President Clayton Spencer discusses her vision for �ֲ���ý at WRBC. Photographs by Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College.

�ֲ���ý College President Clayton Spencer recently sat down with Alfred Russo ’15 and Jordana Gluckow ’16 at WRBC-FM to discuss a range of topics. In a relaxed and wide-ranging conversation, President Spencer answered questions about key initiatives at the college, how she thinks about organizational change, and opportunities for innovation and experimentation provided by Short Term.

Listen to the entire interview on , or to the selection of excerpts that we’ve curated below.

The restructuring myth

This past year, changes to student support services and college programming have some students believing that the college administration is undergoing a large and disruptive restructuring. Not so, says President Spencer.

The Student Experience

Top of mind for some students this spring are the departures of a few well-liked staff and administrators. How do personnel decisions intersect with �ֲ���ý’ sense of community?

The Campus Culture Working Group

This past fall, Dean of Students Joshua McIntosh convened the Campus Culture Working Group to conduct a comprehensive review of wellness education, monitoring and intervention, late-night weekend programming, standards and accountability, residential programs, inclusiveness, and orientation/first-year programs. How are students involved in this effort?

Purposeful Work

Purposeful Work is one of the distinctive �ֲ���ý initiatives that are manifesting themselves in myriad ways around campus. How does Purposeful Work fit in with the college’s other needs and priorities?

Improving Short Term

The college has made changes to Short Term by creating Practitioner-Taught Courses and “course redesign” opportunities. What’s that all about?

Does �ֲ���ý have a parking problem?

A parking study concluded there is plenty of parking at �ֲ���ý. Meanwhile, one of the WRBC hosts gets introduced to the idea of parking consultants, and a possible new career path.

President Clayton Spencer’s interview on student radio station WRBC-FM on Feb. 10 covered a range of topics: the obligation of a liberal arts college to help graduates get jobs; what responsible investing looks like in 2013; and �ֲ���ý’ relationship with Lewiston.

And lest those topics seem a tad stuffy for a student radio show called Chin Wags and Grab Bags with DJ Nosebleed and Friends, Spencer rose, or sank, to her host’s level as needed during the 75-minute interview.

Besides big-picture topics, Spencer offered responses to questions about the new �ֲ���ý Bobcat (“not unduly aggressive, but looks like he could handle pretty much anything”); her celebrity crush (Alan Rickman); and why she wanted to get the whole thing over with — so she could get  home to watch Downton Abbey.

“I think she’s actually kinda funny. She’s not a suit,” host Clay Baldo ’13 of Santa Fe, N.M., said to his fellow DJ, Corey Gingras ’13 of Eastford, Conn.

Here’s a brief video of the Feb. 10 event and, below, a selection of edited audio clips from the interview.

Audio clips

Spencer sums up her perspective on what creates a career. “All you need to figure out at any given moment is your �Ա�����gig,” she says. But, “you have to want to do it.”

Despite a long tenure at Harvard, �ֲ���ý was not her presidential “safety school.”

What sets �ֲ���ý students apart is their sense of “collective good,” the feeling of “intellectualism with respect that is among the strongest I’ve seen on any campus.” 

To the question of why, in 21st century terms, should someone go to a liberal arts college, Spencer says it’s about creating a valuable and productive sense of self in the world.

The best way to ride the tidal wave of technology is not to “muddle down the middle” but to “go to two different extremes.”

Working hard or hardly working? It’s no joke: The liberal arts education must address careers, Spencer explains.

More than any other, here’s the one quality that Spencer hopes every �ֲ���ý student possesses upon graduation: Authenticity.

Responding to a question from Annie Cravero ’13 of the campus organization �ֲ���ý Energy Action Movement, Spencer explains that responsible investing is about reconciling two important obligations.

The relationship between �ֲ���ý and Lewiston is “strong and growing,” Spencer says.

Host Clay Baldo ’13 (center) and fellow DJ Corey Gingras listen to President Clayton Spencer during her WRBC radio interview on Feb. 10, 2013. Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College.

Touring behind their third CD, the recently released Mine is Yours, indie pop-rockers Cold War Kids perform at �ֲ���ý College at 9 p.m. Friday, April 29, in the Clifton Daggett Gray Athletic Building (“Gray Cage”), 130 Central Ave.

Portland-based singer-songwriter opens. Tickets are $20 and available at . The concert is sponsored by the college’s student-run radio station, WRBC-FM. For more information, please contact erowley@bates.edu.

Since their modest beginnings as four guys driving around southern California with their gear in their cars, practicing wherever they could steal a space, have always exhibited two qualities in their music: intense passion and emotional truth.

The band, which has been featured at top U.S. festivals from Lollapalooza to South by Southwest, released Mine Is Yours (Downtown Records) in January. As Billboard critic Jem Aswad writes, “the U2-inflected guitar work present on earlier songs is much more prominent, as are Cold War Kids’ melodic and anthemic qualities.”

For Mine Is Yours, the Kids recorded for the first time with an outside producer, Jacquire King, whose clients have included Tom Waits, Kings of Leon, Norah Jones and Modest Mouse.

From Long Beach, Calif., the Cold War Kids are Nathan Willett on vocals, piano and guitar; Jonnie Russell on guitar, vocals and keyboard; Matt Maust on bass and guitar; and Matt Aveiro on drums and percussion.

Both on Downtown, the quartet’s first two albums, Robbers & Cowards (2006) and Loyalty to Loyalty (2008), emerged like miniature gothic novels as Willett channeled taut dramas of men on the edge, families in peril and crises of faith.

The new album deals with the push and pull of human relationships, the glue that holds them together and the equilibrium they sometimes find. “Mine Is Yours” finds the foursome at their most sonically potent, and Willett at his most revealing and vulnerable.

A new WRBC-FM program brings the faculty to the world

By Elizabeth McKean ’12 and Gabrielle Otto ’11

Once a week, seniors Matthew Reynolds and Tucker Pawlick welcome a faculty member into the underground WRBC radio station on Frye Street for their show The Faculty Lounge.

Interviewers and interviewees perch on stools next to microphones, cloistered by the blinking lights of the radio gear, hundreds of CDs, and illustrations of sea creatures on the ceiling.

In Reynolds’ words, the show falls “somewhere between a lecture and Crossfire.” He and Pawlick, of Westport, Conn., try for a relaxed atmosphere where their intense interest in the guests can engender a genuine conversation.

“The idea for the show started as an archive project,” explained Reynolds of Mill Valley, Calif. — a Web repository of faculty lectures and interviews. “Then we started thinking about it as a radio show, like Fresh Air, where prospective and current students could listen to admired professors in dialogue about their current academic projects.”

He adds, “Our show extends discussion beyond the classroom,” allowing professors to share their current work and passions. “And it promotes a more equal and accessible relationship between professors and students.”

A March episode featured Eric Hooglund, visiting professor of politics. Hooglund is a leading American scholar on Muslim countries, particularly Iran, and has written for The New York Times and the U.K.’s Guardian about last summer’s elections in Iran. The WRBC hosts focused on his experiences in Iran during the 1979 Islamic Revolution and his insights into the country’s present political climate.

Hooglund’s interest in Iran began during a Peace Corps stint in the late 1960s. He returned in 1978 and 1979 to complete research for his dissertation. He told the WRBC listeners that this was “a fascinating time with a lot of energy and excitement.”

Pawlick and Reynolds asked if there was a time when he felt particularly immersed in the revolution. Hooglund recalled learning that a close friend, a short-story writer and activist, had been killed by the Shah’s secret police. This event inspired Hooglund to translate his friend’s banned stories into English and have them published.

More broadly, the experience brought home to Hooglund the importance of struggling against injustice, he explained, as Pawlick referred to the professor’s long involvement in social justice work.
Hooglund was pleasantly surprised by his interviewers’ skill, he said after the broadcast. “They actually got me to think about issues I don’t normally think about, and we had a stimulating conversation about my diverse intellectual interests and political activism.”

As hosts, said Reynolds, “we’ve become more confident with our interviewees. It’s becoming more of a dialogue than a monologue, though we still think our listeners are more interested in what our guests have to say than what we do.”

Pawlick agreed. “At �ֲ���ý there are all these really smart people who are a great resource. And if they have something interesting to say, I’m going to want to listen.”

Seabear, a band based in Reykjavik, Iceland, performs indie folk at 9 p.m. Monday, March 29, in the Benjamin Mays Center, 95 Russell St.

The concert is open to the public and admission is free. For more information, please contact this dray@bates.edu. The concert is sponsored by the �ֲ���ý College radio station, WRBC 91.5 FM.

Once the lo-fi solo project of Icelandic singer/multi-instrumentalist Sindri Mar Sigfusson, who was praised by Rolling Stone as the “Icelandic Beck,” Seabear is embarking on its first-ever North American tour.

Since the founding of the group in the early 2000s, Seabear has morphed into a rambling experimental/indie/folk septet. Joining Sigfusson are Gudbjorg Hlin Gudmundsdottir, Ingibjorg Birgisdottir, Halldor Ragnarsson, Orn Ingi Agustsson, Kjartan Bragi Bjarnason and Soley Stefansdottir.

The band recently released its second full-length LP, We Built a Fire (Morr Music, 2010). For this record, all members of the band had equal input in the writing process, thereby creating Seabear’s first real collective album.

While Sigfusson’s unmistakable voice remains the centerpiece on We Built a Fire, the new joint approach is reflected in songs like “I’ll Build You a Fire” where the whole band joins in on vocals. There is something instantly familiar about Seabear’s songs that resonates with fans and critics alike. Despite scant promotion and airplay behind their debut album release, 2007’s The Ghost That Carried Us Away (Morr Music), their songs and animated videos were a social media hit generating millions of plays on sites like YouTube and Vimeo. The band’s songs have subsequently been featured in the soundtracks of several television programs including Grey’s Anatomy and Gossip Girl.

For more information on Seabear, .

Opening for Jones will be Micah Blue Smaldone of Portland. Admission is free. For more information, please contact 207-777-7532 or this dray@bates.edu.

A 30-plus-year devotee of the so-called “Takoma School” of guitarists emblemized by John Fahey, Jones has led Boston’s “avant-garage” instrumental rock band Cul de Sac since 1989. With Cul de Sac, Jones has recorded nine albums, including a soundtrack for cult-director Roger Corman, and collaborations with guitarist Fahey and former Can vocalist Damo Suzuki.

Jones has written extensively on the steel-string guitar’s leading lights: Fahey, with whom he was friends for nearly 25 years, and Robbie Basho, who befriended Jones during the five years before his death in 1986. He has toured with Peter Lang and with some of the best of the new breed of solo-guitar upstarts: Harris Newman, Sean Smith and James Blackshaw, among others.

Jones’ second solo album, Against Which the Sea Continually Beats, was issued by Strange Attractors in March 2007.

Micah Blue Smaldone is a Portland-based musician, member of bands such as The Pinkerton Thugs and Blood on Blood. He is noted for his stylistic range, which spans punk, hardcore, folk, ragtime and blues.

About WRBC 91.5 FM:

Established in 1958, �ֲ���ý College’s student-run radio station is a leader in college radio nationally, consistently ranked among America’s best college radio stations. WRBC plays music from all genres and eras. Shows are hosted by students and members of the Lewiston-Auburn community. One can tune in two different ways: at the , which works around the globe, or at 91.5 FM in the Lewiston-Auburn area.

The concert is sponsored by two �ֲ���ý student organizations, the college radio station WRBC-FM and the Chase Hall Committee, the principal campus programming board.

Tickets cost $8 plus tax and service charge and are available at www.batestickets.com and all Bull Moose Music stores in Maine and New Hampshire. Only 200 tickets will be available to the general public. For more information, visit www.wrbcadio.com.

Matt Johnson and Kim Schifino, noted for their straightforward dance melodies, have performed at festivals such as the Siren Music Festival in Brooklyn, Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago and the KahBang Indie Music and Art Festival in Bangor.

Their most recent release, , reached No. 170 on the Billboard Top 100 and includes the singles “Daylight,” recently featured in a commercial for Bacardi, and “Lessons Learned,” whose video has been nominated for an MTV Video Music Award.

Established in 1958, �ֲ���ý College Radio, WRBC 91.5 FM, is a leader in college radio nationally. WRBC plays music from all genres and eras. Shows are hosted by students and members of the Lewiston-Auburn community. Find the station at www.wrbcradio.com or at 91.5 FM in the Lewiston-Auburn area.

I admit, freely, that I’m not generally up on my Icelandic culture, news, and happenings… although I was totally aware when, this past fall, they entered a state of extreme economic crisis. But, it was just Iceland, right? Well, in the growing state of economic concern that the United States now resides, I find it refreshing to be able to really understand the issues and results of Iceland’s economic troubles. And how did I do this, you ask? My four favorite letters : W-R-B-C

The �ֲ���ý College Radio station, WRBC, brought Icelandic band FM Belfast to perform a free concert this past Saturday night for the �ֲ���ý community. A totally great band that I would never have discovered were it not for the WRBC, the four fashionable Icelandic rockers also participated in a symposium on Saturday, similarly open to the �ֲ���ý community, in which they discussed what’s ACTUALLY going on in Iceland �ֲ���ý’ own Associate Politics Professor Aslaug Asgeirsdottir, also of Iceland, providing two contrasting but informed points of views.

Sponsored by �ֲ���ý’ student-run community radio station, WRBC-FM, the concert is open to the public at no charge.

Featured acts range from acoustic folksingers Sara Cox and Caitlin Cary to the epic, roots-inflected indie rock of Okkervil River.

“This year’s lineup is intended to consider how contemporary artists are pushing the boundaries of ‘roots music,’ ” says Tucker McKinney, festival coordinator. “The acts are more difficult to categorize. We feel this lineup will appeal to a diverse audience and at the same time break new ground for our festival.”

In order of scheduled (and approximate) starting times, the performers are:
The Pubcrawlers, from Portland and Dover, N.H. They reflect influences ranging from traditional Celtic music to street punk, hardcore and even a little metal (noon);

Sara Cox, of Portland, a singer-songwriter featured on four volumes of the compilation recordings Greetings From Area Code 207 and one who recently released, to critical acclaim, her first full-length recording, Arrive (1 p.m.);

Two Cow Garage, from Columbus, Ohio, featuring three small town guys playing crunchy, straight-ahead roots rock with a country tinge (2 p.m.);

Okkervil River, from Austin, Texas, playing rootsy indie-rock and described by Rolling Stone magazine as a “haunted country quartet” whose singer-songwriter Will Sheff is “ready for worldwide renown” (3 p.m.); and Caitlin Cary, a singer-songwriter based in Raleigh, N.C. A former member of the alt-country group Whiskytown, she sings melodious Southern pop in a voice compared to Mary Chapin Carpenter and Patsy Cline (4 p.m.).

Festival attendees are encouraged to bring lawn chairs or blankets. Alcoholic beverages, pets and sound-recording equipment are prohibited, as is on-site parking.

WRBC broadcasts 24 hours a day, 365 days a year at 91.5 FM. Its programming covers the musical map, including metal and loud rock, punk and ska, rap and hip-hop, techno and electronica, garage and psychedelic, jazz and funk, soul and R&B, rock and pop, world and ethnic musics — and, of course, American blues, folk and country.

For more information about the festival, please call 207-777-7915.