Slideshow: This Month at Bates

With snowballs to throw and puddles to navigate, we’re over the moon! So much to indulge as February has filled our plates with talks and performances, arts and sciences, athletics and community.

It’s an embarrassment of riches. Please join us at our visual banquet, This Month at Bates.

Bright Lights of Hedge

There’s still work to be done, and so the door to Hedge Hall opens once again.

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Reading Before Bed

“I like to read before bed,”⁣ says geology major Maya McDonough ’22 of Aspen, Colo., as she samples the offerings in Ladd Library’s featured book section. She chose the winner of the 2019 National Book Award in Nonfiction, The Yellow House by Sarah Broom, in part because “it has some cool stuff about NASA and the space race.” ⁣

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Bee the One

The cast of the Robinson Players’ production of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee takes a bow after a performance in Gannett Theater.

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Girls and Women in Sports

Women’s lacrosse player Allison Greuel ’23 of Freeport, Maine, was one of 76 student-athletes who helped put on a free sports clinic for 45 girls from 25 different schools in celebration of National Girls and Women in Sports Day.

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Creative Exchange of Ideas

English professor Sanford Freedman presented “Anti-Semitism and the Literary Response, 1850–1940: A Primer,” a preview of a course he plans to teach next fall. He was joined by students, faculty colleagues, and staff for a creative exchange of ideas — and pizza. Freedman’s Hathorn Hall lunchtime session was part of the department’s “Critical and Creative Ongoing Work in English” series.

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Making Miracles

Dan Mills, director of the Bates Museum of Art, pauses on his way out of the museum’s Upper Gallery, where multimedia artist Vanessa German’s exhibition Miracles and Glory Abound explores the power of storytelling.

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Lit by Lamps

As the daylight fades and the snow melts, lamps on the Historic Quad brighten the day’s end.

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A Congressional Visit

The opportunity to engage productively with one’s congressional colleagues “doesn’t happen unless you make the time for it,” said U.S. Rep. Jared Golden ’11, D-Maine, during a visit in February.

Golden, speaking here with custodian Joseph Castonguay (left) and politics professor John Baughman, was on campus as the 2020 Distinguished Alumnus in Residence of the College Key, the Bates alumni service and honor organization. ⁣

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A Special Viewing

Students of Carolina González Valencia, assistant professor of art and visual culture, watch Returning to Dadaab: A Somali Refugee Returns from Lewiston to Kenya. During the screening of this virtual reality video, the students “accompanied” Maine resident Shuab Mahat on a journey to the Dadaab Refugee Complex in eastern Kenya. The course introduces video as a medium for artistic expression and social investigation.

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Fulbright Finalist

President Clayton Spencer speaks with 2020–21 Fulbright finalist Katherine Cabral ’20 of Chelsea, Mass., during a reception at the President’s House for the Bates finalists and their faculty mentors. In the current Fulbright cycle, Bates is the No. 1 producer of Fulbright Student awards among U.S. liberal arts colleges.

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Oh That Moon

A full Snow Moon, a term for a full moon in February, hovers over the Olin Arts Center.

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Two Right Hands

As Anthony Shostak, education curator at the Bates College Museum of Art, works with intern Helen Pandey ’22 of Nashville, Tenn. — explaining how gloves protect art from skin oils and that gloves should be textured to provide a good grip — she laughs upon realizing she has two right-handed gloves.

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Double-Doubles

Ariana Dalia ’22 of Brick, N.J., notched 17 points and 13 rebounds in a 63-56 win over Connecticut College at Alumni Gym.

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Piano Lesson

Applied piano instructor Chiharu Naruse gives Alek Zelbo ’23 of New York City a lesson in the Olin Arts Center.

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The Ceramics Kitchen

Psychology major Talia Binns ’20 of Interlaken, N.J., protects herself with a mask as she mixes glazes in the ceramics kitchen adjacent to the kiln room in the Olin Arts Center.

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A Studio Visit

Eden Rickolt ’20 of Landenberg, Pa., offers Carolina González Valencia, assistant professor of art and visual culture, a tour of the studio, on the ground floor of the Olin Arts Center, where Rickolt makes work for her senior thesis in visual art.

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In Preparation

In Commons, Casey Kelley ’21 of Cape Elizabeth, Maine, prepares to share her summer 2019 experience working at passivhausMAINE, a nonprofit that supports the passive house industry and community in Maine, North America, and internationally. Kelley joined other environmental studies majors who presented on their summer internships.

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Campus Tour

From left, women’s track and field athletes Mary Richardson ’22, Mary Corcoran ’22, Emma Righter ’23, and Talia Binns ’20 enjoy a run on a balmy winter day in Lewiston.

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Shimmer and Ice

Early in February, a brief bout with freezing rain glazed these tree branches on the Library Quad, creating a glistening frame for the Chase Hall spire.

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Who Will Sing?

Jes Washington ’13 gave two performances of Janice Liddell’s one-woman play, Who Will Sing for Lena? as part of Black History Month programming at Bates.

The play retells the story of Lena Mae Baker, a domestic worker in Georgia who was executed in 1945 for killing her white-male employer, who had sexually and physically abused her. While grappling with oppression based on skin color and on gender, the play is a broad indictment of the abuse of power — or as Washington puts it, someone exercising “dominion over you just for the sheer hell of it.”

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Leapin’ Lacrosse

Chris Costello ’21 of Putnam Valley, N.Y., won 16 of 24 faceoffs and recorded a game-high 10 ground balls in the men’s lacrosse team’s 12-11 overtime loss to Babson.

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Outgoing Snowball

Cyan Hunte ’22 of Brooklyn, N.Y., tosses snowballs with friends during a snow storm on Alumni Walk.