Slideshow: This Month at Bates

We’re off to an exciting start. New year, new decade, new snowfall. New classes. New meals. New records set.

We wouldn’t have it any other way: cold and crisp, it’s classic Bates at its best. Join us for the experience.

Sankofa Dance

The 10th annual Sankofa production included Lauren Reed ’23, Emily DiBartolo ’23, and Chloe Warshaw ’23 performing choreography by Osceola Heard ’22, with lighting design by Deon Custard ’21.

This year’s edition of Sankofa, titled Invisible Women and featuring stories of women of color at Bates and in Lewiston, brought the capacity Schaeffer Theatre crowd to its feet.

Held annually on the evening of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the student-produced event explores the experiences of the African diaspora through theater, music, and dance. The word “sankofa” is from Ghana’s Akan language referring to the idea of going back for what one has forgotten.

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100th Anniversary

To kick off the Bates Outing Club’s 100th anniversary year, Ben Ayers ’99, a BOC president as a student, visited campus to share stories and lessons from his path from Bates to Nepal, including how he discovered the power of failure and letting go.

Ayers has spent most of his working life in Nepal supporting sustainable economic development. Also to his credit is a recent and acclaimed National Geographic film documentary.

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Worth It

“It was worth it,”⁣ according to Jack Valentino ’22, Andrew Fasciano ’20, and Ian Rashleigh McNally ’20, who spent the better part of an hour clearing a section of Lake Andrews for some pickup hockey on a mild January afternoon.

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Commons Choices

Ke’ala Brosseau ’20 of Burlington, Vt., poses with her lunch, vegan pad thai with bean sprouts, scallions, soy sauce, and chili garlic sauce, all topped with paprika and lime. According to the college’s new NetNutrition guide, the meal provides about 18% of the daily recommended amount of sodium and 2.7 grams of dietary fiber.

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Racquet Power

In front of a big crowd on the Bates Squash Center’s glass court, Graham Bonnell ’20 of Southport, Conn., takes on MIT’s Aman Sanger at the No. 1 position.

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Water Whisper

Philip Dube ’16, a second-year graduate student at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, returns to campus to participate in an alumni discussion, sponsored by Bates’ Center for Purposeful Work, about careers in environmental fields. His area of interest is in the agricultural use of water.

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Kennedy Park

Kennedy Park in downtown Lewiston is illuminated by ball lights and lampposts on a January evening.

Named in memory of President John F. Kennedy on Dec. 3, 1963 — 13 days after his assassination — the park, and the city, had welcomed Kennedy three years earlier, on Nov. 6, 1960, two days before the presidential election. The candidate spoke to about 14,000 people, “the wildest political crowd ever assembled in Lewiston,” according to the Lewiston Evening Journal.

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Impeachment Primer

Late in January, politics professors Stephen Engel and John Baughman served up an “Impeachment Primer (for Dummies)” in Commons. Which constitutional clause allows for impeachment proceedings in the first place? Which Senate procedures affect the current trial? After the two colleagues provided background context, students had ample time to ask questions and discuss the issues.

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Backstroker

Caroline Sweeney ’22 of New Canaan, Conn., swims the backstroke during a dual swim meet against Middlebury on Jan. 12 at Tarbell Pool. The Bates women and men swept the Panthers.

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Debate Partners

Bates student Samuel Melcher ’21 of New York City confers with Morehouse first-year Caleb Strickland during the popular Benjamin Elijah Mays Debate held on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Bates and Morehouse debaters argued the motion: “This House believes that social movements should propose policies that radically re-imagine society rather than prioritizing incremental change.”

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A Thousand Points

With head coach Jon Furbush ’05 looking on, Kody Greenhalgh ’20 (left) of West Warwick, R.I., congratulates teammate Jeff Spellman ’20 of Boston after Spellman became the 34th player in Bates men’s basketball history to record 1,000 career points, during the Bobcats’ 98-60 win on Jan. 2 over the University of New England in Alumni Gym.

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Virtual Reality

On Martin Luther King Jr. Day at Bates, Erni Whitaker ’20, a chemistry and philosophy double major, experiences an interactive virtual reality video, I Am a Man.

Created by Derek Ham of the College of Design at North Carolina State University, the VR video puts users into the 1968 Memphis sanitation workers’ strike, an event leading up to King’s assassination.

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Winter Wonderland

The view from the top floor of Hedge Hall during a lovely — not too cold, not too windy — all-day snowstorm.

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Cello Suites

Courtney Tally ’23 of Hanover, N.H., has played cello since first grade. Thirteen years later, she’s a member of the Bates College Orchestra. On this afternoon, she practiced Bach’s cello suites in a first-floor practice room in Olin Arts Center.

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Biomathematics

During a class session of “Advanced Topics in Biomathematics,” Professor of Mathematics Meredith Greer checks in with Sam Findlen-Golden ’20, a math major from Amherst, Mass., and El Khansaa Kaddioui ’20, a math and economics double major from Elhajeb, Morocco.

An expert in mathematical models that predict the spread of disease, Greer devoted a portion of the Jan. 23 class to a discussion of the 2019 novel coronavirus.

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MLK Keynote

Stanford University Professor of Psychology Jennifer Lynn Eberhardt offers the keynote address during the college’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day observance. Her Jan. 20 address focused on hidden biases and prejudices — such as those that lead people to associate crime with black individuals — and how such bias isn’t subject to the rule of the conscious mind. Instead, bias causes trouble and inflicts pain in defiance of our good intentions.

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Surely Not Shorts

David Ingraham ’21 of Larchmont, N.Y., takes a minute to appreciate the snowfall on Alumni Walk as he heads back from a gym workout.

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Hurdling Along

Amanda Kaufman ’21 (second from left) of Somers, Conn., has a step on her Colby opponents as she heads to victory in the 60-meter dash on Jan. 11 in Merrill Gym. At right is Rebecca Willis ’22 of West Newbury, Mass., who took third in the event.

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Welcome Back

Sophomores Larry Cruz, Ognyan Simeonov, and Devanshi Trivedi catch up during a welcome-back gathering hosted by the Office of Intercultural Education early in January. The reception featured refreshments and conversation with members of the Bates community, including, at left, Vice President for Equity and Inclusion Noelle Chaddock.

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Sangai Asia

Sophia Zhang ’23 of Kunming, China, poses for a portrait in Schaeffer Theatre’s scene shop during Sangai Asia Night, a celebration of Asian and Asian American cultures through music, song, and dance.

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Many and One

Katie Manternach ’21 of Brooklyn, N.Y., joins her squash teammates in preparations for a winning match against Mount Holyoke in early January at the Bates College Squash Center.

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