{"id":153891,"date":"2023-05-25T15:03:38","date_gmt":"2023-05-25T19:03:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/?p=153891"},"modified":"2026-05-22T10:58:57","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T14:58:57","slug":"class-of-2023-ivy-stone-points-to-the-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2023\/05\/25\/class-of-2023-ivy-stone-points-to-the-future\/","title":{"rendered":"ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Class of 2023 ivy stone points to the future"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This year\u2019s ivy stone was designed by ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ senior Abby Segal, who also happens to be a professional magician. But there\u2019s no dazzling illusion involved in the design, just the brick-and-mortar sensibility of a senior trying to tell a story about her class and COVID.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Segal, a psychology major from Chelmsford, Mass., added design elements to the stone to reflect the determined forward progress of the Class of 2023 over their four years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

How to Watch Commencement <\/strong>
Livestreamed on the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ website<\/a> and the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Facebook page<\/a>, the 157th ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Commencement ceremony begins at 10 a.m. on Sunday, May 28. The academic procession begins arriving at Coram Library at approximately 9:20 a.m. The livestream kicks off at 8:45 a.m. with pre-recorded segments celebrating the Class of 2023.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n\n\n\n

On the stone, Hathorn Hall\u2019s bell tower is crowned with a Bobcat weathervane. The weathervane is rendered as an arrow pointing to the future. \u201cI wanted it to reflect how we moved forward despite difficulty, and I wanted it to reflect ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½,\u201d Segal explains. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the bottom of the stone, the numerals 2023 are both shaded and unshaded, representing the halting nature of life during COVID, filled with restrictions, eased restrictions, lockdowns, and back again.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Installing
With a wooden wedge to hold the stone in place, ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ mason Ron Tardif works to make sure the Class of 2023 ivy stone is square in its hole, aligned with the brickwork around it. Class ivy stones have been placed on most ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ campus buildings since 1879<\/a> as a rite of graduation for the senior class. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The arrow\u2019s nock and fletching suggest a play\/pause button \u2014 the pause that COVID placed on their academic and social lives, especially in March of their first year, when ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ pivoted to remote learning. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The arrow\u2019s point suggests play, or even fast-forward, the way the class got on with their college life. At the top, an on\/off button ties it all together, \u201creflecting the technological era\u201d that defines the world that the class will graduate into.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eager to see her design installed into the brickwork at Pettengill Hall, Segal joined ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ mason Ron Tardif on a breezy recent Wednesday to set the newest ivy stone, continuing a ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ senior class tradition that dates to 1879.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Installing
ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ mason Ron Tardif installs the Class of 2023 ivy stone. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Tardif arrives with a bucket of mortar he mixed earlier in the morning, a few wooden wedges to hold the stone in place, and two tools: a rectangular margin trowel and a plasterer\u2019s \u201chawk,\u201d a flat sheet of metal for holding mortar while he works.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Tardif starts plastering the interior sides of the square hole with mortar, Segal talks about her post-Commencement plans: more studying, but not the college kind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Segal was one of two first-prize winners of the 2023 Bobcat Ventures competition<\/a> with her pitch for funding her career in magic, specifically to inspire and encourage women to break into the male-dominated world of professional magic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Installing
ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ senior Abby Segal displays the Class of 2023 ivy stone. She says she sought to create a design “to reflect how we moved forward despite difficulty, and I wanted it to reflect ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½.” (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Toward that goal, she\u2019s planning a magical summer, in the Netherlands and Sweden, to attend a few skill-building camps. The European magic scene is \u201cvery intimate and small,\u201d says Segal. \u201cIt\u2019s not as big as Chicago or L.A. or New York. But I like it because you get to know the magicians there. It\u2019s intimate and kind of its own thing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Segal delivers closeup-style magic, steering away from fancy costumes and clouds of smoke, presenting herself as \u201ca normal human being who also just happens to do magic.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That style lets her play off stereotypes of women in magic, as assistants or being cut in half. \u201cThe beautiful thing about women in magic is that there’s no stereotype for what a female magician should be,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Class of 2023 ivy stone was designed by Abby Segal, who is a professional magician. But there\u2019s no dazzling illusion in the design, just simple storytelling about a class navigating COVID.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":148,"featured_media":153957,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"bates_author_byline_override":"Freddie Wright","_estimated-read-time":"","_post-template":"\/usr\/local\/webserver\/webpve\/htdocs\/new-www.bates.edu\/wp-content\/themes\/b\/news\/single-big-header-image.php","_header-color":"#000000","_photo-credit":"Phyllis Graber Jensen","_header-effect":"zoomIn","override_related_with_tag":"","_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"This year\u2019s ivy stone was designed by ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ senior Abby Segal, who also happens to be a professional magician.","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":153956,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"categories":[133,11012],"tags":[12322,4506],"class_list":["post-153891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-creativity","category-student-life","tag-commencement-2023","tag-ivy-stone"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/148"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153891"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153891\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":154050,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153891\/revisions\/154050"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}