in me mo r i a m
2016 James Jhun January 17, 2016 His family called James the “walking encyclopedia,” because, they said, he knew “a little about everything.” Born in Boston and attending middle and high school in Lincoln, Mass., he was a former member of the Boston Symphony Youth Orchestra and could play at least five instruments. He was a leader on the Bates campus and an active member of the Lewiston community. As president of the Bates Buddies Club, he mentored and coordinated students to volunteer in Lewiston’s elementary schools. He followed his passion for music as a member of the a cappella group Manic Optimists and as lead trumpet of the Bates College Jazz Band. He aspired to contribute to society through public health and environmental sustainability. He majored in environmental studies with a minor in music. He is survived by his mother and father, Eunmi and Byung Hak Jhun; sister, Iny Jhun; maternal grandmother, Myung-Soon Byun; three paternal uncles, Jin Young Jhun, Young Ho Jhun and Byung Jo Jhun; aunt, Hannah Jhun; and numerous other aunts, uncles, cousins, nephews and nieces in the United States, South Korea, Turkey and Senegal. He is also survived by his girlfriend, Yeseul Lee; and his close friends, Emily Baumgarten, Gordon Batchelder, Ori Ravid, Anderson Koenig and many other individuals who were dear to his heart.
faculty Alexis Adelbert Caron February 13, 2015 Students tend to view professors as simply that — professors — and forget that they have lives beyond campus. Alexis Caron was devoted to his students at Bates and devoted to his field, but had a rich and rewarding life in his community as well. He served on the Durham School Board for 12 years and was a member of the Maine School Board Assn. He was on numerous educational committees at the state and national levels. Born to French-speaking parents who had emigrated from Canada, he earned a bachelor’s degree from the Univ. of Massachusetts and a doctorate from the Univ. of Minnesota. He taught French at Proctor Academy in Andover, N.H., Arizona State Univ., Bowling Green State, Colby College Summer School of Languages, and for 29 years at Bates. He retired from Bates in 1990. In a profile in this magazine upon his retirement, Professor Caron explained why he refrained from giving his own opinions in the classroom — to the point of not sharing his favorite French authors: It gave his students
more space to create their own viewpoints. “I came to teach, not to preach,” he would say, believing that giving an opinion was too close to argumentation. Paraphrasing the French author Andre Gide, he said, “I can never win an argument because I can always see the other person’s point of view.” Of his students: “I cannot conceive of a better way to spend one’s career than in the constant company of bright, enthusiastic, and compassionate students, who keep me intellectually alert and young at heart.” He was predeceased by his wife, Helen Stark Caron. Survivors include his children Amy Pierce, Elise Caron, Philip Caron ’87, and John Caron; and eight grandchildren. Frank Glazer January 13, 2015 Frank Glazer was not planning a quiet 100th birthday: He had six concerts scheduled in four states to celebrate it. An exceptional pianist and teacher, he continued to concertize and teach until the last few weeks of his exceptional life. A protégé of legendary pianist Artur Schnabel and composer Arnold Schoenberg (the two were each other’s antithesis, and each had significant impact on him), Glazer made his New York debut in 1936 at Town Hall, and his orchestral debut as a soloist three years later with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Serge Koussevitzky. His career hit its stride following World War II military service and, more to the point, a two-year effort to reinvent his piano technique. This study produced a relaxed, economical style central to both his artistry and his astonishing musical longevity in a field where hand problems are endemic. Glazer came to Bates 1977, becoming an artist-in-residence in 1980. He played countless solo, chamber ensemble, and orchestral concerts; made more than 60 recordings, including two released by Bates in 2010; hosted his own television program in the 1950s; and co-founded the New England Piano Quartette and two chamber music series. In a 2006 interview, Glazer said: “I don’t know what retirement means. I’ve worked all my life to get to this point, where I like the sounds I hear.” He was devoted to his wife of 54 years, Ruth Gevalt Glazer, who was a classical soprano when they met in 1948. After she died in 2006, he worked at a remarkable pace, performing a concert a month and taking on enormous musical projects. One year he performed all 32 of Beethoven’s piano sonatas in the order in which they were composed. In 2011, when Bates gave him an honorary doctorate, he told graduates: “I believe it serves no useful purpose to compare oneself with another person. Each of us is unique. We are dealt a certain hand at birth
over which we have no control. But we have a lot to say about how we play the game.” He is survived by two brothers. Marsha A. Graef November 16, 2015 Marsha A. Graef, Professor Emerita of Physical Education, was a coach and administrator in the Department of Athletics for nearly 30 years. She joined Bates in 1985 as an assistant professor of physical education, head coach of volleyball and women’s basketball, and assistant coach of women’s lacrosse. She retired in December 2013 as an assistant director of athletics for physical education, club sports, intramural sports, and recreation. Her teams won 416 matches — including 51 straight from late in the 1988 season to early in 1990 — and lost just 144. Her undefeated 1989 team (36–0) won one of the program’s two ECAC titles in an era when NESCAC teams could not participate in NCAA championships. Professor Graef received the 1990 National Coach of the Year Award from the American Volleyball Coaches Assn. In 1998, she moved from coaching into the administrative position of Bates’ coordinator of physical education and club sports, in which she excelled. She was inducted into the Bates Scholar-Athlete Society in 2013, and was honored as much for her winning spirit as her winning record as a coach. Survivors include her mother Irene and brother Stephen. Carole Anne Taylor March 11, 2015 Professor Emerita Carole Taylor’s career both inside and outside the classroom grew and prospered so abundantly that she twice received the college’s Kroepsch Award for Excellence in Teaching. One of the first women to receive tenure at Bates, and a founding member of the interdisciplinary programs in African American studies and American cultural studies, she played a crucial role in the college’s development of its first affirmative action policy in the 1980s. Her colleague Charles Carnegie, professor of anthropology, called her “a champion of justice, both on campus and in the wider community, who encouraged students to bridge the divide between theory and practice.” Those students, he said, are her legacy: “a pioneering cohort of alumni that she helped to cultivate and who have stayed on beyond graduation and contributed to significant change in the local region.” Her hallmark courses took students outside the mainstream. One student noted that she stressed the importance of recognizing the sometimes “subtle differences between how things seem and what they really are.” Long involved in Maine social justice issues, Professor Taylor was
an adviser to the Maine Rural Workers Coalition in the early 2000s, with the goal of helping migrant agricultural workers develop leadership skills, and she involved Bates students in the work. “The best thing about it,” she once said, “is that it gives students a sense of what it’s like to do social justice work that really is worker-centered — it’s not about themselves. It’s not charity work.” She received her bachelor’s degree from Reed College and her Ph.D. in comparative literature from Harvard. From 1989 onward, she served on the Affirmative Action Committee, and for much of the 1980s, she served on the subcommittee that drafted an affirmative action plan for the college. She was the author of The Tragedy and Comedy of Resistance: Reading Modernity through Black Women’s Fiction (1999) and A Poetics of Seeing: The Implications of Visual Form in Modern Poetry (1985). She retired in 2011. Survivors include her partner William Corlett, professor of political science; son Eric Nicholson Taylor; and two grandchildren.
honorary John C. Whitehead February 7, 2015 When New York City was destroyed by the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Gov. George Pataki called on John Whitehead to help it recover. He had long been one of the city’s most prominent citizens, the joint chairman of Goldman Sachs, a former deputy secretary of state in the Reagan administration, a board member of the Federal Reserve, the Asia Society, and Harvard Univ., with connections so broad there weren’t six degrees of separation — there were usually just one or two. Bates awarded him an honorary Doctor of Laws degree in 2004 for his lifetime of work in diplomacy and finance, as well as the work he did to rebuild the shattered site of the World Trade Center and revitalize downtown Manhattan.
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