There’s a line from the Marvel Comics miniseries WandaVision that rippled through popular culture earlier this year: “What is grief but love persevering?”

When Peter Goodrich ’89 died aboard hijacked United Flight 175 on Sept. 11, 2001, grief enshrouded his family and his �ֲ���ý friends, as it did a country mourning so many losses.

His wife, Rachel Carr Goodrich ’90, recalls how she “went to work happy with my life” on that tragic day. “I came home hours later a different person” — a person grieving for what was seemingly lost: love. 

But, 20 years later, love has persevered, providing a path forward for Rachel and many of Peter’s close friends. Love persevering has provided an opportunity to honor a man who gave so much love to his family and friends. And love persevering will someday provide scholarship support for a student to succeed at �ֲ���ý. 

By all accounts, and there are so many of them, Peter Goodrich was a magical, loving soul, a “self-proclaimed nerd,” says Rachel, capable of bringing people into his sphere while marching to his own drummer. “He was happy being who he was. He never compromised his interests or his enthusiasm in order to fit in.”

And he was so many things. “There was always something new that beckoned to him — academic, athletic, technical, game theory, computing, physical, or the natural realm,” says classmate Butch Beckmann ’89.

Beckmann remembers Peter, a standout in the shot put, weight throw, and discus at �ֲ���ý, practicing his throwing technique while in line in Commons. He remembers so many games of chess, and Peter describing flight mechanics of dragonflies. “Or seeing Peter, standing waist deep in the brook behind his home in Williamstown, wearing a snorkel as he watched fingerling trout, popping his head out of the water to call us over to see.”

“Because he was so enthusiastic about what he was learning, and so excited to tell you, you really genuinely were interested,” says Rachel. “Like how bugs stick to glass. I would never want to know that, but Peter made you want to know.” 

Six-foot-plus and nearly 200 pounds by �ֲ���ý graduation, Peter had been a late bloomer growing up in Williamstown, Mass. He also had dyslexia. “He was a shy little kid who was very curious about a lot of things that not every kid was interested in,” says Rachel. “Other kids did what kids do when they’re scared by someone who’s different: They called him names and picked on him.”

That all ended when he developed into a track and field standout in the throws. “He started to shine,” Rachel says. “I think his experiences as a kid gave him such compassion later in life: He never wanted anyone to feel not at ease with him or not at ease with themselves.”

A few years after graduation, when Karl Uhlendorf ’90 was hurting and grieving, he turned to his friends Peter and Rachel, who took him into their home. “One night was especially bad. I couldn’t shake it,” Uhlendorf recalls. “Around 11 p.m., Peter jumped up, said, ‘Follow me,’ and led me to the basketball court around the corner.”

They shot the ball in silence, then played some one-on-one. “We jockeyed, bumped, and pushed for rebounds. Gradually, banter and laughter took over.” And with that, the clouds started to clear.

Peter loved the pool table in Adams Hall, recalls Matt Schecter ’89. 

“He would spend countless hours showing me the nuances of the game. He was a math and physics major, so he would break it down by angles and what was physically possible,” says Schecter. “Whenever I play pool, I think of lessons with Pete.”

They bought a home in Sudbury, Mass., in 1997. By 2001, Peter was a key leader at a software company, where he was as gifted with engineering as he was creating an effective team. Rachel described her last morning with Peter, who was headed out on a business trip.

“Peter made me stop my usual rushing around morning routine in our kitchen to make me take a second to hug him — not just a quick hug, but a stop, take a breath, and really appreciate the person you are with hug, I hugged him, kissed him goodbye, told him I loved him, reminded him to return the magazine he borrowed from the neighbors, and shooed him on his way so he did not miss his plane.”

Each year after 9/11, the town of Sudbury, Mass., holds a public commemoration to remember its three citizens who died that day. In the first few years, Rachel helped to honor Peter’s memory by being front and center at each commemoration. “But I’m not really good with being the center of attention. It wasn’t the right thing for me.”

In recent years, she has honored Peter’s memory more privately and quietly. She visits his grave in Sudbury in the morning and visits the town’s Memorial Park — “it’s beautiful” — in the afternoon after the public ceremony is done. “I spend the day reflecting on wonderful memories and how grateful I am for having had Peter in my life.”

Over the years, remembering Peter has included receiving notes from �ֲ���ý, year after year, letting her know who has made gifts in his memory. Year after year, the gifts remind Rachel that Peter’s friends had not forgotten the love that he gave to them or the love they felt for him.

Rather than spend the gifts, the college placed money into the endowment for safekeeping, allowing the scholarship to grow. By late 2019, the fund was just north of $23,000, a generous figure but far less than the $100,000 required for an endowed fund to begin providing financial aid to students.

Over the years, staff in the College Advancement Office had offered to help promote the fund ahead of Rachel’s or Peter’s class Reunions. Rachel deeply appreciated the offers, but resisted. “I always felt that Reunions should be about the whole class, not one person.”

With the arrival of the 20th anniversary year of 9/11, Rachel began reaching out to close �ֲ���ý friends. “I didn’t know how I wanted the 20th anniversary to look, how to celebrate and honor Peter,” she says.

Schecter, Peter’s pool partner in Adams, was one of the friends she reached out to. He and Peter were both All-America track and field performers for coach Walter Slovenski, bonded by a shared pursuit of excellence in their gravity-defying events, Schecter in the high jump and Peter as a thrower. (In 2002, the throwing circle at �ֲ���ý’ outdoor track was named in Peter’s memory.)

Peter brought his math and physics chops to his throwing, . “He was very scientific — his technique was just incredible. Other athletes were much bigger than Pete. But he got more out of his body than anyone.”

With classmate Craig Geikie, Peter served as a senior co-captain. Whether as track captain or out and about on campus, “he was caring and inclusive, always looking around the room and making sure everyone felt included,” Schecter says.

Rachel talked with Schecter about struggling with the 9/11 anniversary and the scholarship fund. “We discussed the options,” Schecter recalls. “I tried to help her reframe it.” 

Schecter, with other �ֲ���ý friends that Rachel reached out to, talked about what the 20th could be, and what it didn’t need to be. “It wasn’t another opportunity to mark his death, but rather really to celebrate his life,” says Schecter.

“Everyone I spoke with helped me redefine my feelings about promoting Peter’s scholarship,” Rachel says. “Furthering the scholarship became an opportunity to celebrate and remember Peter’s wonderful life. It felt perfect.”

The question of whether Peter’s friends would support a fund in his memory was not something she could be certain of; nearly 20 years later, after the grieving had grown quieter, did that mean the love still persevered? 

The answer came during a Zoom call last spring. Organized by another friend, Win Brown ’89, the call brought together Rachel and a group of friends to talk about the scholarship fund, including Jack Yang ’89 and Suzanne Blazon Yang ’90.

Jack Yang is the type of friend, says Rachel, who springs into action, quietly. An easy example: that moment at Rachel and Peter’s wedding when the photos needed to be taken but the space was a mess. “My mother was in a panic. Jack took out the vacuum and started vacuuming the living room. And my mother was like, ‘He sees what needs to be done and just does it.’”

“Jack just does it, with grace and such kindness.” Yang was one of the first people Rachel spoke to on 9/11. He was the person who helped make calls to let �ֲ���ý friends know what was happening.

And with the Goodrich Scholarship Fund, Jack and Suzanne Yang were there again. Unbeknownst to Rachel, the couple “had worked their magic,” receiving gift commitments in excess of $50,000. 

For Rachel, it was a stunning moment. “I went from hoping Peter’s scholarship would be possible to feeling so much gratitude and excitement about what we may be able to do in honor of Peter — and those are not emotions that I was ever expecting to have at this time.” 

Within a few months, gifts and pledges to the fund had zoomed past the required $100,000.

Today, the Peter M. Goodrich ’89 Memorial Scholarship Fund is fully endowed, totaling over $200,000 and still growing. According to its terms, the fund will provide scholarship support to �ֲ���ý students “with preference for members of the men’s or women’s track and field teams and/or students with demonstrated interest in STEM fields.”

“Pete represents the student that �ֲ���ý tries to foster,” says Jack Yang. “A person who tries new things, expands their own perspective, develops empathy and deep relationships through shared experiences.”

“There’s been so much joy in connecting with everybody, making this happen — a collective group of friends, honoring someone we all love and helping future �ֲ���ý students,” says Rachel.

When Rev. Brittany Longsdorf, who serves as the �ֲ���ý multifaith chaplain, learned of Peter Goodrich and his legacy, her response was a simple reminder of the cyclical nature of love: “We learned to love by being loved.”

That idea resonates with Rachel Goodrich. “Not only do I believe that we learn to love by being loved, but I believe we are healed by love. We in turn help others by our love.”

Elizabeth Strout ’77

Elizabeth Strout on Returning to Olive Kitteridge — The New Yorker

Elizabeth Strout ’77 thought she was “done” with Olive Kitteridge, the central character in her 2008 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name. Until, she told New Yorker fiction editor Deborah Triesman, one day in a European cafe when Olive “just showed up.”

Pulitzer Prize–winning author Elizabeth Strout ’77 stands with President Clayton Spencer following her 2017 Reunion discussion with Spencer. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Olive, Again, will be published in October. The sequel features Olive as she ages and her interactions with other characters deepen and change.

The books’ Maine setting, Strout told Triesman, is inextricable from its characters. “Olive — my Olive — would not be Olive if she lived anywhere but Maine,” she said. “She is like a barnacle clinging to the rock of the place.”

Read the story:

• “,” The New Yorker, July 29, 2019

See also:

• “,” Portland Press Herald, Sept. 1, 2019

Michelle Greene

�ֲ���ý College receives its largest-ever federal grant — Multiple outlets

Maine and national outlets covered the announcement that �ֲ���ý received a $3.97 million National Science Foundation grant to build a video database to support research in fields that rely on the analysis and recognition of images, such as neuroscience, cognitive science, and artificial intelligence.

Assistant Professor of Neuroscience Michelle Greene, the principal investigator for the grant, will lead the creation of a Visual Experience Database comprising some 240 hours of video clips that depict everyday human activities and, importantly, simulate human vision and track head and eye movement.

Assistant Professor of Neuroscience Michelle Greene (right) works with student researcher Hanna De Bruyn ’18 to prepare an EEG test in March 2018. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

As Greene told Maine Public, the process of collecting video clips for the database will involve trained members of the project team, including �ֲ���ý students, “going out into the world wearing head-mounted cameras, like a GoPro. We’ll be recording what the world looks like as we engage in some common, everyday activities.”

Read the stories:

• “,” Sun Journal, Aug. 16, 2019
• “,” Maine Public, Aug. 16, 2019
• “,” The Associated Press, Aug. 16, 2019

Peter Goodrich ’89

Timeout: 9/11 still a painful day for those who knew Peter Goodrich — Sun Journal

On the 18th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Sun Journal sportswriter Tony Blasi returned to the story of Peter Goodrich ’89, the track and field All-American who died on Flight 175.

Blasi had interviewed, written about, and gotten to know Goodrich as a student as he racked up track and field awards and majored in math and physics.

Peter Goodrich ’89, shown throwing the shot put for �ֲ���ý, “was a gentleman,” said classmate Greg Nespole ’89. (Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library)

This year, Blasi talked to Goodrich’s classmate Gregory Nespole ’89. “Peter was a kind, thoughtful man who was modest, though highly exceptional as a student and athlete — a gentleman,” Nespole told him.

A lawyer, Nespole has long worked in Lower Manhattan, and his office is near the 9/11 Memorial. “I lost many friends,” he said. “It is still a painful day.”

Read the story:

• “,” Sun Journal, Sept. 11, 2019

Christopher Petrella ’06

Colin Kaepernick wants you to know your rights — PAPER magazine

Chris Petrella ’06 had a in a recent issue of PAPER focusing on human rights.

The issue, called a “,” by the New York Daily News, carried the theme “Know Your Rights” and featured Q&A interviews with 10 black thought leaders, including 2018 �ֲ���ý Commencement speaker Bryan Stevenson.

Christopher Petrella ’06, director of engagement at American University’s Antiracist Research & Policy Center, makes a point during a meeting of the college’s Justice and Equity Reading Group in 2017, when he was a �ֲ���ý faculty lecturer member of the Office of Intercultural Education staff. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

The issue’s lead story, “Colin Kaepernick Wants You To Know Your Rights,” was written by Petrella along with radio host Miabelle Bocicault and scholar Ameer Hasan Loggins. The trio also wrote the introductions to each Q&A story.

The entire issue was guest-edited by Kaepernick, the football player-turned-social activist, whose current efforts with his Know Your Rights camps teaches young people their legal rights and, importantly, how to exercise them.

A friend and part of Kaepernick’s inner circle, Petrella is director of engagement at American University’s Antiracist Research & Policy Center.

Read the stories:

• “,” PAPER Magazine, Fall 2019

Michael Rocque

The U.S. Attorney got the numbers wrong. Here’s a look at D.C.’s actual incarceration rate — DCist

A recent debate in Washington, D.C., saw criminal-justice reform advocates saying that D.C. imprisons more people than any of the 50 states. At the same time, the district’s U.S. Attorney said the opposite, that it sends fewer people to prison than any state.

The news website DCist turned to criminologist Michael Rocque, associate professor of sociology at �ֲ���ý, to untangle the numbers.

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

Ultimately, you can’t compare D.C. statistics to state statistics, said Rocque, “just as I would caution against comparing NYC to Maine.”

The contrasting data points were bandied about during a public debate over a D.C. Council bill that would “expand opportunities for certain violent offenders to petition for a reduced sentence,” according to the DCist story.

After its initial claim, the U.S. Attorney backtracked and admitted that it had used federal data that only counted inmates at the D.C. jail as opposed to D.C. inmates held by the U.S. Bureau of Prisons in federal facilities across the country.

Read the story:

• “,” DCist, Sept. 10, 2019

Edmund Muskie ’36

During his 1972 presidential race, Maine’s Edmund Muskie faced at least three death threats — Sun Journal

FBI files related to Edmund Muskie ’36 and released to the Sun Journal revealed that Muskie received three death threats while campaigning for the 1972 Democratic nomination for president.

“It doesn’t appear from the 1,038 pages of material released to the Sun Journal that the FBI ever tracked down two of the culprits,” wrote the paper’s Steve Collins, who obtained the files through a Freedom of Information Act request. “Federal prosecutors opted not to charge the other, a mentally ill man quickly found by agents.”

Edmund Muskie ’36 and supporters at a 1968 campaign event, location unknown. (Burton Burinsky / Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library)

Collins also learned that Muskie had a police record (sort of). “On Dec. 28, 1965, in the tiny town of Centreville on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, Muskie was issued a criminal summons at Broadwater Farms for ‘attempting to take migratory water fowl with the aid of bait,’�ĝ writes Collins.

Muskie paid the $25 fine.

Read the story:

• “,” Sun Journal, Aug. 31, 2019

Clifford Odle

‘The Petition’ addresses black liberation and white allyship in the Old State House — WBUR

Jerome Campbell of Boston public radio station WBUR sat in on a performance of The Petition, a play by Lecturer in Theater Clifford Odle that explores the contradictions of the American Revolution when it comes to slavery.

The immersive play, in which audiences sit around a table in the Old State House Museum in Boston, is about Prince Hall, a free black man who unsuccessfully petitioned the Massachusetts assembly to abolish slavery.

Lecturer in Theater Clifford Odle (right) talks with Professor of French and Francophone Studies Kirk Read during Opening Convocation on Sept 3. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

In the play, Hall’s friend and ally Joseph Warren encourages the petition but ultimately prioritizes the “liberation” of white colonists from British rule.

It’s an example of the harm of white inaction, Odle told Campbell. “Unless you are arguing and agitating for people to have the same rights that you already have, unless you are willing to put your privilege on the line, the job is not done.”

Read the story:

• “,” WBUR, Aug. 27, 2019

Julia Sleeper-Whiting ’08

Local people who are all about the work share what motivates them — Sun Journal

A Lewiston Sun Journal article on what motivates community members’ work featured Julia Sleeper-Whiting ’08, co-founder and executive director of Tree Street Youth.

Julia Sleeper ’08 (right), co-founder and executive director of Tree Street Youth, speaks in 2016 with then-Lewiston High student Binto Matan and Gene Geiger, who supported an expansion of the youth center. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

“Work is about creating solutions to things happening around us and solving challenges in the world,” Sleeper-Whiting told reporter Beth Herman. “As long as your focus remains on the greater purpose, the work itself remains relevant and meaningful.”

Read the story:

• “,” Sun Journal, Aug. 31, 2019

Ann Kranjec Fortescue ’84

New IMAS exec seeks cross-culture experiences — The Monitor

Francisco E. Jimenez of The Monitor of McAllen, Texas, profiled Ann Kranjec Fortescue ’84, the new president and executive director of the International Museum of Art and Science.

Fortescue said her 35-year career in museums was inspired in part by a �ֲ���ý course on 19th-century European history that included a visit to a historical farm.

“We spent two days on this farm, harvesting rye with a scythe and experiencing what it was like to live as closely as we could to 19th-century peasant farmers,” she told Jimenez. “That was when a switch went off in my head in terms of, ‘I could actually work in a museum and teach with objects.’”

Read the story:

• “,” The Monitor, Sept. 3, 2019

�ֲ���ý College

New students at �ֲ���ý College told to become activists — Sun Journal

The Sun Journal covered �ֲ���ý’ Opening Convocation, in which labor activist and civil rights leader Dolores Huerta received an honorary degree and delivered the keynote address.

The 89-year-old co-founder of the United Farm Workers told the incoming Class of 2023 to learn their history and engage politically to get the country “off the road to fascism.”

Dolores Huerta acknowledges applause as she’s given an honorary degree at Opening Convocation. Ready to present her with the honorary hood is Michael Murray, Phillips Professor of Economics. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

“The wonderful thing about a democracy is that we can change things,” she said. But “nothing is going to change unless you decide to change it.”

Read the story:

• “,” Sun Journal, Sept. 3, 2019

See also:

• “Convocation speaker Dolores Huerta to the Class of 2023: ‘We have the power,’�ĝ �ֲ���ýNews, Sept. 4, 2019

James F. Amaral ’80

“We want people to bake”: Baker, food writer team up to publish book — The Lincoln County News

Jessica Clifford of Maine’s Lincoln County News interviewed Borealis Breads owner Jim Amaral ’80, who wrote a cookbook with food writer Cynthia Finnemore Simonds.

Amaral told Clifford that the goal of the book, Borealis Breads: 75 Recipes for Breads, Soups, Sides, and More, is to encourage people to bake, even if it costs him business at his popular bakery.

“It’s hard not to feel good about yourself when you bake a loaf of bread, no matter how it turns out,” Amaral said. “It’s a life-affirming thing when you bake – you’re nourishing yourself, you are nourishing your family.”

Read the story:

• “,” The Lincoln County News, Sept. 9, 2019