Senior Reflection: Building Relationships

George Steckel ’19 (Scarsdale, NY)

George is interested in all things food and sports. He loves spending time with his family and friends and spending time outside.  As a Community Outreach Fellow, George led the Book Buddies programs, where Bates students read one-on-one with elementary school children twice a week.

Students at Bates are always involved in something. Some people play a sport, or serve as an ARC tutor, or sing in acapella. For me, I do Bates Book Buddies.

It all began when I was picking my First Year Seminar before coming to Bates. I was sitting with my brother Henry, who was in the Bates class of 2016, and he told me I had to take a class with professor Bronwyn Sale in the Education Department. I said, “Perfect” and was happy to have completed my first college task. I was unaware that taking this class would lead me into lasting relationships within the Lewiston community.

For my community-engaged learning placement in the class, I was assigned to read with four students on Mondays and Wednesdays. The rest is history. I fell in love with the work. Not only were the kids I was working with bright and eager to learn, but they were also kind and funny. The fourteen-year age gap meant nothing. It turns out that children’s books can really bring any two people together.

As I reflect on my four years at Bates and my work as a Harward Center Community Outreach Fellow, there is one word that keeps popping into my head: “relationships.” Working with Marty, Ellen, and the rest of the Harward Center staff has been amazing. I feel like I have had a second home over on Wood Street, as well as a second family. I will miss our monthly meetings and listening to everybody’s check-ins about how their programs are going.  I have also had the pleasure of working with Amanda Hammond and Ashley Shaw at Montello Elementary School and Jodi Smith at McMahon Elementary. Bates Book Buddies would not exist without the work put in by our community partners. The Montello and McMahon communities have allowed Bates students to enter their doors and take students out of their classrooms to read with them. The faculty members at these schools have believed in our work, which has been empowering for all of us.

Being able to give back to the community that has been my home for the past four years is a remarkable feeling. Being a Community Outreach Fellow is rewarding for multiple reasons, but one that has always resonated with me is that I have been able to make a difference in the Lewiston Public Schools as a volunteer while also, as an Outreach Fellow, providing opportunities for my fellow students to do the same. Helping someone else realize that their work is meaningful and purposeful is truly one of the greatest feelings one can have.

Over the past four years I have taken dozens of classes. I have learned from numerous professors. I have lived in different dorms. I have made new friends and discovered new things about myself. Yet, I have always had the constant of Book Buddies. Book Buddies has been one of the most rewarding parts of my four years at Bates, and for that I am incredibly thankful. No matter what else is happening in my life or the wider world, every day that my volunteers and I walk into Montello or McMahon Elementary, the students’ faces light up. When they hear that knock on the door, they know it is their Bates buddy, and they know that for the next thirty minutes, they will experience an inner calmness and the beauty that reading a book provides.

Bates Students Step Up

Dylan Metsch-Ampel ’19 (Montclair, NJ)

Dylan plans on completing a major in Environmental Studies and a minor in Rhetoric. As a member of the Bonner Leadership Program he spends time working as a basketball coach at the Lewiston/Auburn Boys and Girls Club. He also works with Maine’s Volunteer Lawyers Project, where he helps to provide family law counseling for low-income residents.

Bates College students are known for their commitment to social change through community engagement. Some make such important contributions to off-campus organizations that they are invited to serve on the boards of these agencies. Among current students serving on local boards are Cristopher Hernandez Sifontes, Jason DeFelice, Ahmed Sheikh, and Melody Altschuler. Collectively, they work with six different organizations including College Guild, Outright Lewiston-Auburn, Maine Community Integration, and the Autism Society of Maine. Click here to read more.

Addressing Intergenerational Poverty through the Volunteer Lawyers Project

Dylan Metsch-Ampel ’19 (Montclair, NJ)

Dylan plans on completing a major in Environmental Studies and a minor in Rhetoric. As a member of the Bonner Leadership Program he spends time working as a basketball coach at the Lewiston/Auburn Boys and Girls Club. He also works with Maine’s Volunteer Lawyers Project, where he helps to provide family law counseling for low-income residents.

A common theme in our Bonner Leadership discussions is what kinds of community engagement work are “en vogue” compared to the kinds of work that need more attention than they’re getting. Intergenerational poverty is one of the realities in Maine that seems to attract relatively little problem-solving energy. Even well-intended Bates students tend to avoid this work. The reasons for this avoidance include legitimate issues like the relatively small number of programs targeting this population. They also include issues of political or ideological differences that make many liberal arts students hesitant to work with generationally poor citizens. This is not to say that all Bates students are liberal or that the entirety of Maine’s working class is staunchly conservative. However, such differences do exist and can become obstacles to people getting the help they need and deserve. Click here to read more.

Maine Voices: Then and now, America’s greatness lies in recognizing the voices of all

Professor Joseph Hall and Students in History 241: America in a Revolutionary Age, 1763-1789

LEWISTON — On the day after a deeply divisive election, it is important to remember that the real work begins now. Whoever our newly elected officials are, we and they must now debate the best way forward.

At the center of the campaign debate this year has been the idea of American “greatness.” When has America been great? Are we great now? In studying the American Revolution this fall at Bates College, we have been asking similar questions. In the process, we have found that some of our answers about 1776 have important lessons for 2016. Click here to read more.