Keynote Speaker

Corey Keyes

Corey Keyes holds the Winship Distinguished Research Professorship at Emory University. A member of a MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Successful Midlife Development, he co-chaired — with Martin Seligman, Ed Diener and Don Clifton — the First Summit of Positive Psychology held in 1999. Corey is a founding member of the Society for the Study of Human Development and was a member of the National Academies of Science Keck Future’s Initiative on The Future of Human Healthspan. A contributing author to the World Health Organization’s publication titled “Mental Health Promotion Worldwide,” he gave the Dorosin Memorial Lecture on mental health at the 2012 American College Health Association meeting. His research introduced the scientific concept of “flourishing” and focuses on illuminating the two continua model of health and illness.

Alumni Panelists

Wendy L. Ault

Wendy Ault graduated from Bates in 1976 with a B.A. in Psychology. A former reproductive health teacher and assistant director of admissions at Westbrook College (now the University of New England) in Portland, Maine, she served as the associate director of admissions at the University of Maine at Farmington for 17 years. During her tenure at UMF, she was elected to four terms in the Maine House of Representatives, representing part of Kennebec County from 1988 through 1996. She served all eight years as a member of the Joint Standing Committee on Education and Cultural Affairs, and was House Chair during her final term. In September 1999, she became president of the nonprofit Maine Educational Loan Marketing Corporation (MELMAC). When MELMAC was sold to a for-profit corporation in January 2001, the proceeds from that sale created the MELMAC Education Foundation. Since its creation, she has been the organization’s executive director. She lives in Wayne, Maine, with her husband, George W. Bardaglio, also a member of the Bates Class of 1976.

Stephen L. Gresham

A 2003 graduate of Bates, Stephen L. Gresham double majored in psychology and Spanish, and served as captain of the men’s track and field team. He went on to receive his master’s in counseling and Ph.D. in counseling psychology from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 2006 and 2012, respectively. He is now a psychologist and associate training director for psychology at the Edith Nourse Rogers Memorial Veterans Hospital (Bedford VA) in Bedford, Massachusetts. He also serves as the transgender veteran liaison, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) special emphasis program manager at Bedford VA, where he coordinates Safe Zone ally training for the hospital’s staff.

Larry Handerhan

Larry Handerhan graduated from Bates in 2005 with a B.A. in History. He was active with student government and OUTFront, worked as an Admission fellow and served as a class officer. He now serves on the college’s Alumni Council and in 2010 founded Bates PRIDE, a networking and advocacy organization for LGBT alumni, faculty, staff and students.

He lives in Washington, D.C., where he works at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Previously, he worked for former San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, the California Democratic Party and as an AmeriCorps*NCCC team leader in the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina. In 2012, he received his master’s in public affairs from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton.

Khairah Klein

Biography forthcoming.

Daniel Robarts

Biography forthcoming.

Monica Nichole Rodriguez

Monica Nichole Rodriguez is a third-year law student at Boston College. She received her B.A. in Chinese, politics and rhetoric from Bates in 2012 and was awarded the Henry W. and Raymond S. Oakes Fellowship for demonstrating an aptitude for success at law school and accomplishment in public speaking. At Bates, she explored career interests in domestic and international political science, public policy and law.  As a first-year student, she interned for the White House in the Office of Presidential Correspondence. During her junior year, she spent a semester in Beijing at Capital Normal University and was awarded a Barlow Grant to return the following year to conduct research for her year-long thesis titled “Creating, Maintaining, and Destroying the ‘China Brand’: an Analysis of Contemporary Avant-Garde Art and Creative Censorship in Beijing.” Pursuing these interests, she began her legal career at Boston College School of Law, where she was president of Art Law Society, vice president of the Latin-American Law Students Association and staff editor for the Intellectual Property Technology and Forum Journal.  At Boston College she worked for the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the U.S. Department of the Interior and Heifetz Rose, a civil litigation boutique in Massachusetts.

She is an avid member of the Bates Fund Executive Committee, the Boston Bates Business Network and BOLD (Bobcats of the Last Decade). She now lives in Boston as she prepares to graduate from law school in May and take the New York and Massachusetts bar examinations in July.

Bill Sweat

Bill Sweat earned his B.A. in history from Bates in 1979, and later his MBA from the Carroll School of Management at Boston College. He spent two and a half years in Tokyo with Fidelity Investments Japan as vice president–Regional Operations Manager. During his tenure in Japan, he established retail and institutional call centers, led the startup of operations for Fidelity’s entry into the Bank Channel, managed properties and corporate services, and led Fidelity Japan’s Year 2000 program. From 1994 until mid-1997, he led the expansion of Fidelity’s broker dealer and bank wholesale call centers as a vice president in the company’s client services division. He and his wife, Donna Morris, are co-owners of Winderlea Vineyard and Winery in Dundee, Oregon. He moved to Oregon in September 2006, managed his first Crush a few weeks later and purchased the renowned Goldschmidt Vineyard in November. Winderlea is a boutique producer of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. Prior to starting Winderlea, he was the senior vice president and general manager of the Fidelity Investments retail phone center in Merrimack, New Hampshire. He was responsible for managing a 500+ person organization dedicated to sales, service and trading for Fidelity, as well as leading the organizations which support those efforts. Bill joined Fidelity’s retail organization in February of 2000 as vice president of operations and assistant general manager.

In addition to his current role on the Bates Board of Trustees, he has held several volunteer leadership roles at the college during the past two decades.