Bates in Brief

BATES IN BRIEF SPRING 2022

In a shared Olin Arts Center studio, Michael Morgan ’22 of Kingston, Jamaica, works on his highly stylized stoneware ceramics influenced by both European and ancient Islamic forms. He hopes his art feels “familiar and inventive at the same time.” In April, Morgan and his 14 fellow art and visual culture majors presented their work at the Annual Senior Thesis Exhibition at the Bates Museum of Art.

Faces!

Photography by Phyllis Graber Jensen

After a year’s hiatus due to the pandemic, the Puddle Jump’s return on Feb. 11 was a gleeful affair.

In fact, it was something of a historical marker as the college’s first large, fully unmasked campus event since, well, the last Puddle Jump back on Jan. 31, 2020, when the pandemic was just a wispy cloud on the horizon.

And how great it was to see all those unmasked faces!

This year’s Puddle Jump, by the numbers:

Hole dimension: 13 feet by 13 feet Cutting tool: 20-inch Makita chainsaw, handled by Jack Fruechte ’22 of Minneapolis Temperature: 43 degrees Wind direction and speed: South, 15mph Ice thickness: 6 inches, topped by another 6 inches of crusty snow

JAY BURNS

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Blue on Blue

At Bonney Science Center, this expanse of east-facing glass — one of three “curtain walls” that define the building’s exterior — reflects clouds and blue sky on March 18.

Banner Yet Wave

The American flag flies at half-staff over the Historic Quad on March 25 in memory of Former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who died March 23.

In the 1970s, Albright served on the staff of then-U.S. Sen. Edmund Muskie ’36. A deep admirer of her mentor, she gave to Bates the Muskie portrait that hangs in the Muskie Archives. “Aside from my parents,” she said in 1999, “he remains my greatest hero.”

These days, the American flag on the Quad flies from a new flagpole, which, along with new lights and landscaping, was funded by the Class of 1967 as part of its 55th Reunion giving effort.

The original flagpole was given by the College Club (now the College Key) and the Alumni Fund in 1931, accompanied by a plaque inscribed “One Flag, One Land, One Heart, One Hand, Our Nation Evermore.”

Chase Tale

Chase Hall: beloved, iconic, historic.

And user-friendly? Well, probably not, thanks to unwelcoming entrances and a confounding interior layout that involves an astonishing number of floor levels — nine! — and multiple additions, all stitched together by a labyrinth of corridors and stairways.

To address these challenges, a substantial renovation project, now underway, will rework as much as half of Chase’s floor space, provide a systems upgrade, and do plenty of cosmetic work.

A goal of the college’s 2016 Institutional Plan, the Chase renovation will create space for more student-focused programs and make the historic building active and viable 24 hours a day. It will: • Revamp the interior to make Chase a campus hub for most student services; • Improve accessibility, wayfinding, and circulation, notably through the reconfiguration of building entrances and the installation of new stairways and a third elevator; • Renew the building’s utilities infrastructure, portions of which haven’t been operable for years; • And add comfortable, technologically enabled multi-purpose spaces.

Outside the building, the most conspicuous result will be two rebuilt entrances on Campus Avenue and one on Franklin Walk, facing the Muskie Archives, where new floor plans will improve access, both visual and physical, into the building. The rebuilt entrance onto Franklin Walk will be landscaped and furnished for al fresco relaxation.

In a dramatic change, the main entry on Campus Avenue, near the Kenison Gate, will be lowered to ground level.

Built in 1917, Chase still retains its founding identity as a student center. But in recent years it’s become a little too quiet, as several of its student-focused functions have moved elsewhere. Fourteen years ago, Dining Services decamped to the new Commons building. The post office and the College Store left for Kalperis Hall in 2016. Iconic meeting spaces, like Hirasawa Lounge, are now under-used.

In 2014, Chase got a welcome spark from newly renovated space for the Office of Intercultural Education. The Den was renovated, too, and a few years back, the college brought in other student services, including Campus Life, Residential Life and Health Education, and some elements of the Purposeful Work program.

And there are still events in the Memorial Commons space, and a few student organizations still call Chase home, like The Bates Student — with copies of the Spudent parody issue tacked to its walls — and the Outing Club.

While Chase is closed for the renovation, most current occupants — student organizations, Campus Life, the OIE, and Residence Life and Health Education — will occupy temporary quarters a couple of blocks away, at 96 Campus Ave., in a modern building situated next to the Campus Avenue Field. The building belonged to St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center and housed offices and a daycare center until its recent purchase by Bates.

Finally, the Bobcat Den will be closed during the project, but will reopen when Chase reopens, for the start of the 2023–24 academic year.

MUSKIE ARCHIVES AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS LIBRARY

Since its opening in 1917 (when trolley tracks ran along Campus Avenue), Chase Hall’s entrance off the avenue featured a perron. No more, as this architect’s rendering shows: The entrance will be rebuilt at ground level during the 2022–23 renovation.

Popular understanding of the Spanish Inquisition has been informed in many ways, from Monty Python skits to famous paintings, like this detail of Francisco Goya’s The Inquisition Tribunal.

Inquiring Minds

A man on his deathbed in Veracruz, Mexico, accused an acquaintance of a blatant act of blasphemy: “Usar dentro de los Zapatos, unas Ymagenes que le parecieron de Santos.”

The accusation, translated from the Spanish, was “using in his shoes certain images that appeared to be saints.”

The year was 1778, when, in the Spanish Empire, putting printed images of saints, known as estampas, inside your shoes could get you swept up in the Spanish Inquisition, established to root out and punish acts of heresy throughout the empire.

Running from 1478 to 1834, the Inquisition prosecuted an estimated 150,000 people, which led to the execution of between 3,000 and 5,000.

Now, thanks to a first-of-its-kind website co-founded by Professor of History Karen Melvin, you can read all about the inquisition of Don Miguel de Zaragoza, an 18th-century silversmith accused of wearing unsensible shoes, as well as other cases of the Spanish Inquisition.

The website, Reading the Spanish Inquisition, is distinctive for displaying source materials in three different formats: images of original Inquisition documents; text transcriptions into Spanish; and English text translations prepared by scholars. Melvin knows of no single resource that offers all three. “We’re the only game in town.”

Complete English translations of Inquisition cases are “few and far between,” says Melvin. And that was a problem for Melvin, who teaches a Bates course on the Inquisition. “There’s a real shortage of English language material.”

The initial transcription and translations were done by Melvin, a colleague at Boston College, and one of Melvin’s former students, Cristopher Hernandez Sifontes ’18, among others, who worked from resources at the Huntington Library in San Marino, Calif. The site’s functionality, look, and feel was developed by the college’s Information and Library Services division.

Inquisition cases present fascinating details about daily life in the Spanish Empire plus a treasure trove of topics with enduring historical relevance: religion, gender, anti-Semitism, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status.

In the case of the deathbed confession, a priest immediately took it to the local inquisitor. Three witnesses testified against the accused, a silversmith named Don Miguel de Zaragoza, who apparently was not a well-liked man, nor particularly handsome. He had an “ill-kempt beard,” “an average mouth with a few teeth missing,” and “a high-pitched voice, with evidence of a carbuncle on his forehead that is still healing.”

Zaragoza, it was said, “prays with his hands behind him so that the Rosary falls over his posterior, and he stands this way until completing it.” Another witness said that when the bells of the local church rang, Zaragoza would let out a curse: “Damn the bells and whoever has them rung!” Furthermore, Zaragoza called friars “rogues” who “take the habit in order to assure themselves of a meal.”

In the end, the silversmith was charmed: His trial was suspended due to insufficient merits.

Back in the day, Monty Python’s famous skit played the Inquisition for laughs, with Michael Palin’s Cardinal Ximénez clumsily stating that the Inquisition was all about “fear, surprise, ruthless efficiency, an almost fanatical devotion to the pope — and nice red uniforms.”

“We try to address the Inquisition stereotype in the class,” says Melvin, because it “goes against a lot of recent scholarship.” For example, there were only three tribunals in all of the Spanish Americas, “and how active they were varied.”

Early in her course, Melvin does mention the Python skit to her students. “Some have heard of it,” she says. “Some think it’s funny — it’s not unknown.”

The website Reading the Inquisition offers translations of real Spanish Inquisition cases, including “The Inquisitorial Prosecutor of this Holy Office against Miguel de Zaragoza for using prints in his shoes.”

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THIS JUST IN

A sampling of recent faculty-authored articles.

Intraspecific Relationships Between Floral Signals and Rewards with Implications for Plant Fitness Publication: AoB Plants • Author: Carla Essenberg (biology) • What It Explains: Scientists know that floral signals (e.g., color) and floral rewards (e.g., pollen) influence pollinators like bees. Less known is why the relationships between signals and rewards are what they are. For example, why should a floral signal be “honest” — meaning it delivers its promise of nectar or other reward.

Bending Toward Justice in Eyewitness Identification Research Publication: Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition • Author: Amy Douglass (psychology) • What It Explains: The field of psychology must continue to support and incentivize research that creates a fuller understanding of how and when the integrity of eyewitness evidence has been compromised and tainted by social influences.

Cultivating Inclusive Instructional and Research Environments in Ecology and Evolutionary Science Publication: Ecology & Evolution • Author: Carrie Diaz Eaton (digital and computational studies) and coauthors • What It Explains: Various strategies exist for ecologists, evolutionary scientists, and educators to better cultivate an inclusive environment in the classroom, research laboratory, and field.

Translational Investigation of Electrophysiology in Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Publication: Journal of Molecular and Cellular Cardiology • Author: Martin Kruse (biology and neuroscience) and coauthors • What It Explains: A type of heart disease known as hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is better understood using human-engineered heart tissues than using mice.

Ant It Grand?

Etti Cooper ’22 of Denver, Colo., holds a plastic “critter carrier” containing Lasius nearcticus, the yellow meadow ant, which she collected on Mount David last fall for her senior honors thesis in biology.

Her research investigates how the meadow ant, which is entirely subterranean, and another species, the above-ground pavement ant (Tetramorium immigrans) might differently respond to global warming.

Working with her adviser, Helen A. Papaioanou Professor of Biological Sciences Ryan Bavis, Cooper measured and compared the two species’ consumption and production of oxygen and carbon dioxide to see how sensitive they are to changes in temperature.

An earth bumblebee visits a blanket flower in August 2021. Bates biologist Carla Essenberg is investigating the signals and rewards that flowers give to potential pollinators.

Tamsin Stringer ’22 of Bloomington, Ind., poses at a new electric vehicle charging station on campus.

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Let’s Get Positive

The goal of the college’s new Sustainability Roadmap, unveiled in March, is for Bates to become climate positive by 2030.

“This new roadmap is our path forward,” said President Clayton Spencer. “It presents both large aspirational goals and practical next steps, and it will engage the entire community in helping us make progress, both in infrastructure and behavioral changes.”

For Bates, climate positive means the college will, by 2030, have practices and policies in place to remove more carbon dioxide emissions than the college produces.

Bates became carbon neutral in 2019 — one year ahead of schedule — by focusing on three fronts: reducing energy consumption through efficiency measures; strengthening the culture of sustainability on campus; and switching to renewable energy sources. Along the way, Bates reduced its investments in fossil fuel-based energy companies by 50 percent, and will continue to lower those investments.

While the aim of carbon neutrality was to balance out the harmful aspects of human activity, this new goal aims to be corrective and restorative.

The drive to climate neutrality was about being “what you might call ‘the least bad,’” said Sustainability Manager Tom Twist. The next step “should be working toward doing ‘more good.’”

At Bates, students have long helped to drive various sustainability initiatives, and that’s continuing. For example, two years ago Tamsin Stringer ’22 of Bloomington, Ind., and fellow student EcoReps took the lead in surveying students and employees about their electric vehicle use.

Above and Beyond

The Bates Campaign, launched publicly five years ago, was zooming toward its $300 million goal as of early May. The campaign closes June 30 — and celebrations are gearing up for the fall.

Sarah Pearson ’75

As an educational institution, Bates is in a unique position to introduce new drivers to electric vehicles.

The survey revealed rapid growth of EV use and demand for EV chargers. So Stringer set a goal: Help her college add more EV plugins, which she and fellow EcoReps did by securing $36,000 in external grant support.

Stringer and others want Bates to help lead “the transformation of the marketplace” from fossil fuels to electricity. “As an educational institution,” she says, “Bates is in a unique position to introduce new drivers to electric vehicles” — and to help find solutions to climate change.

@ Sustainability Roadmap | bates.edu/roadmap

EIGHT YEAR COUNTDOWN

The college’s new Sustainability Roadmap searched every nook and cranny of the Bates enterprise for ways to achieve climate positivity by 2030. Tactics and strategies will include: • Reducing water consumption by 20 percent; • Shifting to electric vehicles wherever possible and continuing to expand the EV charging stations; • Reducing fossil-fuel energy consumption in new buildings to a level that is 80 percent below the average consumption for that building category; • Integrating sustainability into appropriate academic coursework; • Partnering on a new Maine solar array project to generate enough electricity to represent 75 percent of the college’s total power use; • Reducing the use of packaging in Dining,

Conferences, and Campus Events by 30 percent; reducing DCCE energy consumption by 25 percent through energy-efficient equipment; and food waste by 25 percent through education; • Improving recycling rates by 20 percent; • Adopting regenerative landscaping practices; • Supporting an informed, diverse student body that is educated and active in advancing equity in the socio-economic space; • Empowering students to be actively engaged in campus sustainability.

Leadership Transition

President Clayton Spencer announced two senior leadership transitions last spring.

Vice President for College Advancement Sarah R. Pearson ’75, a nationally recognized leader in higher education fundraising and the architect of the record-setting Bates Campaign, will retire on June 30, 2022, at the conclusion of the campaign.

In March, Vice President for Communications and Public Affairs Sean Findlen ’99 resigned to join the private sector as assistant vice president for enterprise communications with UNUM.

Pearson, a member of the Bates leadership team for a decade, has worked in higher education for more than four decades. At Bates, she “combined her considerable experience and deep devotion to Bates with her seemingly boundless energy and optimism to lead the design and execution of the largest and most successful fundraising campaign in the college’s history,” said Spencer.

The Bates Campaign, which concludes June 30, 2022, has raised $336 million, surpassing the $300 million goal by 12 percent.

Under Pearson, annual fundraising has nearly tripled, from $12 million in fiscal 2013 to $34.2 million in fiscal 2021. She also led College Advancement’s significant investment in reimagining the range and goals of the college’s alumni and parent engagement programs.

In his seven years at Bates, Findlen led Bates Communications to strategic and productive collaborations with campus partners, including Admission, College Advancement, and the Center for Purposeful Work, and developed a highly effective content marketing and social media strategy for the college.

“Under Sean’s leadership, BCO has told the Bates story with

PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN creativity, clarity, and power,” said Spencer. “His expertise and guidance, paired with a genuine love for his alma mater, have been invaluable to Bates during times of challenge

Sean Findlen ’99 and significant accomplishment.”

Finn Conway ’22 of San Francisco poses for a photograph after playing pickup hoops in Alumni Gym. Bedecked in Nike gear, his walking shoes are a pair of retro Air Jordans (the Jordan 1 Low). He’s holding his basketball shoes, the Nike Greek Freak 1, the first signature shoe of NBA star Giannis Antetokounmpo.

THE SHOE ME STATE

photography by phyllis graber jensen

As January’s snow turned to ice and then to slush (and back again), these Bates folks got a grip on winter — with shoes laced up, unlaced, or slipped on — while always putting their best feet forward.

OLIVIA

“I watched the men do it and I was like, ‘I think I can do that. I want to try.”

Olivia Skillings ’22 of Portland, Maine, captain of women’s Nordic skiing, tells the Bates Bobcast what it was like to compete in the longest race ever for college women, a 20-kilometer event on Jan. 14 at the Colby Carnival. Previously, the longest women’s race was 15 kilometers. “I’ve really advocated for equal distance in sports, she said. She was 21st out of 80 finishers. “It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done but just an awesome experience to know that I can go that far.”

BREWSTER BURNS

‘You Don’t Get What You Deserve’

Five alumnae who’ve made historic contributions to the advancement of women in sports took part in a February webinar that was part pep talk, part history lesson.

Carolyn Campbell-McGovern ’83, deputy executive director of the Ivy League athletics office, explained a bit of the history of gender disparity in the collegiate coaching ranks. Following Title IX’s passage, women’s teams saw their budgets grow, including salaries, which attracted both male and female applicants to coaching positions.

The men usually had, from past privilege, more experience and so were often hired over female candidates. In that way, Campbell-McGovern said, gender disparity, like racial disparity, “can be self-perpetuating.”

Then she got right to the point, speaking to the women in the large Zoom audience of some 150 viewers. In sports and in life, she said, “You don’t get what you deserve. You get what you ask for, you get what you fight for, and you get what you work for.”

“So make sure you honor the people who have come before you and the work that they have done to provide the benefits that you have. Continue to fight, and continue to make sure that you pay it forward, so the next generation has it even better than you do.”

Sponsored by Bates Athletics, the discussion celebrated National Girls and Women in Sports Day on Feb. 2 and the 50th anniversary of the passage of Title IX in 1972.

Campbell-McGovern, the college’s first women’s lacrosse All-American, was joined by four fellow panelists:

Two-time Winter Olympian Nordic skier Nancy Ingersoll Fiddler ’78, co-author of Trail to Gold: The Journey of 53 Women Skiers, in 2021; former volleyball player Katie Burke ’03, chief people officer at HubSpot; former All-American thrower Vantiel Elizabeth Duncan ’10, a finalist for NCAA Woman of the Year in 2010, who works to deliver high speed internet to rural Maine; and national champion rower Amelia Wilhelm ’18, NCAA Woman of the Year finalist in 2018, who is enrolled in a medical scientist training program.

The discussion was moderated by Amanda Kaufman ’22 of Somers, Conn., a track and field captain and double major in psychology and in gender and sexuality studies.

Watch the conversation bates.edu/alumnae-panel

“Continue to fight” for opportunities for girls and women in sports, said Carolyn Campbell-McGovern ’83, a field hockey and lacrosse standout at Bates.

You get what you ask for, you get what you fight for, and you get what you work for.

New Head Football Coach

Matt Coyne was appointed in February as the 22nd head Bates football coach in the program’s 127-year history.

Coyne comes to Bates from Wesleyan, where he was the team’s defensive coordinator, linebackers coach, and special teams coordinator. At Bates, he will inherit an experienced roster, with 54 returnees from last year’s 3–6 team under interim head coach Ed Argast.

A 2012 Wesleyan graduate, Coyne majored in psychology, was the starting quarterback for two seasons, and twice earned the Thomas W. Eck Jr. Memorial Award for exemplifying the best in team spirit, sportsmanship, and devotion. After graduation, he earned a master’s degree through Wesleyan’s Graduate Liberal Studies program and was an assistant football coach.

Coyne joined the football coaching staff at Oberlin College and in 2016 was promoted to offensive coordinator for the Yeomen. Originally from Bristol, Conn., he earned All-State and All-Conference honors in high school in football and baseball.

Coyne’s NESCAC experience as a player and coach, coupled with his strong football knowledge, “impressed everyone on the hiring committee, from students to coaches to alumni,” said Director of Athletics Jason Fein. “His ability to inspire and lead makes him the perfect person to take Bates football into the future.”

“When you’re looking at taking a position as a head coach, you just don’t take any head coaching job,” said Coyne. “You want to take a job where you feel that you’re supported in the right way, the players are bought into what your vision is, and there’s that yearning for success. From my initial interview, I just knew that Bates has that urgency to be successful, and that’s something that’s super important.”

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‘I Just Went for It’

Rookie backstroke sensation Sophie Cassily ’25 of Rye, N.H., broke not one, not two, but three individual Bates records at the NESCAC championships in February, winning the 200-yard backstroke title along the way.

Cassily is now the greatest backstroker in program history, owning team records in the 50, 100, and the 200. She’s also a member of the 200-yard medley relay team that set a Bates record at the conference meet.

In Cassily’s winning 200-yard backstroke race, she was nearly even with a Williams swimmer with 50 yards left.

“I don’t know if I was ahead of her or she was ahead of me,” she recalls. “But when I pushed off the wall for the last 50, I realized, ‘Wow, I have some energy left.’ So I just went for it, and she couldn’t go with me.”

In a tight finish, swimmers usually need to look at the scoreboard to learn the result. But not Cassily. “I was on my back, facing the team, and I knew I won because they were celebrating. It was awesome.”

Joaquin Torres ’25 of Silang, Philippines, plays the Boy who guides and speaks for Teiresias, the blind but far-seeing prophet.

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18

Spring 2022

Puppet Partnership

Puppetry and theater became a perfect partnership in the Bates theater production of Antigonick, the 2012 adaptation of Antigone, the Sophocles play in which the title character’s insistence on giving her brother a proper burial, against the wishes of her uncle, the King of Thebes, leads to mayhem and death.

The Bates production added its own theatrical elements to this already innovative translation of Antigone by poet Anne Carson, which dramaturg Maggie Nespole ’23 of Annapolis, Md., described as having shifted the play “from a story of broken men to the truth of women.”

Ananya Rao ’25 of Bedford, N.H., manipulates and voices one of the puppets that comprised the chorus of Old Theban Men.

Carried by the chorus, Antigone, played by Caroline Cassell ’24 of Woodstock, Vt., draws closer to her death.

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Antigonick is “often referred to as an experimental, or even radical, translation,” said Assistant Professor of Theater Tim Dugan, who directed the play. In that spirit of adventure, Dugan and his team devised creative ways to support the story through some amazing puppetry and shadow theater produced by Figures of Speech Theatre of Freeport, Maine, which is affiliated with the Department of Theater and Dance.

TWITTER

After Mare of Mare of Easttown threw shade on Bates, Twitter users, including Associate Professor of Sociology Michael Rocque, had their say.

We’re Waiting

It’s been a year since the title character of HBO’s Mare of Easttown dissed Bates during the finale of the limited series.

If you recall, Mare (Kate Winslet) learns from her boyfriend, novelist Richard Ryan (Guy Pearce), that he’s departing town to spend the next academic year at none other than Bates College.

Mare is not impressed, telling him, “Never even heard of Bates College.” A detective on the Easttown police force, Mare is skeptical by trade and possibly, by constitution. “Bet you’re making it up,” she tells him.

After Mare threw shade on Bates, Twitter users had their own takes. Associate Professor of Sociology Michael Rocque tweeted, “That’s cold, Mare.”

A prospective Bates parent tweeted that they were planning on bringing their daughter for a tour in a few weeks, and “maybe we’ll run into Richard signing books.”

Andrew Mountcastle, assistant professor of biology, weighed in with a suggestion that a future season might focus on the murder of a certain convertible Jaguar (Richard’s ride) by the Maine winter. And Carolyn Ryan ’86, deputy editor of The New York Times, was one of many who retweeted a Bates tweet, adding a wry note: “Great school. Wonderful alums.”

And will Mare be back? As a limited series, probably not. But we’ll let you know if we spy Richard at the Goose later this summer.

Wearing either hat or hood or neither, four Lewiston Middle School students mug for the camera on Dec. 9, 2021.

Dressed for Success

During conversations about bias and racial equity in their classrooms, Lewiston Middle School students told their Bates student mentors how Black students were more frequently called out for wearing hats and hoods in school than white students.

From that starting point, the Bates students, as part of the education course “Discipline, Race, and Schooling,” helped the middle-schoolers build a successful bias-focused argument to end the prohibition against wearing hats and hoods in school and then take the argument to school leaders.

Last summer, the Lewiston school committee approved an amended dress code policy to allow students to wear previously banned items, such as hats, hoods, studded collars, and crop tops. The amended policy emphasizes the personal rights of students and their families to decide what is appropriate to wear to school.

The Bates students helped the middleschoolers make their case, but it was most rewarding to watch the youngsters “take ownership and take over” the effort, Associate Professor of Education Patricia Buck told the Lewiston Sun Journal.

The Bates students “helped the students refine their arguments. They coached,” teacher Allston Parkinson told the Sun Journal. “They were able to provide research information that helped,” including relevant court cases related to clothing and free speech.

What’s in a Name: Wood

William Barry Wood of Boston, for whom Wood Street is named, was a 19th-century business associate of Benjamin Bates, the Lewiston mill owner for whom Bates College is named. Wood Street extends from the Bates campus toward downtown Lewiston, ending at Sabattus Street near the Blue Goose tavern.

Wood and Cotton

Williams Wood was involved in Lewiston’s Continental and Lincoln cotton mills, the Union Water Power Co., and the Lewiston Bleachery and Dye Works, among other interests. According to his 1888 obituary, he was “widely known for his mercantile integrity.”

At his funeral in Boston, U.S. Sen. William P. Frye of Maine (and of Frye Street fame) was a pallbearer.

Cotton Problem

In the years before the Civil War, the Southern cotton that enriched Lewiston mill investors was grown by enslaved persons.

Spoken Wood

In 1874, Wood, who served as a trustee of Bates in the 1870s, offered a $100 prize during Commencement exercises for the “best original oration” by a member of the junior class. It was won by Frank Leslie Washburn, Class of 1876, who became (not surprisingly) a lawyer.

On the Street

Starting in 1965, Bates College began purchasing Wood Street buildings for residential, academic, and administrative use. The Multifaith Chaplaincy and the Harward Center for Community Partnerships are on Wood Street. Two student residences, Herrick and Stillman houses, are there, too.

Ali Manning ’23 of Sydney, Australia, poses on the porch of Stillman House, one of several Bates buildings on Wood Street.

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Shalom, Sisters

Jews have called Lewiston and Auburn home since the 1800s, but when Phyllis Graber Jensen, who was raised in a Jewish community in New York City, arrived in Lewiston three decades ago, she doubted that Jews even lived in Maine.

With camera in hand, she’s learned otherwise.

Last fall, Graber Jensen, director of photography for Bates Magazine, put together Shalom, Sisters, an exhibition of her photographs featuring Jewish women and girls affiliated with Temple Shalom Synagogue-Center in Auburn, the Jewish community that she joined in 1992. “To chronicle everyday life, photographers often wait for mundane moments of self-revelation,” Graber Jensen says. Waiting, observing, and paying attention “is an act of respect,” she explains. “Perhaps we don’t love, or fear, everyone we meet, but ideally those we know — or even just encounter — deserve our willingness to observe them closely.”

Here are three photographs from the exhibition, which was shown at the Maine Jewish Museum in Portland.

Dr. Elcha Buckman wears the hat.

The Hat, 2021

One day, Ruth, a patient of Dr. Elcha Buckman, showed the therapist a picture of a hat. Buchman loves hats, and this one was special. It was custom made in New York — with feathers from Australia — for Ruth to wear at the bar mitzvah of her first grandson.

Ruth was a “very generous, very chic, and very fashionable” woman, says Buckman. The two would talk about “feelings, family, and fashion.”

After Ruth’s death, her daughter appeared in Buckman’s office with a large, ornate box. Inside was the hat. “My mother wanted you to have this,” she said, “so you could wear it to your first grandson’s bar mitzvah.”

In Judaism, the number 18 has great meaning: It’s the numeric value of the Hebrew word “chai,” which means “life.” Ruth’s gift was Buckman’s 36th hat, “making my collection a double chai.”

Friends, 2019

Bertha Bodenheimer, a member of Temple Shalom, and Fatuma Hussein first met during a temple brunch, where Hussein, who is executive director of the Immigrant Resource Center of Maine, gave a talk. “There’s no way we’ll ever get to know each other unless we get together,” Bodenheimer said to Hussein.

Subsequently, a group of Somali women hosted a group from the temple for lunch on Lewiston’s Lisbon Street, where Bodenheimer and Hussein held hands.

These holding hands belong to Bertha Bodenheimer (left) and Fatuma Hussein.

Marilyn Isaacson Simonds holds photographs of her paternal grandparents, Harry and Eva Isaacson.

The Granddaughter, 2006

As a child, recalled Marilyn Isaacson Simonds, who was born in Lewiston in 1928, almost everybody was related to one of the few Jewish families in town, and one didn’t distinguish between cousins, whether it was a first cousin or a fourth cousin. “A cousin is a cousin, and they were equally important.”

So, when at age 10 she was first allowed to walk down to Lisbon Street by herself, her mother gave Marilyn clear instructions: “When you walk onto Lisbon and Main streets, make sure you smile at everybody because you may be related.”

Nationally recognized for her volunteer service in support of children, immigrants, and the poor, Simonds died in 2019 at age 90.

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The Colonial Mindset

On March 6, 1957, as throngs of Ghanians took to the streets of Accra to celebrate their independence from Great Britain, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was there, witnessing Black people “experiencing [freedom] in their very souls.”

In 1957, the lowering of the British flag and the raising of the Ghanian flag was an easily grasped moment of decolonization and liberation. But here in 2022, the phrase’s meaning is far more complex but no less important, grappling as it does with enduring white supremacist ideas and power structures.

Hence the theme for Bates’ Martin Luther King Jr. Day observance in January, “What I Mean When I Say: Decolonization and Liberation,” which kicked off with a panel discussion among five Maine-based thinkers, practitioners, and activists, including Lewiston resident Hamza Abdi, who is originally from the African nation of Djibouti, which gained its independence from France in 1977.

Abdi works at Bates as the assistant director of volunteer programs and community partnerships for the Harward Center for Community Partnerships. During the panel discussion, Abdi explained what the day’s theme meant to him, “as an African expat, who has strong ties with the continent.”

Since coming to the U.S., Abdi has seen one legacy of colonization, the barriers between African immigrants and African Americans. “Few are aware, for example, of how the independence of African nations influenced the U.S. civil rights movement,” including how King was inspired by the Ghanaian independence movement.

“The histories and struggles of Africans on both sides of the Atlantic have always been connected to each other, yet there is a lack of knowledge of each other’s historical and cultural experiences.”

For Abdi, decolonization and liberation “means rediscovering myself, reclaiming my identity, and liberating myself from the colonial mindset and the trap of a very dangerous colonial education system. I had rejected and renounced my own ethnic identity, Somali. I lived with the colonial mentality, which is the perception of ethnic and cultural inferiority and a form of internalized racial oppression.”

He says that “just seeing and calling out colonization isn’t enough” to achieve change. So he has committed himself “to engage colonization with an intention to dismantle it” and to “search for people who were embodying resistance, who are serious about bringing change in the community, and who challenge oppressive systems.”

In the Roger William cultural kitchen, Jangmin Song ’25 of Tokyo chops garlic while language assistant Hongyu Zhang explains what’s going on. (The eggs and tomatoes are for another dish.)

PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN

I lived with a colonial mentality, which is the perception of ethnic and cultural inferiority and a form of internalized racial oppression.

PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN

Soon, it’s time to dig in. Jackson Obel-Omia ’22 of Barrington, R.I., Julie Jesurum ’22 of Weston, Mass., and Leia Gallego-Calle ’25 of Waterbury, Conn., taste the finished dish.

PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN

Smack Down

During a cooking class in the Roger Williams Hall cultural kitchen recently, Bates language assistant Hongyu Zhang taught students how to prepare pai huang gua, also known as smacked cucumber salad.

It’s called “smacked” because the flat side of a wide knife or cleaver is used to smash the cucumber “really hard so it splits, then you cut it into pieces,” says Zhang.

Depending on the recipe, the vinaigrette includes sesame oil, Chinese black vinegar, crushed garlic, chopped scallions, soy sauce, and sugar. If you want, add red chilis, “if you like spicy,” Zhang says. A dash of oyster sauce adds flavor too.

The mouth-watering session was presented by the Bates Center for Global Education to celebrate International Education Week.