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Bates in the News Swing deans Chronicled The Bates “swing dean” program for underrepresented students got the spotlight from The Chronicle of Higher Education early in the new year. (You read about it here first in “Ask Me Another,” Fall 2009.) Rich in detail and personal testimony, Beckie Supiano’s Jan. 2 article germinated in a November story meeting between Chronicle editors and Bates President Elaine Tuttle Hansen. Supiano talked to 10 Bates people in preparing the piece.
Faith Full The Multifaith Banquet reveals a kaleidoscope of beliefs Feeling torn between two colleges on the eve of the acceptance deadline, Leena Nasser ’12, of Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, turned to prayer. Using a Muslim prayer that asks for help with a choice, “I asked Allah to put a feeling in my heart that made me comfortable with one choice or the other.” Nasser told her story during the Multifaith Banquet, an annual event that gives students who hold diverse beliefs an opportunity to share heartfelt blessings and personal journeys of faith. In affirming the rightness of her college choice, “the perspectives I’ve gained, the people I’ve met, and the goals I’ve been inspired to pursue at Bates” have all proved the power of prayer for Nasser. Sponsored by the Multifaith Chaplaincy, this year’s banquet drew 18 speakers who ran the gamut of beliefs from Baha’i to Buddhist
New books put two professors into the media. Taking on the American worldview that casts all things in terms of competition, Francesco Duina’s Winning: Reflections on an American Obsession caught the attention of Albany’s Northeast Public Radio. Explaining why the U.S. ranks poorly in terms of personal happiness, this associate professor of sociology spoke on the “Academic Minute” segment, which airs on 14 stations (see page 10). English professor Lillian Nayder was twice represented by The Wall Street Journal. First there was a thoughtful review of The Other Dickens, her revelatory new biography of Catherine Dickens, wife of Charles (see “Turning Points,” page 11). She then turned up on the WSJ blog “Speakeasy,” discussing Charles Dickens’ contemporary relevance in light of two of his novels being named to Oprah Winfrey’s book club. The WSJ also selected Shalini Sharan ’11 to write for its “Hire Education” blog, depicting the ups and downs of college seniors as they prepare to enter a tough job market. SHORT TERMS Bates hosted a Maine Public Broadcasting debate among state gubernatorial candidates in late October. The ultimate winner of the Blaine House race, Republican Paul LePage, declined to take part, but the Maine Public Broadcasting Network telecast from Olin Arts Center was a lively success anyway. The media were full of Bates students during the second half of 2010. For its “World Class” travel column, The Boston Globe selected Avi Farber ’11 of Santa Fe, N.M, to report on his academic sojourn in Argentina...Meanwhile, Brigit Anderson ’12 of Redding, Conn., told the Sierra Star of Oakhurst, Calif., about her experiences apprenticing at the Three Springs Flower Garden in North Fork. The work will bear on her geology senior thesis, exploring effects of climate change on high-altitude agriculture. An Exeter News-Letter story traced native son Eli Huebner’s fascination with Revolutionary War re-enactors. A sophomore classical and medieval studies major, Huebner is intrigued by the Loyalist perspective...Finally, the Providence Journal profiled Erik Bou ’14 of Cranston, R.I. The story chronicled Bou’s own progress from life as “a teenager who went from barely making it in the classroom to...one of the nation’s most prestigious colleges.”
12 Bates WINTER 2011
PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN
The Chronicle’s swing dean story bit.ly/CHE-swingdeans
Bates’ multifaith chaplain, likened the resulting interplay of revelations to a kaleidoscope; and associate chaplain Emily Wright-Timko ran with the metaphor in a subsequent interview. “The differences between the traditions, and even within the traditions,” she says, “play off one another to create a complex beauty.” Held in a Benjamin Mays Center decorated with colorful tablecloths and the College’s multifaith banner, the program began with short blessings that ranged from a Catholic prayer to a passage from the Quaker Book of Wisdom. A junior from Nepal shared a Hindu story she learned from her grandmother. A woman, returning from the temple where she had prayed for the recovery of her ailing son, arrived home to find that he had died.
Seen here at Baccalaureate 2010, the Rev. Bill Blaine-Wallace compares the sharing of religious traditions at the Multifaith Banquet to how the shapes and colors of a kaleidoscope play off one another.
— including secular humanists and folks selfdescribed as spiritual but not religious. Enlisting speakers takes some persuasion, notes Erica Long ’12, a Unitarian Universalist who organized the program and also spoke. “Religion is not something usually discussed between students” at Bates, she said. But the result is worth it. In remarks during the event, the Rev. Bill Blaine-Wallace,
Responding not with anger nor by challenging God’s action, she went back to the temple instead and asked God to take care of her son. “Faith never dies,” the storyteller said. “If our faith dies, then there will be nothing to motivate us to live our lives.” — Gabrielle Otto ’11