The 98-year-old man leaned forward in his wheelchair and slowly poured a glass of champagne onto the hull of the newest �ֲ���ý rowing shell. In a soft but steady voice, he said, “I christen thee Ralph Sylvester.”

With that, a big cheer erupted from the crowd gathered in Pettengill Hall’s Perry Atrium on April 29 — the loudest coming from members of the �ֲ���ý rowing teams.

That’s because it was a hope come true for the �ֲ���ý rowing program: to name a �ֲ���ý boat in honor of the man who sat before them, Ralph Sylvester ‘50 — nonagenarian, World War II combat veteran, and beloved member of the �ֲ���ý and Lewiston-Auburn communities.

“He embodies what �ֲ���ý rowing is about,” said Aidan Braithwaite ’23 of Milton, Mass., who learned about Sylvester from Peter Steenstra, the men’s and women’s teams’ head coach. “The consistency and hard work shown by his military service and being a part of the community that you’re in. It’s a quality I think he and others have that we should strive toward.”

Sylvester was born in Lewiston in 1924 and has lived in Auburn for most of his life. He was a “newsie” for the local paper, graduating from Edward Little High School and attending �ֲ���ý for a year before being called to serve in World War II.

With the 295th Combat Engineers, he landed on Omaha Beach five days after D-Day, when the beach was still covered with the bodies of dead American soldiers, and later fought in the Battle of the Bulge.

After the war, he returned home to Auburn, attended �ֲ���ý, then went to work in local banks and in telecommunications and married a local gal, Elaine Miller, in 1949. After retiring, he and Elaine started a morning routine, coming to campus for breakfast at the Den. (Everyone remembers how Elaine always made sure that Ralph had his napkin in the right spot.)

And that’s where they met Steenstra, who would head to the Den for breakfast after his team’s early morning rowing practice on the Androscoggin River.

“I’m having scrambled eggs and toast, and I got to talking to him,” said Steenstra, turning toward Sylvester during the dedication event. “Probably to you it seemed like just kind of chatting away over some breakfast, but to me it meant quite a bit. Being able to chat with someone who had such a vast experience in the world helped me keep things in perspective.”

In recent years, Sylvester has slowed down a bit, understandably. Following the 2019 death of Elaine after 70 years of marriage, the staff at Dining Services has helped Sylvester keep his �ֲ���ý morning ritual going.

Rather than the Den, with all its stairs, Sylvester was invited to take breakfast, and sometimes lunch, in Commons. More recently, during COVID, the staff delivered a hot meal to Sylvester each day at home on Josslyn Street. (Sylvester has recently moved to the Veterans Home in South Paris.)

In Commons, everyone knew Ralph’s table, up front near the desk station for Dining Services staff. There, staff brought him his breakfast: Eggs (omelet, over easy, or scrambled, they’re all good); a bowl of oatmeal with brown sugar, milk, and raisins; and a cup of coffee, with a little cream.

And that’s where students, including hungry rowers returning after their morning workouts, got to know Sylvester. He recalls with a chuckle how “they’d come in and shout, ‘Hi Ralph, How you doing?’ The guys on the football team were the loudest.” The students would come and go from Ralph’s table, an endlessly rotating conversation from morning onward, and Sylvester had no shortage of stories to tell.

When the new boat arrived, Steenstra asked his captains to think about a name, something meaningful to them and their college. “They came back a week later or two, and said they didn’t have anything that really dug deep for them.” That’s when Steenstra suggested naming it for Ralph Sylvester. 

Presented with that idea, the captains eyes widened, recalls Steenstra, quickly asking their coach, “You mean that older gentleman who’s in Commons quite a bit? The one we’ve all seen?”

Steenstra, looking at Sylvester during the dedication, said, “It was a great sense of pride for them to discover more about you. They couldn’t have been more happy and more proud to put your name on the shell.”

Before the boat christening, Steenstra had a surprise gift for Sylvester: a �ֲ���ý rowing blade. Senior �ֲ���ý rowers receive a blade at graduation to recognize “commitment to the program from the start to the finish,” Steenstra explained to the audience. “The honor is 100 percent attainable but by far the most difficult thing to achieve.”

“We have never given one of these to anyone who was not a rower for �ֲ���ý. But there is no question in my mind and the team’s mind that if anyone deserves it, it’s you.”

Finally, speaking for many in the audience, Steenstra said, “This is by far the least that we, in this little school, in this little town, can do to say thank you for everything you’ve done and everything you are.”

Anthony Fauci

Fauci recalls his visit to Maine 27 years ago — WMTW-TV

A Maine affiliate of ABC, television station WMTW covered a �ֲ���ý News story that recalled how, in 1993, Dr. Anthony Fauci received an honorary Doctor of Science degree from �ֲ���ý. Fauci, whose guidance through the coronavirus pandemic has caught national attention, received the �ֲ���ý honor for his work fighting a different virus: HIV.

Then as now, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases was trying to use scientific principles to stop a virus that was devastating communities — the work was like being in a “pressure cooker,” he said in a �ֲ���ý News interview. 

The �ֲ���ý visit, in contrast, was “food for the soul,” Fauci said. Talking “with really smart and curious students reminded me of the great privilege of having a liberal arts education.” 

Read the story: 

• “,” WMTW-TV, May 7, 2020 

Francesco Duina

Free market ideology won’t help us during the COVID-19 crisis. Here’s what would — Los Angeles Times

In an opinion piece for the Los Angeles Times, Professor of Sociology Francesco Duina argued that government action, not the free market or private industry, is providing the strongest leadership during the coronavirus pandemic. 

Duina pointed to the fact that large industries like airlines and small businesses alike are benefiting from emergency loans and tax cuts, while federal and state governments are coordinating public health responses. He said governments should partner with the private sector to respond to crises, and government offices themselves — like those handling unemployment claims — should expand their capacities. 

“We must all assume, even in good times, the fragility of markets,” Duina wrote. “This means that we must invest, ahead of time, in government structures, programs, and funding for challenges that will inevitably arise. And we must commit to them for the long term.” 

Read the story: 

• “,” Los Angeles Times, May 18, 2020

Myron Beasley and Imti Hassan ’23

PMA Magazine, Portland Museum of Art 

PMA Magazine, a publication of the Portland Museum of Art in Maine, asked Mainers to write about pieces in the museum’s collection that resonated with them. �ֲ���ý was prominent as the respondents included Associate Professor of American Studies Myron Beasley and Imti Hassan ’23 of Portland. 

Beasley introduced Daniel Minter’s Malaga, a series of works that explore the story of a Maine island that was home to an interracial community before the state evicted its residents in 1912. 

Beasley has himself looked hard at the Malaga story: In 2018, he created “re:past,” a packed with history and symbolism. 

“Malaga is not unique in that it is a story of injustice, racism, and forced dislocation peculiar to African Americans,” Beasley wrote. “The particularities of the Malaga story, however, reveal a distinctive horror which Minter acknowledges and addresses.” 

Hassan wrote about “Mount Katahdin from Millinocket Camp,” an 1895 oil painting by Frederic Edwin Church that shows Maine’s highest peak in the brilliance of sunrise. Hassan worked at the museum as a Homer Fellow, a summer program for Maine high school students. 

“Church’s art is a reminder that nature and humans are constantly evolving,” Hassan wrote. “This work of art reminds me to live life to the fullest and remember that time is always going forward.”

Read the reflections: 

• “,” PMA Magazine
• “,” PMA Magazine

Allison Beaulieu ’13

Teamwork comes full circle for doctor from Swampscott — The Daily Item 

Steve Krause of the Lynn, Mass., Daily Item profiled Allison Beaulieu ’13, a local basketball champion who went on to become an award-winning emergency physician on the front lines of the COVID-19 crisis. 

After graduating from �ֲ���ý and then New York Medical College, Beaulieu became an emergency room resident at the UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester. This year, she won the Massachusetts American College of Emergency Physicians Resident of the Year award.

What’s hard during the COVID-19 crisis, Beaulieu said, is that her patients “are all alone. There’s no family allowed back in to see them. So what you have is family members on the other end of the telephone, and that’s how you communicate. It’s not being able to have personal interactions.”

Read the story: 

• “,” The Daily Item, May 6, 2020 

Erica Long ’12

Cony High School graduate, now chaplain at Boston hospital, offers comfort, hope to coronavirus, COVID-19 patients, families — News Center Maine 

Erica Long ’12, a Maine native now working as a chaplain at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, told the Portland affiliate of NBC how her work — offering comfort and love to patients, staff, and families — has changed and intensified during the COVID-19 crisis. 

Long, a �ֲ���ý English major who graduated from Harvard Divinity School and is an ordained Unitarian Universalist minister, has had to learn to minister to the hospital community, often at a distance, during a time of intense fear and suffering. She’s guided coronavirus patients and their families over the phone and developed new rituals of offering “Zen Dens” to staff and celebrating patients who come off ventilators. 

“My training has prepared me to draw on my faith, my beliefs, especially my belief in the transformative power of love,” Long told reporter Beth Brogan. “Then I get to see that love, both in how families care for patients, how nurses and doctors and the entire team care for our patients, and in the way that patients learn to care for themselves and love themselves.”

Jack Sapoch ’18

Croatian police accused of spray-painting heads of asylum seekers — The Guardian 

Jack Sapoch ’18, who works with an organization that distributes non-food items like clothes to migrants and monitors violence at the border between Bosnia and Croatia, spoke with The Guardian about an uptick in mistreatment by Croatian police.  

Croatia is in the European Union while Bosnia is not, so many migrants try to seek asylum in Croatia, only to be (illegally) returned to Bosnia. Lately, Sapoch’s organization has reported that Croatian police are spray-painting migrants’ heads as well as robbing and otherwise trying to humiliate them.

“Hearing reports of increased brutality during pushbacks is worrying due to the increased autonomy that state authorities have gained during these times of the [coronavirus] pandemic,” said Sapoch, who studied abroad in Bosnia and Serbia as a �ֲ���ý student and returned to Bosnia after graduation to work on human rights issues. 

“Now, more than ever, it is important for us to keep these forces accountable for their own actions.” 

Read the story: 

• “,” The Guardian, May 12, 2020 

See also:

• “,” Newsweek, May 13, 2020

Tad Baker ’80

On This Day in Maine’s History — Maine Public 

Maine Public’s May 18  On This Day in Maine’s History segment featured Emerson “Tad” Baker, an archaeologist and historian at Salem State University who is known for his work on Colonial witchcraft and excavation of historic sites in New England. May 18 is his birthday. 

“A recognized specialist in the history of 17th-century Maine, Baker has been featured as an expert consultant on the PBS miniseries Colonial House,” presenter Gale Parmelee said. 

Listen to the segment: 

• “,” Maine Public, May 18, 2020 

Peter Steenstra 

Into the Wild — Rowing News 

Jen Whiting of Rowing News profiled Peter Steenstra, who in his 12 years as head rowing coach has led �ֲ���ý to the top of its division, with four NCAA championships in the past five years and 13 All-American rowers. 

Steenstra credited his success to his rowers and staff, as well as his ability to create an atmosphere in which the rowers can develop a successful culture. “It’s moving. It’s organic. And it changes every year.” 

He said, “What I’ve learned is that you have to give them as much as you can, so you can then stand aside, in the shadows. You have to give them the ownership so they can go as far as possible. From that ownership, they get control. The athletes themselves are in control of the program.”

Read the story: 

• “,” Rowing News, May 6, 2020 

In capturing its third consecutive NCAA championship, the �ֲ���ý women’s rowing team made it look easy, winning all four of their races by open water at Eagle Creek Reservoir in Indianapolis on May 31 and June 1.

“As soon as we’re ahead, I know that nothing can stop us,” says co-captain Sophie Claus ‘19 of Beverly, Mass.

Video by Aaron Morse

The victory is �ֲ���ý’ fourth in the last five years. But perhaps more than anyone, Claus knows that getting to the top of the mountain isn’t easy.

Last spring, she missed out on the NCAAs with an injured back. Surgery followed in December, then rehabilitation. “It’s been a wild, wild ride,” she says. “To be here is such an enormous privilege.”

It’s also important that minor setbacks don’t spiral into big problems.

�ֲ���ý rowers on the first varsity eight boat celebrate their grand final win over WPI on June 1 at the NCAA Rowing Championship in Indianapolis, Indiana. (Photo by Justin Tafoya/NCAA Photos via Getty Images)

Claus is a member of �ֲ���ý’ second varsity boat. As the preliminary heat got underway on Day 1 of the championship, her foot stretcher — where she places her feet for leverage — suddenly broke.

She alerted coxswain Maya Seshan ’20, who stopped the race, which is allowed when equipment fails within the first 100 meters.

It turned out to be an easy fix, and the Bobcats maintained their composure despite the delay.

“Our team is built on flexibility,” says Seshan, of Wilton, Conn. “Coach [Peter Steenstra] really instills in us this idea that no matter what you’re doing, you’re ready to roll with the punches. If something changes, who cares?”

It’s hugs and congratulations after �ֲ���ý wins the 2019 NCAA Division III Championship on June 1 in Indianapolis, Indiana. (Photo by Justin Tafoya/NCAA Photos via Getty Images)

On Day 2, �ֲ���ý’s two grand final victories marked the sixth straight for the second varsity eight and the second straight for the first varsity eight.

Among the eight rowers and one cox in the first varsity boat, only one was a senior in 2019: Sophia Rintell of Brookline, Mass.

“I was having some nerves as everyone always does right before the race,” she recalls. “But there came a moment, right as we were waiting to line up to get in the start area, when I realized that I’m not nervous. I’m just excited.”

Both varsity boats won their grand finals without much drama, at least on the surface.

As Claus explains, “This piece of wood had gotten stuck to our skeg and we were like, we had added resistance for no reason!”

From left, Sophie Claus, Sophia Rintell, and Claudia Glickman were the 2019 co-captains for �ֲ���ý women’s rowing. (Brewster Burns for �ֲ���ý College)

For �ֲ���ý, challenges like having a stick stuck to the bottom of their boat only make the Bobcats stronger.

The two varsity boats had four senior rowers — Claus, Rintell, fellow co-captain Claudia Glickman of Bellaire, Texas., and Phoebe Long of Riverside, Conn. “We feel like we did it. We got the job done,” says Rintell.

“It’s a good way to go out and leave, and feel really excited for all of the others who are going to go do this again.”

It was a year to remember for the �ֲ���ý rowing program.

The women won the NCAA championship for the third time in the last four years and the men qualified for the IRA National Championship for the first time in school history.

The Bobcats traveled to Mercer Lake, N.J., to take on the likes of Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Washington, and CAL, the true giants of collegiate rowing.

“I shook hands with one guy and I swear his hand was bigger than my head,” said senior bow Joshua Bilchik of Brookline, Mass.

But after sizing up the competition, it was time to race.

With the greatest season in program history wrapped up, the nine men’s rowing seniors reflected on their time at �ֲ���ý.

“Some of my teammates I’ve known for a year, some of them I’ve known for four,” said senior Roddy Pratt ’18 of Arlington, Mass. “And along with being great teammates, they’ve been incredible friends.”

“I’ve learned a lot from them in many different ways and I hope I’ve taught them something too. But yeah, I’ll miss them all.”

The �ֲ���ý rowing program had a housewarming last Saturday, formally dedicating its new boathouse on the Androscoggin River in Greene.

While the weather outside was a bit frightful — chilly and rainy — it was delightful inside the warm and bright boathouse.

And that’s the point, captain Abbey Bierman ’17 of Bethlehem, Pa., told the gathering of teammates, coaches, families, friends, and college leaders, including President Clayton Spencer and Director of Athletics Kevin McHugh.

“We take pride in being the tough, gritty team from Maine. And this boathouse will not change that,” Bierman said.

But other things will change — and much, much for the better — now that the team has a boathouse with locker rooms, workout space, and secure storage for boats.

Evidence of rowing success lines the lobby of the new boathouse. (Andree Kehn for �ֲ���ý College)

Head coach Peter Steenstra offers a tour of the new boathouse. (Andree Kehn for �ֲ���ý College)

The donor-funded boathouse was dedicated on Oct. 29, nearly two years to the day after the project was announced on Oct. 30, 2014. (Andree Kehn for �ֲ���ý College)

Joined by her fellow rowing captains, Abbey Bierman '17 of Bethlehem, Pa., offers remarks during the dedication. (Andree Kehn for �ֲ���ý College)

Head coach Peter Steenstra completes the ribbon cutting. (Andree Kehn for �ֲ���ý College)

“While we’ll miss our old barn,” she said, referring to the rustic, unheated, off-the-grid pole barn of the past, “we are excited to see how much more we can grow and how much speed we can gain with a warm place to call home.”

The boathouse, 100 percent funded by donors, was dedicated on Oct. 29, nearly two years to the day after the project was announced on Oct. 30, 2014. Groundbreaking took place in April and the team began using the boathouse in August.

“This team and their inspiring coaches have earned this fabulous new boathouse,” said Spencer. “They have shown again and again that ambition, hard work, and an unwavering commitment to excellence pay off in outstanding results.”

She added, “What we see here today reflects the growing tradition of support from alumni, parents, and friends who step forward, again and again, to help us deliver the best possible experience for all �ֲ���ý students.”

The �ֲ���ý rowing program is one of the premiere small-college programs in the country. In 2015, the women won the college’s first-ever team NCAA championship, the men secured their first NESCAC championship, and head coach Peter Steenstra was named Division III coach of the year. The women have finished in the top three at the NCAA Rowing Championships nine times in the last 10 years.

“In everything we do, our goal is to get better — as individuals, as a team, as a program — and this boathouse is a fundamental part of that equation,” Steenstra said.

The program has produced 15 All-America rowers and two Olympians, Andrew Byrnes ’05, who won gold for Canada men’s eight at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing and silver in London in 2012, and Mike Ferry ’97, a rower for the U.S. team in Sydney in 2000.

“This new boathouse provides us with a facility that is commensurate with the high caliber of the program,” said Director of Athletics Kevin McHugh. “The boathouse also announces to the rowing community and to the world of college athletics that �ֲ���ý has an extraordinary commitment to excellence.”

The project architect was Peterson Architects, a Cambridge, Mass.-based firm specializing in boathouse design. Henry Gillert of �ֲ���ý Facility Services was the project manager, and general contractor was Consigli Construction, which also managed the building of Kalperis Hall and Chu Hall.

After winning the April 17 President’s Cup, their signature home regatta, the �ֲ���ý rowers joined a groundbreaking ceremony for their new boathouse on the Androscoggin River. (Photograph by Connor Cahill ’17)

On and off the water, �ֲ���ý rowing had a winning day on April 17.

After sweeping all races vs. Bowdoin and Colby in the President’s Cup, their signature home regatta, the men and women of �ֲ���ý rowing joined families, alumni, friends, and college leaders at a groundbreaking ceremony for the program’s new boathouse on the Androscoggin River in Greene.

“What a great way to spend a gorgeous Sunday,” said President Clayton Spencer in her welcoming remarks, “by watching our extraordinary athletes and celebrating the start of construction on a new home base.”

Donor-funded construction “is no small thing,” Spencer told the gathering. “It matters hugely.”

Announced by the college in fall 2014, the boathouse project will be 100 percent funded by contributions from �ֲ���ý alumni and parents. Construction, which got going the day after Sunday’s regatta, is scheduled to be finished by the fall.

A donor-funded facilities project “is no small thing,” Spencer told the gathering.

Co-captains Naso, Conover, Taylor, and Wettstein join Steenstra for a turn at the shovels. (Photograph by Rene Roy)

The large crowd cheers the proceedings during the groundbreaking ceremony for the rowing program's new boathouse at its training facility on the Androscoggin River in Greene. (Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen)

Co-captains Emma Conover '16 of Camden, Maine, Jamie Naso '16 of Greenbrae, Calif., Marit Wettstein '16 of Rochester, Minn., and Emma Taylor '16 of Scituate, Mass., pose for photos with President Spencer and head coach Peter Steenstra. (Phyllis Graber Jensen)

Teammates give coxswain Kate Traquina '17 of Wayland, Mass., her celebratory dip into the Androscoggin River after the regatta. (Photograph by Connor Cahill '17)

�ֲ���ý swept all 10 races vs. Bowdoin and Colby in the President's Cup, the program's signature home regatta. Photograph by Connor Cahill '17)

“It matters hugely to �ֲ���ý to have alumni, parents, and friends willing to support a need like this in full,” she added. “It matters hugely to �ֲ���ý that we can support our students in so robust and meaningful a way.”

Reflecting on the Sunday’s events, head coach Peter Steenstra says that “Sunday was a fantastic day. Rowing is off the beaten path, literally, and so it meant a lot to the rowers that so many people turned out for the regatta and the ceremony.”

He explains how he sees the new boathouse — which replaces a rustic, pole-framed barn — fitting into a program that has surged to national prominence in recent years.

The �ֲ���ý women won the 2015 NCAA championship and the men took their first NESCAC title. On Sunday, �ֲ���ý won all 10 President’s Cup races.

�ֲ���ý took on Colby and Bowdoin in the President’s Cup Regatta, and it was a feast on and off the river.

“A new facility doesn’t change who we are as a program,” he says, “but it will change how we get better: by removing obstacles” — like not having locker rooms or a team room.

In other words, he says, the new boathouse “will only change us for the better.”

The old boathouse, designed by �ֲ���ý Facilities, dates to 1988, and Steenstra has nothing but respect for a building that served the team, year after year.

“That was our pole-barn temple,” says Steenstra. “It’s like a home or a church: You make of it what you can. It doesn’t have to be ornate.”

The boathouse, he adds, “served its purpose as a place where we did our work. And we loved every part of it — including the chipmunks and raccoons.”

�ֲ���ý College will build a new boathouse at the varsity rowing team’s facility on the Androscoggin River, President Clayton Spencer has announced.

At an estimated cost of $2.5 million, the boathouse project will be 100 percent funded by contributions from �ֲ���ý alumni and parents.

Subject to revision, this preliminary conceptual study shows the new �ֲ���ý College boathouse to be built at the team’s practice facility on the Androscoggin River in Greene. (Courtesy of Peterson Architects)

“The goal at �ֲ���ý is to deliver the best possible liberal arts experience for our students,” Spencer says, “and athletics is integral to this experience. Our student athletes train and compete at an elite level, so it is important that they have access to facilities that support a high standard of quality and competitiveness.”

“Appropriate for the level of athlete who wants to attend �ֲ���ý College and compete as a �ֲ���ý rower on the national stage.”

“It is hard to fully express what this does for our rowing teams,” says head coach Peter Steenstra.

“It is hard to fully express what this does for our rowing teams,” says head coach Peter Steenstra, seen here with �ֲ���ý rowers at the NCAA Rowing Championships on May 30, 2014. (Sarah Crosby/�ֲ���ý College)

Head coach since 2009, Steenstra guides a rowing program that has achieved national prominence in recent years, including a victory by the �ֲ���ý women on Oct. 19 at the Head of the Charles, the world’s largest fall regatta.

“This new facility will be appropriate for the level of athlete who wants to attend �ֲ���ý College and compete as a �ֲ���ý rower on the national stage,” he says.

Construction at the �ֲ���ý rowing facility, about 7 miles north of campus in Greene, will begin in summer 2015, with the new boathouse scheduled to be ready for use by fall 2016.

Oriented for optimal solar exposure, the 7,500-square-foot, one-story building will have boat storage space, locker and shower facilities, a team room with ergometers, and office space.

�ֲ���ý has selected Peterson Architects, a Cambridge, Mass.-based firm specializing in boathouse design, as project architect. Henry Gillert of �ֲ���ý Facility Services will be project manager for the college.

That the project is donor-funded sends an impressive message, Steenstra says. “When a group of people sees the value of this program and literally invests in it in order to ensure that it’s here for the future — that’s powerful.”

The decision to move forward with a new boathouse also acknowledges that the college’s existing facility has reached a tipping point, he adds.

The women’s varsity eight basks in the glow of victory following its win in the Women’s Collegiate Eights at the Head of the Charles Regatta on Oct. 19, 2014. (Photograph by Andriel Doolittle)

The new boathouse will replace a pole-barn structure built in 1988 with dirt floors and no electricity. Despite the rustic facility, �ֲ���ý rowing has achieved national prominence in recent years, and while the spartan aesthetic has fostered camaraderie and a healthy work ethic among �ֲ���ý rowers, its deficiencies now outweigh its charms, Steenstra says.

Today’s �ֲ���ý College rowers “operate above the level of what we have provided,” he says.

Often ranked among the best college teams in the country, the �ֲ���ý women rowers have been a major force at the NCAA Championships, posting runner-up finishes five straight years, 2009 to 2013. The team’s victory in the Women’s Collegiate Eights race at the Head of the Charles was equivalent to a fall national championship, Steestra says.

The men’s team has finished in the top three in NESCAC four years running, and earned a silver medal at the ECAC National Invitational Rowing Championships in 2012. (The NCAA does not offer a championship regatta for Division III men.)

Following the team’s top-three finish at the 2009 New England Rowing Championships, the �ֲ���ý men’s eight headed to England to compete at the Henley Royal Regatta. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Other markers of success include competing at the 2009 Henley Royal Regatta in England and having two alumni compete as Olympians: Andrew Byrnes ’05, who won gold as member of the Canadian men’s eight team in 2008 and silver in 2012, and Mike Ferry ’97, a U.S. Olympian in 2000.

“Another example of our increased momentum in fundraising.”

“The new boathouse is made possible through a number of generous pledges,” says Sarah R. Pearson ’75, vice president for college advancement. “We fully expect to complete the final phase of fundraising by Dec. 31, well before the start of construction.”

Donor response to the boathouse project “is another example of our increased momentum in fundraising,” Pearson adds, following “last year’s total of $16 million in gifts to the college,” a 33 percent increase over 2013 and the college’s most successful fundraising result since 2006.

Funding secured in 2013-14 included the Catalyst Fund, a multiyear gift from current and past members of the Board of Trustees.

Catalyst Fund resources are now supporting institutional priorities within the Division of Natural Sciences and recent curricular innovations, including new Practitioner Taught Courses and Course (Re)Design projects, in which faculty and students collaborate to design new courses or rework existing ones. Catalyst Fund resources will also allow �ֲ���ý to pursue new initiatives in the Engaged Liberal Arts over the next three years.

Additionally, the Catalyst Fund is supporting the design and early implementation of the Purposeful Work Initiative as well as financial aid and programming support for diversity and inclusion under the leadership of Associate Vice President and Chief Diversity Officer Crystal Williams.