The �ֲ��ý Campaign – News

Exceeding goal, �ֲ��ý College successfully ends record-setting campaign with gifts of $345.7 million

�ֲ��ý News — Fri, 26 Aug 2022 12:48:50 +0000

�ֲ��ý College raised a record-setting $345.7 million in gifts and pledges during its recently concluded fundraising campaign, announced President Clayton Spencer.

Publicly launched in 2017 with a goal of $300 million, the �ֲ��ý Campaign closed on June 30, 2022, with gifts and pledges totaling $345,745,082.

More than 19,000 donors contributed to the effort, establishing successively higher �ֲ��ý records for total annual giving in four of the five years of the campaign’s public phase.

“The ‘why’ of the �ֲ��ý Campaign has never been more self-evident — to support the success of our talented students who will do their part to make the world a better place,” said President Spencer, seen at Commencement 2022 with Zoe Gallate, an American studies major, as they turn toward the Commencement photographer. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

“We owe the success of the �ֲ��ý Campaign to the exceptional generosity of our alumni, parents, friends, faculty, staff, and students,” said Spencer. “Today, we are better resourced and equipped to broaden access to a �ֲ��ý education and to offer a life-transforming experience for our students. With a new academic year before us, the ‘why’ of the �ֲ��ý Campaign has never been more self-evident — to support the success of our talented students who will do their part to make the world a better place.”

The most striking embodiment of the campaign’s success was the construction of the new Bonney Science Center, a centerpiece of the college’s $75 million investment to drive the evolution of science education and to transform the college’s approach to STEM teaching and research.

The funding and opening of the new Bonney Science Center in fall 2021 is part of a $75 million investment to drive the evolution of science education at �ֲ��ý. (Photography courtesy of Payette)

Opened in the fall of 2021, the Bonney Center was funded by a $50 million campaign gift, one of the largest monetary gifts ever to a Maine college, from the family foundation of Michael Bonney ’80 and Alison Grott Bonney ’80. Co-chair of the campaign and a chair of the �ֲ��ý College Board of Trustees for nine years, Michael Bonney received an honorary degree from the college at this year’s commencement.

“Five years ago we publicly announced the �ֲ��ý Campaign with great conviction, firm in our shared belief that �ֲ��ý and �ֲ��ý graduates can help meet the challenges facing our nation and world,” said Mike Bonney. “Through the generosity of our community, we have renewed hope and belief that �ֲ��ý and �ֲ��ý people are, and always will be, contributors of solutions.”

Etti Cooper ’22 (left) and Ryan Bavis, Helen A. Papaioanou Professor of Biological Sciences, confer about her honors thesis research.
(Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

Fellow trustees Geraldine FitzGerald ’75 and John Gillespie ’80 joined Bonney as campaign co-chairs. “Mike, Geri, and John were superb campaign co-chairs for so many reasons,” Spencer said. “But I will emphasize two in particular — authenticity and ambition. Their love for �ֲ��ý and their devotion to making us the best version of who we can be is genuine and compelling. When they talk about �ֲ��ý, what they say is meaningful because it is ambitious, and it is real and true.”

FitzGerald noted how, as an alumna approaching her 50th Reunion, “it is not surprising, but as always, simply amazing how our community has once again powerfully come together during the �ֲ��ý Campaign. When we kicked off the campaign five years ago, I knew that there was work ahead. But I also knew that as �ֲ��ý alumni, we would find joy in our striving together — because we believe in �ֲ��ý.”

A member of the Board of Trustees since 2003, Gillespie succeeded Bonney as board chair in 2019. “My experience on the board, and now as its chair, has created a keen awareness that a successful �ֲ��ý Campaign depended in large part on significantly increasing the college’s permanent investments,” he said. Including gifts to professorships, scholarship funds, and other new endowed funds, $138 million has been added to the college’s permanent endowment.”

From left, Mike Bonney ’80, Geraldine FitzGerald ’75, and John Gillespie ’80 served as co-chairs of the �ֲ��ý Campaign. “Their love for �ֲ��ý and their devotion to making us the best version of who we can be is genuine and compelling,” said President Spencer. (Rene Roy for �ֲ��ý College)

The �ֲ��ý Campaign was shaped by a college-wide institutional planning process in 2016, which produced a framework of priorities to guide �ֲ��ý’ institutional growth. The campaign’s resulting four priorities emphasized academics, facilities, financial aid, student programs, and endowment, raising the following amounts.

The �ֲ��ý Campaign concluded June 30, 2022, with gifts and pledges of $345.7 million.

Driving Academic Excellence

Raised: $90,284,189.20

Donor gifts funded the college’s equity-driven plan to create an integrated system of science facilities. In addition to the opening of Bonney Science Center, a second component of the college’s STEM investment is a complete renovation of Dana Hall. A former chemistry building, Dana Hall reopens this academic year as the home of introductory education in biology and chemistry, also offering state-of-the-art general classrooms for use by all academic departments.

Donors also gave:

$10 million to initiate the college’s Program in Digital and Computational Studies.
$21 million to establish seven new endowed professorships.
$5.2 million to support a comprehensive program to better support the success of students from underrepresented groups in the STEM fields.

�ֲ��ý professor Holly Ewing and environmental studies major Topher Castaneda ’20 take water samples from Lake Auburn during fieldwork in 2019 related to research on algae blooms by Ewing, who is the Christian A. Johnson Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies. Campaign donors gave $21 million to establish seven new endowed professorships. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

Investing in Opportunity

Raised: $135,220,123.06
Donor gifts strengthened support for need-based financial aid, providing the opportunity for talented students to attend �ֲ��ý regardless of their families’ financial circumstances.

Gifts and pledges to this priority included a recent challenge grant of $50 million to fuel a $100 million expansion of financial aid to students from America’s lowest-income families.

Student dancers pose in Bonney Science Center prior to a concert in 2022. A major thrust of the �ֲ��ý Campaign is to strengthen the college’s financial aid program, which offers scholarship grants on the basis of a student’s demonstrated financial need. The campaign sought $75 million for its financial aid priority, Investing in Opportunity; donors gave nearly double that. (Matthew Hamilton ’25 for �ֲ��ý College)

Catalyzing Student Success

Raised: $20,936,970.31

Donor gifts funded student leadership programs, the �ֲ��ý Center for Purposeful Work, and an array of programs known as the Inclusive �ֲ��ý Experience to better support the differentiated needs of students who come to �ֲ��ý from a wider variety of backgrounds than ever before.

Donors gave:

$4.7 million to support the Inclusive �ֲ��ý Experience, including the college’s Bobcat First program for first-generation college students
$10.6 million to support Purposeful Work, including more than $4 million to expand the number of paid Purposeful Work internships.
$4 million to support athletics, including funding of the Traquina Boathouse on the Androscoggin River for the championship �ֲ��ý rowing program.

Kendall Williams ‘23 of Phenix City, Ala., had a �ֲ��ý-funded Purposeful Work internship with the multinational consulting firm Accenture in Houston over the summer. Williams worked in the firm’s Technology Development Program, aligned in Security Practice. �ֲ��ý Campaign donors gave $10.6 million to support the �ֲ��ý Center for Purposeful Work. (Arturo Olmos for �ֲ��ý College)

Building Financial Sustainability

Raised: $84,460,164.81

Donor gifts increased the college’s unrestricted endowment funds and provided key support to the college through the �ֲ��ý Fund.

Donors gave $14 million in new unrestricted endowment, and increased their giving to the �ֲ��ý Fund by $1 million annually, from $6.5 million per year to $7.5 million.

Anna Landgren ’22, who graduated with a major in Chinese, showes off her diploma at Commencement on May 29, 2022. �ֲ��ý Campaign donors gave $84.5 million to build the college’s financial sustainability. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

Additional Gifts

Raised: $14,843,634.22

Donors gave an additional $14.8 million in gifts and pledges beyond the four specific priorities of the �ֲ��ý Campaign.

“Through their generosity and support, the �ֲ��ý community has generated valuable momentum for the college — a feeling of progress made, and of optimism for our future,” said Vice President for College Advancement Eric Foushée. A member of the �ֲ��ý advancement team since 2014, Foushée recently succeeded Sarah R. Pearson ’75, who retired June 30 following a decade of service as vice president.

“Sarah was the architect of the �ֲ��ý Campaign.” added Foushée. “Her strategic vision and expertise in structuring a fundraising effort of this scope and duration ensured the success of the campaign even in the face of a global pandemic. I am honored to continue to champion the mission of �ֲ��ý and build on our success.

“I also want to thank the members of the �ֲ��ý advancement team and colleagues across the campus who took up the work with great passion and diligence to present �ֲ��ý in the best and most authentic way to our donors and to ensure that their experiences were as positive, personal, and excellent as possible.”

Fireworks over Lake Andrews, Pettengill Hall, and historic Hathorn Hall during Reunion on June 10, 2022. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

�ֲ��ý announces updated total of $336 million for �ֲ��ý Campaign

�ֲ��ý News — Wed, 11 May 2022 15:50:00 +0000

The �ֲ��ý Campaign has reached a new total of $336 million in pledges and gifts, reported Vice President for College Advancement Sarah R. Pearson ’75 to the �ֲ��ý College Board of Trustees during the board’s recently concluded spring meeting on campus.

The campaign, which was announced publicly five years ago with the largest dollar goal in college history — $300 million — concludes on June 30, 2022. The most recent dollar update, announced in November, was $282 million.

“This is a tremendous moment of pride for �ֲ��ý and for our entire community,” said �ֲ��ý President Clayton Spencer. “Five years ago, we invited the �ֲ��ý community to embrace the college’s aspirations and hopes as their own. And they have.”

“The message from our community of donors is crystal clear. In return, I extend our deep appreciation and gratitude.”

She added, “Each and every gift from �ֲ��ý alumni, parents, friends, faculty, staff, and students has helped to strengthen the college. Today, �ֲ��ý is better resourced and equipped, on all fronts, to deliver a transformational educational experience and to widen the door of opportunity for talented students of any means. While the results of the campaign are not yet completely in, the message from our community of donors is crystal clear. In return, I extend our deep appreciation and gratitude.”

A major thrust of the �ֲ��ý Campaign is to strengthen the college’s need-based financial aid program to support student access and success throughout their �ֲ��ý experience. The campaign sought $75 million for its financial aid priority, Investing in Opportunity; donors gave nearly double that. (Josh Kuckens/�ֲ��ý College)

“To everyone who has contributed, in any way, to the continued success of the �ֲ��ý Campaign: thank you for your resolve, devotion, and generosity,” said Vice President for College Advancement Sarah Pearson ’75. “With six weeks still remaining until the campaign’s conclusion, I am confident that the �ֲ��ý community will continue to go above and beyond.”

She added, “I also wish to extend gratitude and appreciation to �ֲ��ý faculty, staff, and students who have provided their time and talent to communicate to our prospective donors why �ֲ��ý continues to be an amazing and invaluable place. Success feels wonderful; success achieved within the community we love is simply inspirational.”

Campaign Priorities

During the campaign, the college’s philanthropic needs were framed around four priorities: Driving Academic Excellence, including an equity-driven drive to improve STEM facilities and education; Investing in Opportunity, including strengthened support for need-based financial aid; Catalyzing Student Success, including leadership and student programs and Purposeful Work; and Building Financial Sustainability, including all annual gifts by alumni and parents to the �ֲ��ý Fund.

Announced publicly in 2017 with a goal of $300 million, the �ֲ��ý Campaign now totals $336 million with six weeks remaining until the campaign’s close on June 30, 2022.

The college has seen the following gifts and achievements during the �ֲ��ý Campaign:

$131 million in gifts for need-based financial aid, including endowment, highlighted by a recent challenge grant of $50 million to fuel an unprecedented $100 million expansion for students from America’s lowest-income families.
Funding of seven new endowed professorships.
$6 million to support Purposeful Work internships.
$10 million to initiate the college’s Digital and Computational Studies program.
The funding and opening of the new Bonney Science Center, part of a $75 million college investment to drive the evolution of science education at �ֲ��ý and part of a multifaceted effort to optimize STEM teaching and research at the college.
New records for total annual giving in four of the five years of the public phase of the campaign, including an all-time record $34.20 million in gifts in fiscal 2021.
Gifts and pledges from more than 19,000 �ֲ��ý donors.
$1 million growth — 15 percent in the annual �ֲ��ý Fund, from $6.5 million to $7.5 million.
$138 million for the college’s permanent endowment.

The funding and opening of the new Bonney Science Center in fall 2021 is part of a $75 million college investment to drive the evolution of science education at �ֲ��ý. (Photography courtesy of Payette)

In his Bonney office, Associate Professor of Physics Matt Côté (left) meets with two of his senior thesis students, Chris Dye (center) of Windham, Maine, and Seren Parikh of Bedford, Mass. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry Colleen O’Loughlin explains some new features in her Bonney laboratory to her student researchers on June 24, 2021. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College

During a lab session in Bonney, Assistant in Instruction Amy McDonough helps Allison Greuel ’23 of Freeport, Maine, adjust her microscope to examine a slide with Gram-stained specimens that she prepared. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

During a class session in October 2021 for the course “Advanced Topics in Inorganic Chemistry,” Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry Geneva Laurita used the expanse of whiteboard and a projector. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

The Campaign Co-Chairs

The campaign’s three co-chairs are Michael Bonney ’80, Geraldine FitzGerald ’75, and John Gillespie ’80. Each offered thoughts about the trajectory of the �ֲ��ý Campaign.

Bonney recalled how, five years ago, “we publicly announced the �ֲ��ý Campaign with great conviction, firm in our shared belief that �ֲ��ý and �ֲ��ý graduates can help meet the challenges facing our nation and world. Through the generosity of our community, we have renewed hope and belief that �ֲ��ý and �ֲ��ý people are, and always will be, contributors of solutions. We know that our college is capable of going above and beyond.”

He added, “Through the campaign, �ֲ��ý is now more able than ever to pursue innovation, to support our talented faculty, to provide greater access and support for students, and to teach them the habits of mind that are apropos for the world into which they are going to graduate and the challenges that we face.”

�ֲ��ý Campaign co-chairs, from left, Michael Bonney ’80, Geraldine FitzGerald ’75, and John Gillespie ’80 welcome guests to campaign kickoff event at the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum in New York City on May 18, 2017. (Ben Gabbe for �ֲ��ý College)

FitzGerald noted how, as an alumna approaching her 50th Reunion, “I should not be surprised that, once again, our community has powerfully come together during the �ֲ��ý Campaign. It is not surprising, but as always, simply amazing. When we kicked off the campaign five years ago, I knew that there was work ahead. But I also knew that as �ֲ��ý alumni, we would find joy in our striving together — because we believe in �ֲ��ý.”

Gillespie succeeded Bonney as chair of the �ֲ��ý Board of Trustees in 2019. He said, “At its core, the �ֲ��ý Campaign has been a call to action. As we said together, the time is now. The �ֲ��ý community heeded the call, and took action. The community has gone above and beyond that call to action — coming together to contribute $336 million to benefit �ֲ��ý.”

He added, “My experience on the board, and now as its chair, has created a proximate awareness that a successful �ֲ��ý Campaign depended in large part on significantly increasing the college’s endowment. Through the campaign, $137 million has been added to the endowment during the campaign — with time remaining in our effort. Success is at hand.”

Young Alumni Engagement

Seeking to more effectively engage all members of the college community during the campaign, �ֲ��ý joined a coalition of leading liberal arts colleges in 2019 on a national project to learn more about rates of giving among younger alumni. �ֲ��ý trustees Emma Sprague ’10 and David Longdon ’14 led the work to engage fellow young alumni in the project.

For Longdon, the takeaway of working on his first campaign was that “we not only have a shared identity as �ֲ��ý graduates, but also a shared commitment to providing a world class experience to future generations. Through the campaign, it’s been great to see this same commitment, whether in a new class of �ֲ��ý graduates through to alumni celebrating their 50th Reunion, and beyond.”

“Our young alumni are and will continue to be a big part of that journey.”

He added, “Equally important to the dollars contributed is the important signal of this common commitment — and the need for it to be sustained moving forward.”

For Sprague, the ongoing disruption from the global pandemic and other disruptive forces facing �ֲ��ý underscore how she and her fellow young alumni of the millennial generation view their philanthropic relationship with the college.

“Our young alumni see the forces of transformation that colleges are grappling with and are energized to imagine an inflection point for �ֲ��ý,” she said.

Members of the Class of 2009 march in the Reunion Alumni Parade on June 7, 2014. The �ֲ��ý Campaign has included an effort to better engage with millennial alumni, roughly corresponding to the classes of 2002 to 2017. (Jay Burns/�ֲ��ý College)

“This campaign has fundamentally shifted how we can define and create transformational �ֲ��ý experiences for students to come — and our young alumni are and will continue to be a big part of that journey.”

The college will present a full report of gifts to the �ֲ��ý Campaign following its close on June 30, 2022, with celebrations planned for the fall. Learn about various ways to give to �ֲ��ý College through the �ֲ��ý Campaign.

Campus Construction Update: Oct. 30, 2020

Doug Hubley — Thu, 29 Oct 2020 11:27:10 +0000

“Dance” is the word that members of the Bonney Science Center construction team like to use when they’re discussing the complex logistics of sustaining the building’s progress.

An example of that complexity was scheduled for this week, as technicians for the Finnish elevator manufacturer KONE were expected to start installing Bonney’s lift. The elevator won’t go into service until sometime next spring — but it needs to be installed now because progress on other fronts depends on it. Assembling the elevator could take up to a month.

It’s quite a two-step: Before drywall installers and painters can finish their work, �ֲ��ý project manager Chris Streifel explains, elevator doorframes and other components need to be in place. “That’s quite a bit of work when you’ve got five stops,” one of them being on the first floor, where the elevator will be able to open toward either the public lobby or service areas at the back of the building.

The east face of the Bonney Science Center seen from Campus Avenue on Oct. 22. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

Wearing stilts, a drywall “mud” applicator is at work on the second floor of the science center. Working in pairs, one on stilts and one not, these workers can work impressively fast. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

This first-floor corridor leads through a section of storerooms. The green stuff on the floor is sweeping compound. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

Masons and roofers at work on the south side of the science center on Oct. 22. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

Shown on the third floor of the science center, a steelworker uses a grinder to fit a component of the Monumental Stairs. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

The Monumental Stairs are shown through wall studs on the second floor. The steel steps will be topped with polished concrete stairtreads. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

Structural steel for the Monumental Stairs is nearly complete in this Oct. 22 view from Campus Avenue. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

An air duct and electrical conduits in the Bonney basement. Such conduits are typically bent by hand. Most of the people who’ll eventually work in the building, says construction administrator Jacob Kendall, will never see the artistry that goes into this kind of work. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

A pipefitter for Warren Mechanical makes connections to one of three air handlers in the Bonney center basement. Smallest of the three, this machine will serve the vivarium while the other two ventilate the remainder of the building. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

In this biochemistry classroom, the metal framework will form the basis of a counter where students will sit for lab briefings. Then they’ll go to their lab stations around the perimeter. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

Shown in the Bonney center penthouse, a welder prepares a section of stormwater drainpipe for joining. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

A first-floor lounge in the new science center serves for the moment as a storage area for wall insulation. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

The Bonney center basement is home to the vivarium, a section of which appears here. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

Maine Masonry bricklayers have staged some bricks at the Campus Avenue side of the science center. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

A southeastern view of the Bonney center taken on Oct. 27 by a time-lapse camera atop Chu Hall. (Chris Streifel/�ֲ��ý College)

Another do-si-do in the Bonney dance involves the strip of construction site adjacent to Campus Avenue. While bricklayers working for Maine Masonry have all but finished the east, south, and west sides of the building, that north side will have to wait (despite a few bricks that have been deceptively staged there in order to throw Campus Construction Update off the trail).

That’s because the local firm Gendron & Gendron, subcontractor for Bonney project site work, has begun implanting catch basins and other drainage features on that side, Streifel says. “Then there will be some foundation walls and slabs for the entrance,” he adds — concrete pads that underlie the finished approaches to the building. That will firm things up underfoot for accessing the science center.

After the north side, “they’ll move around the building and do that at all the entrances,” with the Nichols Street side next in line. Hopefully by that point, the coast will be clear to move the bricklayers and their Hydro-Mobile self-elevating staging around front, cha-cha-cha.

The opening in the poly weather shield reveals the steel structure in place to support the glass “curtain wall” of the Beacon, a signature feature of the Bonney building. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

With the Bonney dance floor getting mighty crowded, as Van McCoy might have said, construction management firm Consigli Construction has also laid on an evening shift for certain trades — notably the painters, who work for Portland, Maine–based Van De Graaf Painting Co. The second shift began on Oct. 5, and since then, in fact, the painters have worked only that shift.

“That’s a pretty big move that’s going to benefit the project in a couple of ways,” says Streifel. “One of them being just more efficiency,” as some trades, like the painters, are more productive when “they can really spread out and not feel like people are coming across their work area constantly.

And here’s the inside of the Beacon, with the weather shield reattached by the men in the lift seen at upper right. Silvery wall studs appear at left and the dark metal at right will support 30 glass panels. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

“And then, as we peak out on the number of people on site every day, to be able to give everybody some more distancing options is also a plus” from the standpoint of Consigli’s management of COVID safety protocols, Streifel adds. About 100 workers representing more than a dozen trades are on site these days, says �ֲ��ý construction administrator Jacob Kendall.

Even before the second shift was laid on, by the way, long days and six-day weeks were common for workers on the Bonney project.

Getting back to the north side, a vertical framework is in place to support the curtain wall of the Beacon, one of the building’s two signature features facing Campus Avenue. Subcontractor Oakes & Parkhurst of Augusta, Maine, is cutting each of the 30 glass panels to fit its specific location, and that glass should appear within a few weeks. And it’ll be hard to miss: With each panel measuring about 44 by 102 inches, the curtain wall will be 47 feet tall and 22 wide.

Autumn foliage is reflected in new windows on the Campus Avenue side of the Bonney Science Center. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

So what’s the second big feature on the north wall? (Or third, if you count those occasions when we have the official 8-foot Campus Construction Update stepladder set up in the roadway.) That’s the so-called Monumental Stairs, and there’s news there, too, as all of the structural steel is now in place for this dramatic spiral stairway.

And this too will be the location of an eye-catching glass curtain wall. “That’ll be the last major opening to be closed in,” rendering the building virtually weathertight, says Streifel. He estimates completion of that glass work by early December.

The Bonney interior remains a buzzing beehive. Mechanical work still dominates the basement and fourth-floor penthouse, where a coming attraction is the placement of a rubber-like membrane floor in the open well that houses an air chiller and an emergency generator.

In between top and bottom, the heavy action is now on the second and third floors — the continuing drive to hang and prime drywall, rough in utilities, etc. Not that the first floor is a ghost town, but it’s somewhat quieter and different trades are heading in — cable pullers for phone and data, tilers, flooring installers, and others.

Nearly all of the science center’s west side and most of the south were bricked up by the third week of October. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

Fitness al fresco: Meanwhile, across campus from the science center, two short-term projects have come to fruition in recent weeks.

Even before the coronavirus pandemic lent a new importance to outdoor activities, the college has been interested in expanding its facilities on that front. And now Athletics, the B Well health program, and Facility Services have teamed up to build an al fresco fitness park on a grassy patch between Underhill Arena and the Wallach Tennis Center.

Boasting five types of exercise infrastructure, the $65,000 park was begun on Sept. 9 and completed Oct. 16. Looking ahead during the summer to the start of school, “we knew that indoor fitness and recreational spaces would be limited” because of COVID-related guidelines for social distancing, explains Scott Lehmann, assistant director of athletics for facilities and recreation.

“We wanted to promote outdoor physical fitness opportunities as a means to support student, faculty, and staff well-being, and take advantage of the outdoor resources that we have on campus.”

A company called ActionFit supplied the workout stations: Pull-up bars and pushup bars, both in assorted heights; parallel bars; and for jumping, a “log hop” station and a set of plyometric steps in three heights.

The joint is jumping: During Oct. 21 workouts at �ֲ��ý’ new fitness park, Freddy Hohmann ’22 of Bonn, Germany, uses the log hop while Julia Middlebrook ’21 of Ridgefield, Conn., springs onto a plyometric step. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

“I’ve been a big user” of such facilities elsewhere, says Lehmann.

The park is a stop on the college’s Bobcat Fitness Trail. Anchored at Merrill Gym, this mile-long loop includes the Lake Andrews path on its course across campus and features six designated sites for various exercise breaks. And the fitness trail, Lehmann adds, is part of a larger network that Athletics and the B Well campus wellness program have collaborated on.

While the park is open to individuals now, “we do hope to do some programming there in the warmer months,” such as classes to introduce the exercise stations to new users.

The park is paved with rubber tiles 2 inches thick and 20 inches square. These serve three objectives, explains Paul Farnsworth, the Facility Services project manager who oversaw the project. First, the shock-absorbent rubber reduces the risk of injury in case of a fall. Second, with a couple of the workout stations being suitable for folks with mobility impairments, the tiles are ADA-compliant.

Finally, there simply needed to be some sort of solid surface on the site. “We didn’t want the fitness park to turn into a mud pit,” Farnsworth notes, adding that a substantial drainage system underlies the park. (And revealing to Campus Construction Update a fundamental problem with our own fitness facilities.) St. Laurent & Sons Excavation of Lewiston did the site work.

Each defying gravity in their own way, students work out at �ֲ��ý’ new fitness park on a damp October day. In the background is the Wallach Tennis Center. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

Not far away from the fitness park, members of the Facility Services grounds crew spent a recent week fixing a longstanding problem along the walkway to Merrill Gym. Led by Mike Fox, the team widened a long gravel strip that borders the gym wall and is intended to break the momentum of water cascading off the roof during storms. Such features, called drip edges, curtail the erosion of adjoining grass and the splashing of runoff-borne grime onto the gym wall.

The original drip edge “wasn’t working correctly,” explains Fox. So the grounds crew widened it by two feet, for a total of eight, and rebuilt the end of the drip edge by the gym entrance. They also regraded and reseeded the grass between the drip edge and the path. “If there’s no grass there to hold the soil in place, it gets washed away,” says Fox.

Merrill Gym looms over the newly widened gravel drip edge. At center is a new retaining wall built from salvaged granite curbing. Grass has been reseeded at right. (Jay Burns/�ֲ��ý College)

The rebuilt terminus of the drip edge by the Merrill entry is worth a close look. Removing some used granite curbstones from the �ֲ��ý storage center on Strawberry Avenue, Fox’s team used 30 linear feet of this hand-hewn stone to construct a retaining wall where the grass slopes down toward a catch basin.

“The granite pieces are 20 inches deep by 8 to 12 inches wide, and 9 feet long. So they’re huge pieces of stone,” Fox explains. “You only see 7 inches of it revealed, the other 13 inches is below grade, but that’s what’s holding up the end of the drip edge by the Merrill entry.” He adds that this is a pilot project for improving drip edges at buildings all across campus.

Can we talk? Campus Construction Update welcomes queries and comments about current, past, future, and aspirational construction at �ֲ��ý. Write to dhubley@bates.edu, putting “Campus Construction” or “Shouldn’t that be spelled ‘drippage’?” in the subject line.

�ֲ��ý College announces record $33.7 million in total gifts for fiscal 2020

�ֲ��ý News — Thu, 01 Oct 2020 20:31:57 +0000

More than 10,700 �ֲ��ý alumni, parents, and friends contributed a record $33.7 million to the college during the fiscal year ending June 30.

As reported in college’s annual Report of Giving, the overall gift total in fiscal 2020 is the second straight record-breaking annual total. Since 2013, annual gifts to �ֲ��ý have nearly tripled, from $12 million to this year’s total.

“Every year, it is inspiring to experience the philanthropic commitment displayed by the �ֲ��ý community,” said Vice President for College Advancement Sarah R. Pearson ’75. “Especially now, during a time that continues to challenge us all, the generosity of alumni, parents, and friends, coupled with the outstanding work of so many �ֲ��ý volunteers, has been humbling — and nothing short of astonishing. This spirit of generosity is a hallmark of the �ֲ��ý community.”

As �ֲ��ý gets back to in-person learning in September, Assistant Professor of Biology Carla Essenberg (left) teaches her First-Year Seminar, “Nature Through Human Eyes,” at Keigwin Amphitheater, asking her students to observe Lake Andrews area and make written observations. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

President Clayton Spencer said, “With �ֲ��ý facing multiple challenges on multiple fronts, and especially this fall with our faculty and staff working diligently to meet our core obligations to �ֲ��ý students, it is deeply gratifying that our alumni, parents, and friends have come together to support �ֲ��ý College in record-setting fashion.”

She added, “Every day, �ֲ��ý is helping students gain the skills and knowledge they need to help solve the wicked problems we are up against. I thank our donors for stepping up yet again to support our mission and fuel our work to address today’s needs while growing stronger and more vital in the years ahead.”

Highlights from the giving year:

$33,704,979 total dollars, a record.
$7,340,298 to the �ֲ��ý Fund, also a record, including $885,738 to Friends of �ֲ��ý Athletics.
$2,145,755 to the Parents Fund, an all-time high.
$1 million from 4,583 donors, both all-time highs, during the college’s annual giving day, Great Day to Be a Bobcat, rescheduled from March to May.
$258,000 during the annual Friends of �ֲ��ý Athletics Giving Challenge in May, nearly $70,000 more than last year’s inaugural challenge despite occurring after a canceled spring sports season.

Back at �ֲ��ý at last: In August, Orientation week leaders Jackie Tam ’22 of Gardena, Calif., and Aaliyah Black ’22 of Auburn, N.H., greet students and families arriving in front of Wentworth Adams Hall. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

Gifts in fiscal 2020 supported both short-term needs as well as long-range priorities as reflected in the ongoing �ֲ��ý Campaign, which through late September has raised $245 million in gifts and pledges toward a goal of $300 million.

To date, donors to the campaign have committed over $95 million to the college endowment, including $12.9 million given this past year.

As Part of Our Thanks…

There’s still time to experience the cornucopia of virtual Back@�ֲ��ý offering today and tomorrow. Free registration gives you , from student-life insights and faculty and alumni expertise to Dining Services recipes, alumni awards, and remarks from President Spencer.

As part of the campaign goal to grow the endowment, gifts and pledges totaling $53 million have been made to support financial aid, including $9 million during 2020. An anonymous challenge of $5 million matches gifts of $50,000 and above and helps families create named endowed financial aid funds.

These funds support the college’s policy of meeting the full financial need of all students while keeping total loan debt low, currently less than half the national average.

Adhering to college COVID-19 protocols including distancing and face covering, head rowing coach Peter Steenstra supervises an erg workout by the varsity team outside Merrill Gym. They hit the machines for an hour at 6 a.m. twice weekly. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

Meanwhile, gifts to Purposeful Work helped to support expanded internship funding for graduating seniors for the first time in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This year’s senior cohort made up 25 percent of the internship funding recipients.

Donors also responded to immediate needs arising from the emerging pandemic. As �ֲ��ý transitioned to remote learning in March, alumni, parents, and friends contributed $512,000 to the COVID-19 Emergency Fund to underwrite expenses of students, faculty, and academic programs, including need-based travel grants to students and significant upgrades in remote-learning technology.

The college’s current giving year extends through June 30, 2021.

Departing campus in March due to the pandemic, students wait to board a bus outside Chase Hall. Donors gave more than $500,000 to help offset travel costs incurred by students and to support faculty and academic programs during the transition to remote learning in March. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

�ֲ��ý biologist April Hill is part of first genome sequencing of a freshwater sponge

Mary Pols — Fri, 25 Sep 2020 14:42:25 +0000

Not long after arriving at �ֲ��ý to teach biology, Professor April Hill took a map, drew a circle with a 50-mile radius around Lewiston and the college, and gave Gavin Chen ’20, then a junior biology major, directions on how to start looking for sponges within that area. Rivers, lakes, anywhere with moving freshwater.

The evolutionary developmental geneticist was then nearly a decade into a research project with scientists around the world, studying Ephydatia muelleri, a freshwater sponge found throughout the Northern Hemisphere.

The group was working on the first chromosomal-level genome sequencing of the sponge, a goal they reached in July, with Hill serving as one of 17 authors of a . “It’s a big culminating work for our group,” she said.

What makes this sponge special is its very common nature: It’s pancontinental. “It’s got this commonality to it where people can work on it all around the world,” Hill said. A Swedish E. muelleri is the same as a Chinese E. muelleri or an Androscoggin River E. muelleri. In learning more about this animal’s lineage and sharing that genome, Hill and her colleagues want to elevate it as a model animal for studying adaptations.

This example of a freshwater sponge, Ephydatia muelleri, was photographed in the Sooke River of Vancouver Island in 2016 by Sally Leys, senior author of the recent study on the sponge genome published in Nature Communications.

They’ve mapped how the sponge has changed over time to adapt to (and survive) its environment; that model can then be applied to research around human health and maintaining clean freshwater sources. Sponges are by no means exactly like us — for one thing, they often have symbiotic relationships with organisms like green algae, living inside their cells, conducting photosynthesis, and simultaneously feeding sugars to the sponge. But they can be related to us.

“They’re biomedically relevant,” said Hill, the college’s inaugural Wagener Family Professor of Equity and Inclusion in STEM. “And they’re also ecologically important. If you think about the environment or care about climate change, they are important organisms for us to pay attention to.” One of her main inquiries has focused on how genetic pathways are conserved — used and reused by different animals— over the course of evolution.

In 2019, Wagener Professor of Equity and Inclusion in STEM April Hill works with Jasmine Nutakki ’21 of Augusta, Maine, who is learning a technique called the polymerase chain reaction to “amplify” genes, or make copies of them, from freshwater sponges. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

But in those early days at �ֲ��ý after leaving the University of Richmond, where she had chaired the biology department, Hill needed some fresh samples. She was confident that Chen, who had taken a research position for Short Term, could find them, since they are prevalent worldwide.

But he would have to put on his waders — as a recreational fly fisherman, not a problem — and plunge his hand into Maine’s spring waters to turn over rocks, looking on their bottoms for creatures that have been living, and evolving, on Earth for some 600 to 800 million years.

Her advice to the average sponge hunter? She’d tell them to keep an eye out for the prime consumer and spreader of sponges worldwide, waterfowl. “Go downstream of duck butts,” is the phrase she and her colleagues use.

Which Chen did. “It was difficult at first,” he said. “Freshwater sponges don’t look like a lot in the spring.”

“I made some mistakes along the way,” he said. Like the times he brought back dirt. “I would be like, ‘April, I think this a sponge’ and she would look at it and say, ‘You were close but this is dirt.’”

In 2019, Gavin Chen ’20 (center) works with fellow students Joseph Ho ’20 (left) and Brianna Karboski ’21 (right) in a class on biomimetics, the study of how living beings inspire human-designed objects. Here, they test 3D printed models of grooming brushes inspired by cat tongues. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

It’s not an unreasonable confusion, dirt and sponges. Over winter, sponges go into a sort of hibernation. They’ll make, Hill said, “a decision and most of their cells will die except their stem cells. They have stem cells just like we have stem cells. And they’ll form these little bitty balls. We call them gemmules and they’ll secrete antifreeze proteins to cover all the stem cells.” Hill has “thousands of gemmules in the refrigerator” (in her lab at �ֲ��ý). When she wants to work with them, she thaws them out and they’ll grow into a sponge.

“This is what I mean by adaptations,” Hill said. “It’s really cool. Like, if we got really cold, we’re gone, right?” But not the sponge.

She’s also used the sponges in classes, including in the new introductory course, “Lab-Based Biological Inquiry,” that aims to plunge first years and sophomores right into research on various topics. Regardless of the topic, “What we teach students is, How do biologists ask questions? How do they plan experiments?” And then the students put that to practical use.

In her offering of the course last year, looking at symbiotic microalgae, “the students actually worked with both the sponges and the algae.” They cultured the algae to see if any of them made antibiotic compounds. They also did a simulated climate change experiment. (One of the features of freshwater sponges is that they have survived extreme conditions over time, Hill said.)

There’s a lot more potential research in that area, she said. While ocean organisms and their susceptibility to death and degradation due to climate change have been studied extensively, not much is known about freshwater ecosystems. “No one has really asked that question yet,” Hill said. “Like what happens if our fresh waters are polluted or heating up because of climate change?” It’s not just about the impact on how clean the water would be, but also on the fish life within.

A freshwater sponge, Ephydatia muelleri with showing the tiny buds, called gemmules, that aid in a sponge’s remarkable ability to withstand winter. (Photograph by Sally Leys)

That sponges even live in freshwater surprises many. “Most people think of sponges in the ocean,” Hill said. (She works on those too.) But what may seem obscure to some has proved good research material for �ֲ��ý students. “It is definitely something that students have enjoyed working on,” Hill said.

Like Chen, who has fond memories of that Short Term he spent hunting sponges in Maine waterways and plugging what he’d find there into an Excel spreadsheet. (Lake Andrews? Not spongeworthy.)

Sometimes he encountered people who wanted to know what he was up to. “They would look at me a little funny,” he said. He discovered that water flow made a big difference in what he’d find. Too fast? Nothing. Ditto for too slow. He found a treasure trove of sponges near Sabattus. “When I started flipping over rocks, there were just sponges everywhere,” he said.

Back at the lab with Hill, he learned to isolate the DNA of the sponge and do species identification. Chen, who is working as a dental assistant while he waits to hear back from dental schools, said the project gave him new perspective. “It has changed my view,” he said. “I look at a river and think, there could be something in there.”

Campus Construction Update: Sept. 25, 2020

Doug Hubley — Thu, 24 Sep 2020 13:05:26 +0000

During the second week of September, the folks involved in creating �ֲ��ý’ new Veterans Plaza met at the site to review punch-list items, the inevitable fixes needed at the end of any construction project.

Afterward, Facility Services project manager Shelby Burgau paused by one of the plaza’s new benches to tie her shoe. She then decided to take a quick break in that tree-screened plot near the Residential Village.

Veterans Plaza in the early morning, with the flags of Garcelon Field in the background. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

“I thought, ‘Hey, this is really nice,’” says Burgau. While the plaza was built as a place to contemplate the impacts of war and honor the service of �ֲ��ý’ military veterans, she notes, its comforts stand on their own.

“But if you’re going for those purposes, I think we met the goal — especially,” she adds, “once the trees become fuller and give a little bit more privacy. Right now, obviously, they’re still young. But it’ll just become more of an oasis over the years.”

In early August, the two elements that really define the site were placed: the focal object, which is a sculptural centerpiece combining natural and polished basalt, and a steel marker designating the plaza entrance. The construction fence surrounding the site came down at the end of the month.

A passer-by enjoys Veterans Plaza early one morning. The marker designating the site is in the foreground and the low stone piece between two benches is a basalt sculpture designed to promote focus and contemplation. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

The plaza will be dedicated at 11 a.m. Friday, Oct. 9, in a virtual ceremony whose speakers will include U.S. Navy Capt. J.J. Cummings ’89, commander of the world’s largest aircraft carrier, USS Gerald R. Ford; and U.S. Rep. Jared Golden ’11, who served with the U.S. Marine Corps in Iraq and Afghanistan. To register for this Zoom event, .

Room to run: It could be the title of a song that Bruce Springsteen didn’t quite write. But instead, says �ֲ��ý project manager Chris Streifel, “‘room to run’ is kind of the catchphrase of the last month or so” at the Bonney Science Center construction site.

Placing a DensDeck roof panel over temporary weatherproofing (at left) on Sept. 22. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

“There’s this intricate dance amongst all of the exterior work,” he explains. Making room to run is “just basically clearing space so that each individual trade can do their own work unencumbered, unimpeded.”

From the top down, that exterior work includes:

roofing, notably the fabrication of Bonney’s elaborate gutter system;
application of weatherproofing membranes, although that job is about done;
installation of window units, followed by glass;
and bricklaying, including the attachment of major steel components to support the brick.

Shown on Sept. 22, newly laid brick now covers more than half of the south wall of the Bonney Science Center. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

So “when the masons are going to a certain area of the building,” for example, there shouldn’t be “work overhead that’s complicating it, making it dangerous, or just creating conflicts,” Streifel says.

For Consigli Construction, the firm that’s managing the building of the science center, “looking ahead and keeping all those different pieces aligned is the biggest trick, I think — orchestrating those moves so that everybody has work to do consistently. It can be a little tricky given how tight” quarters are on the site.

New window glass in the Bardwell Street wall of the science center is surrounded by blueskin moisture barrier and burgundy-colored undercoating. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

Consigli’s planning, Streifel adds, “is a collective function. There are regular meetings to talk schedule and logistics, and to understand how things have to come together so everybody’s moving in the same direction. And everybody has an opportunity to voice their opinions.” That being said, the day-to-day direction falls to Consigli’s Lee Follett, project superintendent, and Matt Rose, executive field supervisor.

So what’s up with the roof? As we’ve previously noted, the Bonney lid is a complex design that ultimately will be topped with a charcoal-gray copper product. Now visible on the roof are weatherproofing membrane and DensDeck roofing panels, both medium gray, and plywood-colored plywood. But soon the dark copper will appear along the gutters.

Shown on Sept. 22, the Monumental Stairs have reached the Bonney center’s second floor. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

“We’re getting close,” Streifel says. “They’re working through some issues on the corner near Bardwell Street that are giving them pause, to make sure that everything is understood, just because of how specialized, intricate, and challenging that work will be. But I hope to see some copper on there very soon.”

As for windows, the Bonney center will have two varieties. One is the floor-to-ceiling style that, repeated in quantity along all four walls, will someday dazzle students and faculty with generous views. For those, all the steel frames and panes have arrived at the construction site, and at least half of the frames have been installed.

This view of the Historic Quad from a third-floor classroom is temporary, as a wall will block it. But the opposing wall will be glass and afford an eastward perspective on Campus Avenue. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

Better still, installation of the glass has begun, its reflections and refractions giving passers-by a frisson of new visual interest (at least until the windows are temporarily covered with protective foam panels). When we visited on Sept. 22, window glass was evident on the Bardwell Street and Campus Avenue sides, and around the corner on the south wall.

We were interested to learn that although these are all essentially the same window, the frame and glass are custom-fitted to each window opening, thanks to subtle, unavoidable size variations from one opening to the next.

The other type of Bonney window is what industry folks call a curtain wall and what we call something that we wouldn’t want to wash, because those windows are just plain big. Affording dramatic views both inward and out, Bonney will sport a few of these glassy expanses. (Which leads one to wonder why “curtain wall” became the name of this configuration, since both curtains and walls block the view.)

Paint and drywall are forming rooms and hallways from empty space. The opening to the left of the doorframe will hold a glass insert. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

One, spanning three stories, will enclose the so-called Monumental Stairs that face Carnegie Science Hall. A third-floor classroom will have a glass wall facing east. And then there’s the signature Beacon, sited at the northwest end of the building and overlooking the Historic Quad and Campus Construction Update’s usual parking place.

With the Monumental Stairs still being built, the Beacon will come first. Its frame is being fabricated now, with the metal components resembling the floor-to-ceiling frames.

Insider trades: In the basement, those bus-sized air handlers have been tested and were due for inspection this week, although they won’t actually start huffing and puffing in earnest till next year. Metalworkers are nearly done fabricating air ducts, and electrical and mechanical technicians are still running their pipes and conduits from here to there. Similar work continues on the fourth floor, the so-called penthouse that like the basement is jam-packed with big machines serving the entire building.

A first-floor lobby in the science center. Notice, at upper left, the gray acoustic treatment on beams and pipes. It will remain visible as a decor element. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

In between are floors one through three, and they’re following, more or the less, the same progression. All the mechanical, electrical, and plumbing infrastructure that needs to be placed up high, snug against the decking above, is installed first. (Pros call it MEP, pronounced M-E-P — as opposed to “mep” infrastructure, which is fine but nothing to get excited about.)

“Then that stuff gets sprayed with acoustical soundproofing or fireproofing, depending on where you’re at in the building,” Streifel explains. “Then the walls go in, and then the drywall tops go around all the upper big infrastructure.” Next comes the in-wall MEP stuff — cables and conduits and pipes, oh my! — and those are installed while a given wall still has one side open for access. Then MEP infrastructure is run into the ceilings.

The first floor is ahead of the second and third. There, MEP crews are finishing up ceiling installations. The bigger news is that painters have arrived — that is, drywall installers have made enough progress that there are walls ready to prime, and in fact there are now discernible offices, storerooms, and corridors.

Applying “blueskin” moisture barrier on the Bardwell Street side of the Bonney building. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

On the second floor, the focus is on hanging drywall, but enough progress has been made with MEP rough-ins, and their accompanying inspections, that the drywall crews are closing up both sides of walls started previously. And on the third floor, the in-wall MEP is getting underway.

In short, to quote Fats Waller, the joint is jumping. Streifel describes a Sept. 16 visit to the science center: “It felt busy. ‘Commotion’ is almost the right word. There was a lot of action. I was mostly on the second and third floors, and you didn’t even have to really see it — you could just kind of feel progress being made inside.

“It was really encouraging.”

Can we talk? Campus Construction Update welcomes queries and comments about current, past, future, and aspirational construction at �ֲ��ý. Write to dhubley@bates.edu, putting “Campus Construction” or “Brrr, it’s frisson in here” in the subject line.

Doug Hubley is a writer and musician living in Portland, Maine.

Members of the construction team are reflected in new window glass stored behind the science center. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

Campus Construction Update: July 17, 2020

Doug Hubley — Thu, 16 Jul 2020 12:42:05 +0000

We were loafing on Bardwell Street on Monday when we spied a flatbed truck bearing the Maine Masonry logo.

A forklift operator was nearly done unloading the truck, which had brought to the Bonney Science Center site the first installment of the self-elevating Hydro Mobile staging that masons will stand on as they cover the science center’s walls in brick — work likely to be underway by next week.

As applicators for Standard Waterproofing of Winslow, Maine, go around the building laying “blueskin” air and vapor barrier onto the bare concrete walls, the Maine Masonry bricklayers will follow. That means that the bricks will first appear on the south wall, facing downtown Lewiston.

Shown being unloaded by a forklift, components for the Hydro Mobile staging — so-called mast-climbing work platforms that are hydraulically raised and lowered — showed up on July 13. They were delivered by Maine Masonry, which will use them for bricklaying. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

Seen from the third floor of Chu Hall, this July 10 view of the Bonney Science Center shows completed roof decking and, on the south wall, blueskin vapor barrier being applied. (Geoff Swift/�ֲ��ý College)

This July 10 view from Campus Avenue at Nichols Street shows the progress of blueskin application around the Bonney center. (Geoff Swift/�ֲ��ý College)

Roofers applying a temporary weather barrier on the south side of the science center. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

A roofing crew applies a temporary weatherproofing membrane over the Bonney center roof decking. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

Bare metal roof decking on the Bonney Science Center is visible at the center of this photo. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

Electrofusion in action: The glowing light indicates that an electrical current is causing the pipe threads in this connection to melt and fuse together. The blue pipes, made from an acid-proof plastic, are part of a system that will convey chemical lab waste to a holding tank. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

Preparing to cut a hole for a conduit on the first floor of the science center. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

The Bonney Science Center elevator shaft, shown on the first floor. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

Wall framers at work in the Bonney Center penthouse on July 13. The area at left, which will contain a generator and air chillers, will remain open to the elements, while the rest of this fourth-floor space will be enclosed. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

Foreshortened by the camera but extending to the corner of the roof by Nichols Street, this temporary plywood installation gives a sense of where the north-side gutter will run. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

Looking east on Campus Avenue from the Bonney center penthouse. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

The Bonney Science Center seen from Campus Avenue on July 13. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

Coming attractions, or the Bonney center’s north wall. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

This is exciting in part because of the visual effect that a spreading veneer of brick creates. If you hang around the Bonney site as much as Campus Construction Update does (it keeps us out of trouble), you’ll see that the bricks will bring the building a long way toward its final appearance. As an interesting corollary, the building will appear to shrink a bit even as the bricks actually, if only slightly, increase its size. This is because bricks, being darker than concrete, are visually more recessive.

Another notable process happening now relates to a standing goal in the construction of buildings, which is to make them weatherproof as soon as possible. (In fact, studies have shown that the desire to get in out of the rain was a major driver in the invention of buildings.) To that end, a temporary rainproof membrane is being applied to the shiny steel Bonney roof decking, which itself was completed in late June.

Likewise weather-related and occurring high in the air is the start of gutter construction. Normally we strive to keep our mind out of the gutter, but as an object of contemplation the Bonney center’s stormwater gutters beat the Frederick’s of Hollywood catalog all hollow. They constitute, in fact, a building system surprising in its intricacy and inventiveness.

When Bonney construction is finished, about a year hence, the gutters won’t be apparent. That is, they will not project out from the roof’s edge as one would expect. Instead, the gutter will be a channel set back slightly from the roof edge, so as to gather water flowing down from the roof peaks as well as from the narrow rim that’s outboard of the gutter. The edge of that rim will sit flush with the surface of the exterior wall.

Drainpipes will conduct the runoff to the building’s stormwater treatment system. Electric heat mats in the gutter troughs will melt ice and snow. Layers of insulation, copper, and water barrier will accomplish other feats that we’re still trying to comprehend.

In short, constructing the gutters will demand a complex choreography of multiple visits from several building trades — carpenters, plumbers, insulation installers, metalworkers, etc. — a choreography taking place, don’t forget, in cherry pickers four stories up. (Suddenly we regret all the little trees growing from our own rain gutters.)

Chris Streifel, �ֲ��ý project manager for the Bonney Science Center, points out that in its sophistication, the gutter is consistent with the greater roof (and building) design. Aside from one flat and level section at the very top of the building that will be covered with a rubbery membrane, the building’s lid comprises a mix of pitches and orientations.

“The biggest challenge on the building’s exterior for the construction team, I think, is working those gutter details,” Streifel says. “But then there’s a lot to the overall roof. There’s nothing particularly unique about the materials — it’s just the way that the forms and details come together with almost zero repetition.”

Providing visual unity is the roof covering, a copper product that will arrive “pre-weathered” to an attractive dark color and will be laid in a standing-seam format. Made by Revere Copper Products and called “Continental Bronze,” this material is already known to �ֲ��ý roofing aficionados from the renovation of Hedge and Roger Williams halls a decade ago.

This January 2011 image shows Revere Copper’s “Continental Bronze” cladding newly installed on the roof and dormers of Hedge Hall. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

Top to bottom: Inside the Bonney center, there’s a certain urgency to the progress in the uppermost story — the so-called penthouse — and the basement, which both house various major electrical and mechanical components.

“There are matched-pair systems at the bottom and in the top that all have to be completed to make the whole building work,” HVAC being a prominent example, Streifel says. “A critical aspect of work will be getting those systems in place, and then in the spaces between, everything else can go in.”

With the roof decked over, “the penthouse now is available as a work space, so they’ve directed a lot of the wall framing crew up there. The priority now is to close in the walls around the mechanical well” — an area open to the sky where a generator and other gizmos will live — “and a couple of other locations.”

Streifel adds, “A parapet runs along the perimeter of the flat roof and that needs to be built to finish up the membrane and terminate the flat roof. The flat roof will be one of the first actual roofing products that goes on that’ll stay,” in contrast to the temporary membrane being applied to the pitched roof.

The wall framers are also focusing on the window openings to “make sure that all of those areas are framed so that the waterproofing and frame installation can continue.”

In the basement, there are two areas of emphasis, one related to building-wide mechanical-electrical-etc. and the other, not so much. The latter is wall and ceiling construction in the vivarium. The former “is just the steady progression of adding more and more pipe, wire, and controls that service all of the HVAC, electrical, and plumbing equipment” in the jam-packed mechanical area, Streifel explains.

“That’ll be a steady progression from coarse to fine over months until that equipment’s ready to be started up — October, November, or December. It won’t all happen at once, either.”

So what’s shaking in between the top and bottom? Progress is deliberately slow on the third floor, because the building still isn’t completely weathertight and the third floor serves as something of a shield for the floors below. The first floor is ahead of the second floor (not that it’s a race, but would anyone like to get into a pool?), but otherwise the chores there are fundamentally the same: installing walls and utilities.

With the utilities in particular, Streifel explains, from week to week it’s “sometimes hard to see much difference because it kind of all looks the same. But if you pay attention, you can see just how much more there is in the walls and overhead.” He adds, “What the mechanical and electrical people are focused on now is all of that infrastructure behind the walls and above the ceilings.”

Preparing to cut a hole for a conduit on the first floor of the science center. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

In other Bonney news, the building’s dedicated electrical transformer was energized on June 25, a job that entailed darkening Chu Hall for the day. While the switchgear inside Bonney isn’t quite ready to receive juice from the transformer, “that’s a pretty big milestone” nevertheless, Streifel says. It means that major electrical work can take place without affecting other campus operations.

Finally, he reports that the first shipment of steel has arrived for what the construction team calls the “monumental stair,” a prominent architectural feature that will be showcased behind a three-story glass curtain wall. But more about that later.

Can we talk? Campus Construction Update welcomes queries and comments about current, past, future, and aspirational construction at �ֲ��ý. Write to hubley.ccu@gmail.com, putting “Campus Construction” or “Frederick’s of wha’?” in the subject line.

Doug Hubley is a writer and musician living in Portland, Maine.

Campus Construction Update: June 19, 2020

Doug Hubley — Fri, 19 Jun 2020 12:08:58 +0000

Sometimes a celebration is just a party, a little event that’s nice but nevertheless removed from the greater scheme of things.

And sometimes it’s more — as in the case of the “topping-off” that brought a few dozen people to the Bonney Science Center construction site on June 16.

Produced by Theophil Syslo with additional video by Michelle Holbrook-Pronovost and H. Jay Burns.

In a typical topping-off, harking back to medieval Scandinavian tradition, an evergreen branch or tree is mounted to the girder (or brick or wooden beam) whose placement will end one chapter in a construction project and begin the next. The idea is to bring good luck to the new building, and maybe some public recognition to the folks involved.

The Bonney topping-off, though, had a symbolic or at least emotional heft out of proportion to the little tree, lent by Facility Services, that was mounted on the girder that would complete the facility’s steel frame. For one thing, it was the first time some participants, including Campus Construction Update, had seen �ֲ��ý colleagues in the (appropriately covered and distanced) flesh since COVID-19 had descended three months ago.

Dave Thomas of Consigli Construction signs the final piece of structural steel for the Bonney Science Center. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

But the greater scheme of things relating to the event was explicated in remarks by Michael Bonney ’80, who with Alison Grott ’80, his wife, made the lead gift for the science center three years ago.

“It is our sincere hope that for the decades to come, the students and faculty who come through [the science center] include the folks who figure out how to deal with our most vexing problems,” said Michael, who retired from the �ֲ��ý Board of Trustees in 2019 after 17 years as a trustee and nine years as chair.

He named just three problems, but those were enough: “Climate change. The assault on humanity by viruses, and microbes more broadly. And frankly, because this center is located in this campus and our history, also social justice. Because the kids who come through here will have to go through all these other buildings” — Bonney pointed toward the central campus — “and think about the world differently.”

Michael Bonney ’80 greets a friend just before the June 16 topping-off celebration for the Bonney Science Center. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

President Clayton Spencer offers a few remarks to begin the June 16 Bonney Science Center topping-off event. At left are lead project donors Michael Bonney ’80 and Alison Grott Bonney ’80. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

Dave Thomas of Consigli Construction signs the final piece of structural steel for the Bonney Science Center. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

Wearing its ceremonial evergreen, the final beam is maneuvered by crane toward the Bonney Center. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

�ֲ��ý project manager Chris Streifel, left, and college treasurer Geoff Swift watch as the beam approaches its destiny. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

Steelworkers and other members of the Bonney construction crew observe the topping-off event from a shady spot by the building. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

A steelworker keeps his eye on the approaching beam. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

Receiving the beam. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

A steelworker guides the beam into place at one end. (Jay Burns/�ֲ��ý College)

Bolts will be snug-tightened to keep the steel in place, and the connection will be torqued to specifications later. (Jay Burns/�ֲ��ý College)

Signatures on the beam, now set in place. (Jay Burns/�ֲ��ý College)

Alison Grott Bonney ’80 and Michael Bonney ’80 applaud as the installation of the final piece of steel is completed. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

Against the backdrop of vexing problems, the topping-off itself was a reassuring example of something done not just right but elegantly. After the remarks by Bonney and �ֲ��ý President Clayton Spencer, the beam was signed by event participants — Spencer and other �ֲ��ý people, representatives of project management firm Consigli Construction, and folks from architecture firm Payette, which designed the Bonney building.

And then a telescoping-boom Terex crane hoisted the beam to its destiny, a point on the building front over what will be an eye-catching glass-walled stairway.

Crane operator Roger Robbins of American Aerial Services fired up the Terex around 3:21 p.m. At 3:35, steelworker Lisandro Bonilla of Precision Steel concluded the topping-off, to applause, by sliding down a different beam and unfastening the lift line from the new one.

In between, Robbins floated the beam along Campus Avenue toward Bonilla and other steelworkers, who guided it home and snug-tightened bolts to hold it in place. (Torquing the girder to design specs came later.)

From left, Consigli carpenter Chad Chalmers and job site foreman Shannon Kenney attach the ceremonial evergreen to the topping-off beam. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

In all, pretty neat. “They did two dry runs,” noted Jacob Kendall, �ֲ��ý construction administrator for the project. We were glad we wore a necktie.

President Spencer had opened the Topping-Off Celebration (a small gathering because of COVID-19 constraints on attendance) with a quick address. “This is an enormous gift and we are so grateful,” she told the Bonneys. “And it is so cool to see it rising out of the ground and now heading toward the sky.”

She said, “If ever there were a time when we actually know we need science, and intensive research, and informed expertise, that would be right now. So the timing of this is impeccable.”

In Vierendeel we truss: The topping-off recognized the completion of the center’s essential construction, and in so doing also marked the halfway point, more or less, of progress at the building site. Construction itself will be done in about a year, but it will take plenty more work to ready the facility for its scheduled August 2021 opening.

Meanwhile, back here in 2020, there’s still a bit of steelwork outstanding — placing some components, completing roof decking, truing up connections and tightening them to specification. “We’d love to just be able to put the very last beam in and say, ‘Hey, that’s it!’ But that’s not how it usually works out,” explains Chris Streifel, the �ֲ��ý project manager for the Bonney center.

Gray turns to blue: “Blueskin” weatherproofing application has begun. Bricks will follow. Note the opening for the building entrance at center: The wall above it functions as a so-called vierendeel truss. (Geoff Swift/�ֲ��ý College)

About two hours before the event, here’s the location of the final beam for the Bonney Science Center, placed on June 16 at the topping-off celebration: The beam will slant from the flanges at top center to the junction of steel and concrete toward the bottom. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

On June 12, a steelworker perched on a just-placed beam looks to a co-worker for a signal. (Geoff Swift/�ֲ��ý College)

Tending to fourth-story concrete on June 5. (Geoff Swift/�ֲ��ý College)

The pumper is standing by to place wall concrete and Consigli employees are in position at the top of the wall forms in this June 5 view. (Geoff Swift/�ֲ��ý College)

Building walls and running utilities on the first floor of the Bonney Science Center. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

From right to left, the Bonney Science Center, Chu Hall and Kalperis Hall are shown from the edge of the Historic Quad. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

A welder fastens steel roof decking into place on June 8. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

Galvanized for protection against the weather, these beams on an exposed section of the Bonney center penthouse floor will support a chiller and a generator. (Doug Hubley�ֲ��ý College)

An HVAC exhaust unit recently hoisted to the Bonney center penthouse. The plastic helps keep dust and debris out of the works. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

Steelworkers confer atop the roof decking. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

Jacob Kendall, �ֲ��ý construction administrator for the Bonney project, surveys the fourth floor — aka the penthouse — on May 20. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College

Another June 16 view of the penthouse. The elevator shaft will rise between the tented area and the skylight at left. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

Blueskin on the western wall of the Bonney center. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

How do you get the ’crete to hold those pointy contours? The science center seen from Campus Avenue on May 20. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

If Tuesday’s celebration was “the formal recognition of the completion of the structure,” he says, “the actual completion of the structure should be next week when the steel effort demobilizes and the concrete crew demobilizes. That will be huge.”

The end of the structural steel and concrete phase, incidentally, activates an invisible but essential function of the Bonney building’s south face. We’ve told you how steel and concrete walls, floors, and load-bearing columns interact to carry the building’s weight down to the foundation and distribute other stresses.

But in the middle of that south wall at ground level is a 50-foot opening that will become a building entrance. That represents a break in the stress-bearing capacity of the wall, compensated now with temporary steel supports in the basement and in that future entrance. And the final steel and concrete placements bring to fruition a surprising load-bearing system centered on the wall itself: Specially supported from both sides and the roof framework, the wall becomes a so-called vierendeel truss.

Named for the Belgian engineer who confounded peers by designing a truss with no diagonal forms, which are what make a truss a truss, the vierendeel concept comprises rectangular forms designed to resist stresses. The rectangles in this case of the Bonney center are…the windows.

The pumper is standing by to place wall concrete and Consigli employees are in position at the top of the wall forms in this June 5 view. Note the opening at ground level: A future building entrance, this space is temporarily filled with steel supports that will be removed when the vierendeel truss is ready to carry the weight. (Geoff Swift/�ֲ��ý College)

“The concrete itself is the vierendeel truss, but it relies on the steel framing, structural slabs, and roof deck for additional strength and stability,” explained Julia Hogroian and Michael Tecci, engineers working on the �ֲ��ý project for the Massachusetts structural engineering firm Simpson Gumpertz & Herger. In addition, there’s more rebar than usual embedded in the concrete throughout the vierendeel area and especially at the top of the wall.

So what about the last of the structural concrete, for which no one will give speeches, wear neckties, or make champagne toasts? Scheduled for Wednesday, the final placements will top off the science center’s east wall, facing Bardwell Street, along with smaller sections around the fourth-story “penthouse.”

A slump in our reporting: Finally, completion of the exterior walls and roof steel has made even more obvious a defining characteristic of Payette’s design: the prominent use of angles, some shallow and others sharp, across roof and facade. That has necessitated a number of slanting, even downright pointy contours atop the concrete walls.

How do you get the ’crete to hold those pointy contours? (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

But if fresh concrete is fluid enough to be pumped through a hose (but not the garden hose, as we learned to our dismay), how do you get it to hold a slope while it cures?

Techniques differ according to need, explained Dan Deschenes, an assistant superintendent and concrete specialist for Consigli. A key tactic is adjusting the “slump,” the viscosity of the concrete mix, by decreasing the proportion of water. Then, for a shallow slope, a mechanical vibrator and other tools are applied to condition and contour the ’crete while it firms up. For a steep slope, the ’crete is held in place with a board or other restraint capping the top of the form.

In other Bonney center news, the application of Blueskin vapor-blocking film began during the week of June 8. In general, this is a sign that a building’s exterior covering-up will soon begin. Sure enough, bricklayers from Maine Masonry arrive next week to set up their impressive Hydro Mobile staging, which goes up and down under its own power, if not by its own free will. Placement of the bricks — which, by the way, are produced from local clay by Morin Brick, across the Androscoggin River in Auburn — will continue through the summer.

Another kind of weather barrier will also show up soon, this time for the roof. While that layer will become part of the permanent roof cladding, it is not the final covering — which we’ll tell you about in a future installment.

As the time drew closer for the Bonney center topping-off, at the other end of campus site work for Veterans Plaza was in its second day. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

Inside the building, from the basement on up, the work of plumbers, electricians, drywall hangers, mechanical engineers, sheet-metal workers, carpenters, and more rolls on. On the third floor, the conclusion of steel placement means that the pace that interior work can shift up a gear or two. Why? Because it’s a four-story building, and the rule is that there must be two floor slabs between flying steel and ongoing work, to protect the workers in case steel is dropped. (You do the math.)

Finally, along with the final steel, chillers and exhaust-air handlers have already been hoisted to the penthouse, where they sit wrapped in protective plastic and awaiting installation.

Can we talk? Campus Construction Update welcomes queries and comments about current, past, future, and imaginary construction at �ֲ��ý. Write to dhubley@bates.edu, putting “Campus Construction” or “Will someone have to get into the attic to water that poor little tree?” in the subject line.

Great Day 2020

�ֲ��ý News — Wed, 13 May 2020 14:08:00 +0000

�ֲ��ý-Gallup study finds ‘purpose gap’ between what college graduates seek and find in their work

�ֲ��ý News — Thu, 11 Apr 2019 18:14:27 +0000

More than 80 percent of college graduates say it’s important to derive a sense of purpose from their work, according to a new study by �ֲ��ý College and the polling firm Gallup — but less than 50 percent actually find such purpose in their jobs.

The discovery of a significant “purpose gap” among college graduates today was among the major findings of “,” released in a major media event on April 10 at Gallup World Headquarters in Washington, D.C.

�ֲ��ý-Gallup in the News

Media outlets locally and nationally are reporting findings of the �ֲ��ý-Gallup study.

Presented to more than 100 attendees at Gallup , the morning announcement featured an overview of the report as well as an interview with �ֲ��ý President Clayton Spencer by Carolyn Ryan ’86, assistant managing editor at The New York Times. Ryan also moderated a discussion among academic and industry experts.

The �ֲ��ý-Gallup survey was presented to more than 100 attendees at Gallup World Headquarters in Washington, D.C. (Cheriss May for �ֲ��ý College)

Representing the views of nearly 4,000 respondents, including college graduates, hiring managers, and parents of college students, the report was commissioned by �ֲ��ý as a way to test the premise of the college’s Purposeful Work program: that helping students find purpose in work allows them to achieve agency, adaptability, and, ultimately, a sense of well-being and meaning in today’s world.

The so-called purpose gap between what graduates seek and what they are finding is a problem for both graduates and employers because there is a strong correlation between employees’ engagement in work and an organization’s bottom line.

President Clayton Spencer talks about the �ֲ��ý-Gallup report with Carolyn Ryan ’86, assistant managing editor for The New York Times. (Cheriss May for �ֲ��ý College)

“We heard overwhelmingly from employers that hiring candidates with a sense of purpose is critically important to them, too,” said Helen Stubbs, a senior consultant at Gallup who oversaw the study.

“Purposeful work is work that aligns how you act in the world with your deepest interests, values, and strengths,” Spencer told Ryan, adding that the key to closing the purpose gap “is to make sure you are producing students who have agency and adaptability throughout a lifetime.”

The report found that the purpose gap is a particular problem for millennials — the largest single segment of the American workforce — because millennials are more likely than older graduates to seek purpose from work than from other sources.

Audience members react during the �ֲ��ý-Gallup study announcement on April 10 in Washington, D.C. (Cheriss May for �ֲ��ý College)

The report noted that colleges can provide four key experiences that equip graduates to find purpose in their work by:

Supporting participation in at least one internship or job;
Providing mentoring that encourages students’ goals and dreams;
Promoting realistic expectations for post-graduation employment prospects; and
Providing courses and programs that help students think about pursuing meaning in work.

The study also makes clear that students should not simply chase jobs or careers that have superficial appeal. Reflection and self-awareness play a vital role in launching graduates into work that will bring them meaning:

Graduates who align their work with their interests, values, and strengths are roughly three times more likely to experience high purpose in work.
Graduates with high levels of purpose in their work are nearly 10 times more likely to have high overall well-being than those with low levels of purpose in work.

“Previous Gallup studies have identified the college experience as critical to the path graduates’ lives take,” said Stubbs.

During the �ֲ��ý-Gallup announcement in Washington, D.C., on April 10, Emily Dickens (left), chief of staff for the Society for Human Resource Management, responds to a question from panel moderator Carolyn Ryan ’86 (right) as Patrick McNight, associate professor of psychology at George Mason University and Nicole Smith, research professor and chief economist at the Center on Education and the Workforce at Georgetown University, look on. (Cheriss May for �ֲ��ý College)

“Our research with �ֲ��ý adds a new dimension that elevates the individual’s psychological and emotional alignment with their chosen career path. Where colleges can apply these new findings to their work with students, they stand to accelerate pathways to meaningful work and to produce graduates who are thriving as individuals.”

The �ֲ���ý Campaign – News

Exceeding goal, �ֲ���ý College successfully ends record-setting campaign with gifts of $345.7 million