another piece, in July, that , a group of voters supporting the Kamala Harris presidential campaign. Democrats have “peddled condescending, divisive, and often bizarre rhetoric in the name of ‘anti-racism.’”

“So imagine my shock when I found myself, slowly but surely, charmed by the White Dudes for Harris call.” 

Still, he writes, the “White Dudes” name “risks solidifying the public’s impression that the Democratic Party is for overeducated elites with laptop jobs and performative progressive politics. That is a shortsighted move “when the GOP is on its way to achieving a multiracial working-class coalition, cobbled together with increasing shares of Black and Hispanic voters driven by male defections from the Democratic coalition.”

Harper’s other recent writing for The Atlantic includes:

• ““
• ““
• ““

Paul Schofield

‘These people are looking back at us’ — Seattle Met

Paul Schofield, an associate professor of philosophy whose research focuses on moral and political philosophy, writes frequently on the issue of homelessness. Last month Schofield was quoted in a Seattle Met story about a retired history professor, J.M. Simpson, in Washington state. 

The writer of the article had learned about Simpson’s work via in April, lauding the photographer and sharing some of his photographs. The thread has over 24,000 likes and three million views. In the story, the writer quotes extensively from Schofield’s response to Simpson’s work:

“It’s easy to imagine them having friends and having dreams and having things that they care about just as a result of sitting there with the photo for a few minutes,” noted Schofield, whose writing on homelessness had caught Simpson’s attention.

“It’s got to be something about him that brings this out,” Schofield concluded.