Joseph Phaneuf '78 works to curb illegal logging. As executive director of the Northeastern Loggers' Association, he shares many landowners' concerns about the rise in illegal logging -- in essence, stealing trees -- by rogue loggers, who tend to prey on the elderly and the absent, cutting down thousands of dollars worth of trees on private property. He believes the individuals affected need to push for greater legal action against illegal logging. "Those kinds of stories reflect very poorly on us and create distrust in the marketplace," he said. "We don't even call them loggers -- basically they're just thieves." But, Phaneuf adds, "The authorities who have dealt with it as a property matter are starting to look at it as more of a criminal matter."

"Bates offered dedicated professors and a great sense of community. The equestrian team was almost nonexistent my first year, and I spent my three years as captain working hard to grow the team's roster and visibility. I was captain of the Bates team for three years. My senior year, I was regional champion out of 10 schools." -- An excerpt from a Q&A with Elizabeth Pemmerl '05, a competitive equestrian who last year was the reserve champion at the Massachusetts Amateur Adult Hunter/Jumper Championships, placed fifth at the Rhode Island Amateur Adult Championships and was also adult equitation champion at the Vermont Summer Festival. A rhetoric major at Bates, she is also a marketing officer at Bank Rhode Island.

The Rev. Peter Gomes '65 has a new book out, The Scandalous Gospel of Jesus, but as a dreaded secular humanist I don't have a dog in that fight. However, I recently stumbled on The Little Book of Atheist Spirituality, which buoyed my spirits no end -- a refreshing breath of foul air against the irritating piety of religious tomes that blow onto the scene in droves. Armed with both texts, I called on Gomes last week. Upon learning the title of the atheist tract, he said, without missing a beat, "Of course it's a little book." Despite great charm and humor, Gomes, 65, remains an implacable, if tolerant, foe of atheists, and he claims we will always be the odd folks out at the table.

Just a week ago it came out that the Oregon National Guard may have its largest deployment since World War II. "What we received last week was an alert for a possible alert," said Lt. Col. William Prendergast '90. "Nothing's been formalized as to our missioning, the number of personnel involved." It could be months before the unit learns if or when it will be deployed. "Right now we're seeing the success of the surge, by units not being replaced currently in Iraq," he said. "Brigade combat teams [are] rotating home and not having another unit replace them in Iraq. So I think that they're reassessing situation and the commitment of the National Guard." But the Guard is still training so that they can be ready for anything.

At age 72, Mark Godfried '57 has gone from being a baker (at his family's well-known Godfried's bakery and deli in Saugus, Mass.) to a fish catcher and dealer to semi-retirement. Godfried is extremely knowledgeable about the fishing industry, especially when it comes to bluefin tuna. During nearly 20 years of dealing in bluefin, Godfried saw the fishery in the Northeast flow and, unfortunately, ebb. He theorizes that climate change has made the waters around the Canadian Maritimes more productive, drawing larger bluefin to where the most feed exists. At the time, the smaller bluefin, who avoid the big fish, could be settling for the second-best feeding areas, in U.S. waters. Godfried said he foresees the Northeast bluefin fishery "becoming a charter fishery with an occasional giant landed."

A teenager charged in a crime spree that ended in the killing of a University of Chicago graduate student is being held without bail. Demetrius Warren, 17, has not been charged with the killing of Amadou Cissé, the Chicago Tribune reported. A co-defendant, Eric Walker, 16, was charged as an adult with murder. Cissé, a native of Senegal who was close to earning a doctorate in chemistry, was gunned down near the campus Nov. 19. Czermy Brasuell, an administrator at Bates College, where Cisse earned his bachelor's degree in 2001, said he would have been concerned about his killer. "Amadou would be grieving for that child who has been charged with his death," Brasuell said. "He would ask of us, 'How can we save this child?'"

"The language barrier was massive; describing proper treatment for a case of ectopic pregnancy is hard enough in English let alone through a whisper-down-the-lane style translation, in addition to the fact that many medical terms do not even exist in Bambara. . . . Many students -- even adolescents -- were illiterate, even in their own language, thus adding another obstacle. We devised [lessons] based on images, symbols and physical actions to facilitate learning. . . . Instead of memorizing a French lesson, their hands could memorize how to tie a solid knot, and their bodies could remember how to build a stretcher. -- With Claire Wagner of Dartmouth College, Emma Scott '10 created and taught a health and rescue course for 60 students in Mali during summer 2007

"I usually don't like the dichotomy between tonal music and atonal music. I'm very fond of writing lines and melodies, and I'm fond of tonal melodies as well. So I try to come up with harmonies that are sort of in between these territories -- a post-tonal idiom, I suppose. So in some parts it's quite pointillistic [as in the 2005 piece "Open Passage (in Memoriam Andrew Svoboda)," heard here] . . . but in others there are long, drawn-out melodic lines." -- Hiroya Miura, composer and conductor of the Bates College Orchestra, discussing his approach to writing music

The Maine Principals Association named Chris Record '95, assistant principal at Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School, Maine's Assistant Principal of the Year for 2008. Record became assistant principal in 2004. In announcing the award, MPA Executive Director Richard Durost pointed to Record's "inclusive leadership style" and "his work to help students maximize their performance and post-secondary readiness." Record, who lives in Turner with his wife Angela and children Ashton and Kyleigh, began his career in Oxford Hills in 2001 as a social studies teacher. He said one of the most difficult things in his job is balancing the multitude of things that happen very day. "It's also the most exciting, never knowing what's going to happen," he said.

Observing the Bates admissions cycle over the course of a year for a story in the November Down East magazine, associate editor Michaela Cavallaro found the final, decision-making phase of the process especially intriguing. "It's intense and focused," she said. What advice would the reporter give to students embarking on the application process? Be yourself and be prepared to explain why you really want a particular school. "A student's level of interest in Bates . . . was a key factor in the decision," Cavallaro found. In turn, the college carefully considers the likely fit of each individual applicant, President Elaine Tuttle Hansen noted. "Just as we teach students one at a time at a small college like Bates, we want to admit them one at a time."

A day after a surprise tide of write-in votes swept him back into the office of mayor of Auburn, John Jenkins '74 still had trouble believing he'd made political history -- again. On Tuesday, Jenkins received 2,166 write-in votes, or more than half of the nearly 4,000 votes cast. The write-in mayoral win was a first in Auburn, and Jenkins said he's spoken with several state historians who believe it's a first in Maine as well. Jenkins, 55, has made history before. In the mid-1990s he became the first black mayor of Lewiston. Last December, he became the first black mayor of Auburn, taking office for a one-year term. Now, he says, "I'm just humbled by the magnitude of what this means. I'm just in awe of what the citizens have done."

From microbes in thermal pools at Yellowstone to switchgrass farms in Tennessee, researchers are seeking the key to unlock a potential alternative to corn-based ethanol and petroleum-based fuels. Plant materials containing stiff, resilient cellulose are abundant and rich in chemical energy, but as yet no cost-effective way has been found to derive fuel from these materials. Professor Lee Lynd '79, however, believes he is close to discovering a way -- a "designer microbe" -- to make so-called cellulosic ethanol. He sees unlocking the energy potential of cellulose as the space race of a new generation. "I believe this is a defining challenge of our time," he says. "In hundreds of years from now, when people look back they'll judge us by how well we did responding to this." (Lynd is profiled in the Fall 2007 issue of Bates Magazine.)

Heritage turkeys have made quite a comeback. They're the breeds that your ancestors ate at Thanksgiving before the development of the big-breasted industrial birds found in the frozen-food section of your grocery store. Many breeds of heritage turkeys were nearly extinct before the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy and other advocates raised the alarm. Rose Hoad and her father, Steve Hoad '72, raise heritage turkeys on Emma's Family Farm, in Windsor. The Hoads believe the heritage turkeys taste much better. "They really have a very robust flavor," said Rose. A panel at Cook's Illustrated magazine agreed: In a recent taste test of eight different turkeys, a heritage bird was one of only two types rated "highly recommended."

Now is the time to arrange your finances to try to maximize next year's tax refund -- or at least lower what you owe. Jeff Mutterperl '92 and Valerie Broadwin are getting married in November, but the IRS will regard them as having been married for all of 2007. That means that financial decisions made individually earlier in the year could affect their joint return next spring. Buying an apartment together required the couple to get personal about money for the first time. "We were at dinner and we each told each other what we made, salarywise, and that was a big moment," Mutterperl says. "You can date someone for a few months or whatever, and I don't think you ever really say how much you earn until you know that's the person you're going to marry."

Like many elite schools, Bates experienced a record number of applications this year, making admissions more competitive and staffers' jobs more difficult. To anxious students (and their even more anxious parents), the process can seem random and arbitrary, as if their futures were being determined via a Magic Eight-Ball. But a year spent observing deans Karen Kothe, Jared Cash, and the nine other members of Bates' admissions staff proves just the opposite. In meetings, in admissions interviews, in casual moments at events, Bates staffers are passionate about individual students and about the class they're creating. And as much as the process seems shrouded in mystery to students, it turns out that Bates staffers could not be any more clear about what they're looking for from prospective students.

"Is it a Key lime tree?" he asked. And that is when things went horribly wrong. My father looked at me with his bright blue eyes, tired but hopeful with the thought of his first Key lime harvest. This is it, I thought. A chance to bring some happiness into those eyes. A chance to repay him for the endless hours of playing backyard catch with a son who ended up taking ballet for phys ed credit in college. . . . I looked him straight in the eye and lied. "Yes. It's a dwarf Key lime tree," I said. -- Realizing that the Key limes his father loves wouldn't grow in Massachusetts, Charles Antin '02 gave him a dwarf Meyer lemon tree instead, and doesn't regret it.

Crested Butte Academy has hired Carter Casner '07 and Sean McKenna '06 to round out the alpine coaching staff. "These boys were skiing among the top skiers in the country and consistently bringing home points for their school," said Andrew Cesati, CBA’s alpine director. Both Casner and McKenna also have great coaching experience. "They are going to be great role models and coaches our athletes will gravitate toward and look up to," Cesati said.

Another world championship for the Red Sox could trigger an identity crisis for its fans, says a Bates professor of American culture and history. Decades of not winning have defined Red Sox fans as virtuous, stubborn loyalists who stick with their team even when their allegiance goes unrewarded, Margaret Creighton said. "Once could be a fluke, getting rid of 'The Curse' . . . But twice? This is very challenging and, to a degree, upsetting," Creighton told the Sun Journal of Lewiston. A fan herself, the professor in 2005 taught "Red Sox Nation," a Short Term course examining the culture and history of the team and fans, and she plans to offer it again next year. Creighton called baseball "a great social mirror" into the dynamics of U.S. society.

Rockland still describes itself as the "Lobster Capital of the World," but its leaders have worked hard to diversify the economy -- in the process, making Rockland an example of the so-called creative economy. Creative-economy proponent Gov. John Baldacci has encouraged communities "to capitalize on the synergies between entrepreneurship, education, the arts and quality of life." Broo Temple and Jennifer Moore Temple '96, meanwhile, are living the creative economy. They moved from Connecticut to Rockland and started their own companies: Broo's graphic design business and Jennifer's diaper service. "We thought, 'Wow, this is where we need to live,' " Jennifer says. "Is a creative economy just for people in creative business? Or am I part of the creative economy because I've created a way . . . to support my family?"

David Clem has done enough historic renovations to know a beauty when he sees one. So when he first viewed Lewiston's sturdy Dominican Block, built in 1882, he could see its potential. Beyond the building's "extraordinary bones," though, the chance to preserve a significant piece of Lewiston's history and demonstrate civic responsibility between a private developer and community appealed to Clem, founder of the New Hampshire development firm Lyme Properties. Clem discovered the building with his son, Chet Clem '05. Inspired by Bates' attempts to foster a better relationship between town and gown, David Clem thought renovating the Dominican Block would demonstrate civic engagement from the private sector. "There was a role to play, helping revitalize the downtown and expand the relationship between Bates and the city," he said.

One positive role model can make the difference between a kid who goes wrong and one who goes on to greater things. Erin Hourihan '86, executive director of Childhaven, knows the truth in those words: She recently received the 2007 Voices for Children Award in the child welfare category. Hourihan has always had a penchant for working with children: they operate "from the heart," she said. "I value that honesty." Childhaven, Hourihan said, is a great fit for her because of its goal orientation. "I've seen different outcomes that occur with various programs that have been very successful over the years," such as a forensic interview program that helps children who have been sexually or physically abused. "They work with a whole-community approach in investigating these cases," she said.

It seems counterintuitive, what with France, Italy, Spain and Australia suffering wine gluts over the past few years. But the premium end of the wine market -- bottles costing $25 and up -- is on a tear, with sales growth averaging more than 30 percent since 2004. Investors are drinking it in. Bill Sweat '79 and his wife Donna Morris quit their day jobs at Fidelity Investments in Boston, and last year moved to Oregon, where they bought a vineyard. Longtime collectors, the couple felt the time was right to jump in. "We come from a business where you make money every day, so we didn't get into this solely because of our passion," Sweat says. "We definitely got into it because we thought we could make some money."

In the years since he founded the Institute for Higher Education Policy, Jamie Merisotis '86 has played a significant role in advancing the issue of expanding access to college. Starting Jan. 1, Merisotis will pursue a similar agenda from a decidedly larger platform: the Lumina Foundation for Education, where he will succeed Martha D. Lamkin as president. "The board considers Jamie almost a perfect fit for this job," said board chairman John Mutz. What Mutz described as Merisotis' ability to bring people with differing opinions to a common understanding will be especially important given Lumina's desire to step up its involvement in promoting "systemic change" by affecting policy. "This foundation in particular, given its mission, can play a much stronger convening role" at the state and federal levels, said Merisotis.

The Lumina Foundation for Education in Indianapolis has named Jamie P. Merisotis '86 as president and chief executive officer. Merisotis is the founding president of the Institute for Higher Education Policy, a research and policy center in Washington, D.C. Merisotis, whose Lumina responsibilities commence Jan. 1, succeeds Lumina's founding president and CEO, Martha D. Lamkin. "Jamie has demonstrated a true passion for Lumina's goal of increased access to -- and success in -- education beyond high school," Lumina Board Chairman John M. Mutz wrote in a letter announcing the appointment. "In a very high-profile way, Jamie will help Lumina advocate for a better-educated, civically engaged workforce to ensure individual opportunity -- and our nation's prosperity -- amid global competition. . . . We welcome his leadership."

William Pope.L, the artist behind the exhibition "Art After White People: Time, Trees, & Celluloid. . . ," doesn't shy away from confrontation. For decades, the iconoclastic artist has been spitting out sharp satires and poignant meditations on consumerism, race, sexuality and poverty. Visitors to his first West Coast museum exhibition, at the Santa Monica Museum of Art through Dec. 23, can stroll through palm trees painted white and peruse prints of collages made from magazine images and the detritus of Pope.L's body and home. It's an appropriately Hollywood twist to Pope.L's work. The palm tree installation evokes a popular shopping mall but, to Pope.L, comments not on any particular site but on "the ideologies that Hollywood and malls share . . . that consuming is a form of self-expression."

For some college students, getting to the ballot box can be as difficult as registering in a Nobel laureate's honors seminar. Turnout on college campuses has been depressed by some simple but strong barriers. Two Democratic presidential candidates who might benefit from a high youth turnout — Sens. Barack Obama of Illinois and Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York — are pushing measures to eliminate voting barriers. Clinton's proposed electoral reform package would, among other things, require states to adopt Election Day registration — something that both supporters and opponents say increases youth voter turnout. But Dan Berman, a member of the Bates College Republicans, opposes Election Day registration. Voter turnout volunteers, he said, "aren't sufficiently careful about making sure everyone didn't vote absentee somewhere else."

Last year, Harvard doctoral candidate Crystal Fleming attended the Ivy Leadership Conference at Dartmouth University with second-year Harvard Medical School student Jason Rafferty '05. Learning that other Ivy League schools had university-wide service opportunities available, they were inspired to organize Harvard's inaugural University-Wide Day of Service, which brought together 400 students from 13 of the university's schools with representatives from Greater Boston service organizations. "We don't want it to be [just] one day, and we want this to be continued," said Rafferty, who co-chaired the event with Fleming. Business school student Christopher Laconi '05 volunteered on a project for Boston Center for Youth and Families. For him, Laconi said, "the Day of Service wasn't just about giving, but growing -- not just about teaching, but learning."

No. 20: Susan Kozik, executive vice president and chief technology officer for TIAA-CREF. With 25 years' experience in information technology management, Kozik '79 has found her true calling. At TIAA-CREF, she is in charge of company-wide technology direction and systems engineering and architecture, technology risk management, application portfolio management and data-center operations. Kozik oversees almost $200 million of investments in new applications, and is in charge of providing new tools for the operations of the client services and investment areas. Under her leadership, the reorganized IT department is key to helping the firm achieve strategic goals. A Bates College trustee, Kozik was the first recipient of Bates' Distinguished Young Alumni Award and remains active in alumni activities.

The Center for African American Studies at Princeton University, established last year, has made tremendous strides in just a short time. Under the direction of Valerie Smith '75, Woodrow Wilson Professor of Literature, the center is quickly becoming a black studies powerhouse. This past October the center moved to its new headquarters in Stanhope Hall in the heart of me Princeton campus. Since the center was founded, six new faculty members have been hired with joint appointments in other academic departments at Princeton. The center's visiting scholar program will begin this academic year. The first visiting scholar is Imani Perry from the Rutgers University School of Law. Also, the center launched two lecture series this fall honoring Toni Morrison and James Baldwin.

A woman dressed for a party wields a hammer, frantically trying to free her leg from concrete. A girl in a prom dress is pelted with tomatoes. A woman builds a mountain from furniture and strains to reach a pair of gilded shoes. These and other beleaguered heroines are all played by New York artist Kate Gilmore '97 in her performance-based videos. The works "all come from me and my reaction to the world," says Gilmore, who explains that real women in her life, including her mother, form the basis for many of her characters. She was recently awarded a Rome Prize by the American Academy in Rome for the 2007-08 fellowship year, and in January will create a combination video and installation at Artspace in San Antonio, Texas.

The Center for African American Studies at Princeton University, established last year, has made tremendous strides in just a short time. Under the direction of Valerie Smith '75, Woodrow Wilson Professor of Literature, the center is quickly becoming a black studies powerhouse. This past October the center moved to its new headquarters in Stanhope Hall in the heart of me Princeton campus. Since the center was founded, six new faculty members have been hired with joint appointments in other academic departments at Princeton. The center's visiting scholar program will begin this academic year. The first visiting scholar is Imani Perry from the Rutgers University School of Law. Also, the center launched two lecture series this fall honoring Toni Morrison and James Baldwin.

A Bates alumnus is among the 24 winners of this year's MacArthur Foundation "genius grants." Corey Harris '91 is a blues musician and accomplished singer and guitarist who is part of a contemporary revival of country blues. Harris, 38, majored in anthropology at Bates. After his graduation, he studied in Africa, then taught English and French in Louisiana before making music his singular pursuit. He now lives in Charlottesville, Va. The $500,000 fellowships were announced Monday by the Chicago-based John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Recipients can use the money however they wish.

What's most striking about Still River Café is its vegetable garden -- the heart and soul of the place, exemplifying the marriage of artistry and Yankee pragmatism that makes this Eastford restaurant so special. At the ages of 50 and 34, respectively, lawyers Robert '75 and Kara Brooks abandoned lucrative careers to open a restaurant in their barn for weekend dinners and brunch. Their plan demanded the installation and maintenance of organic gardens and greenhouses expected to grow as much of the produce as possible for the operation. The remainder of the produce is bought locally and the Brookses will not go outside New England for dairy, fish or meat. For this seasonal, farm-to-table American cuisine, Ms. Brooks has formulated a lovely, simple aesthetic within a sophisticated, Zen-like presentation.

"Documenting China," an exhibit by seven contemporary Chinese photographers, suggests how that country's rapid transformation is playing out in the lives of ordinary people. On view at the University of Minnesota's Weisman Art Museum through Nov. 25, "China" offers an insider's view of the nation's transformation. The photographers document farm labor just after the death of Communist leader Mao Zedong; heavy industry, new architecture, peasants immigrating to cities, new urbanites and nostalgia among the intelligentsia. "Documenting China" offers a fragmentary albeit fascinating portrait of people caught up in that historic migration. The show was curated by Gu Zheng, an associate professor of journalism at Fudan University in Shanghai, and Mark Bessire, director of the Bates College Museum of Art, where it debuted in 2004.

Bates is trying to cut down on crowded streets and parking lots, and save the environment. They're doing it by adding cars to the campus. The car-sharing company ZipCar is making its first Maine appearance at Bates. "Cars are a hassle," said Bates College President Elaine Tuttle Hansen. "Students have to park them, they have to pay for them. We deal with all the costs, both human and environmental, when we have all these cars on campus." When students become a ZipCar member, they can reserve a time they want to use the car. Their membership and reservation fee includes the cost of gas, maintenance and insurance. The hope is that more students will leave their cars at home and use the ZipCar instead.

Harold Hoskin was studying at Bates when he learned of the Pearl Harbor attack. He left college and joined the Army Air Corps, becoming a test pilot. This week, more than 60 years after Hoskin failed to return from a test flight over the Alaskan wilderness, his remains were buried with military honors at Arlington National Cemetery. The mystery of Hoskin's death was solved after former National Park historian Douglas Beckstead persuaded investigators to return to the site where Hoskin's bomber crashed. Beckstead had found artifacts at the site suggesting Hoskin had died with the plane. The team recovered bone fragments from the largely intact wreckage last summer, and Beckstead contacted John Hoskin, the pilot's only remaining sibling, for a DNA sample. "It was a match," John Hoskin said.

The University of Maine School of Law has created an endowment fund honoring Vincent L. McKusick '44, former chief justice of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court. The fund was created with an initial pledge of $100,000 from Pierce Atwood, the Portland-based law firm where McKusick worked for many years. The Vincent L. McKusick Fellowship Fund will provide tuition and other support to incoming students from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds, with the intent to increase the diversity of the student body and the state's legal community. The law school aims to award the first McKusick Fellowship in 2009. "This is a great honor for a great man," Bruce Coggeshall, managing partner of Pierce Atwood, said of the firm's donation. McKusick retired from the bench in 1992 and resides in Cape Elizabeth.

(Howard Kunreuther '59 is co-director of the Risk Management and Decision Processes Center and a professor at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. He discusses two principles guiding a study of approaches to mitigating financial consequences of natural disasters. First, he says, insurance premiums should be based on risk, thereby encouraging individuals to reduce their vulnerability to catastrophes. Second, the public should fund special treatment for lower-income residents in hazard-prone areas. Kunreuther continues:) Principle 1 gives us a better chance of making our hazard-prone areas safer and affordable. Principle 2 implies that we as a society need to recognize that all taxpayers will have to bear a share of this cost. Rather than waiting for the next catastrophe, we can take constructive steps now to protect those in harm's way.

If her 2007 study-abroad odyssey in Kenya presented Dorothy Vanderbeck '08 with the threat of incarceration on bogus charges, the experience also changed her perspective on the world. While interning for a prison reform program, her efforts to win the release of one unjustly imprisoned man put Vanderbeck in the way of governmental corruption, with her passport confiscated and deportation charges levied against her. Fortunately, Vanderbeck was able to clear both herself and the man she first set out to assist. Today she can hardly contain her enthusiasm for Kenyan society as she recounts her trip. What she calls a totally exhausting experience landed her back in New Jersey with no regrets. "Coming back [to Hightstown], I now realize what a great place I grew up in" she said.

More than 700 U.S. colleges and universities have ceased requiring applicants to submit standardized test scores. Critics of standardized testing say that students from high-income families have an advantage in preparing for the tests over low-income students, and believe that the tests add stress to teenage lives and take time away from activities that may be more important than studying for the SAT. Bates eliminated the SAT requirement more than 20 years ago. Dean of Admissions Wylie Mitchell has found the policy a success. "There's been almost no difference between the graduation rates, for example, of students who gave us their scores or who did not submit them," he said. "There's been . . . just a negligible difference in their grade point averages."

"I am a big huge white wine fan. It's summer, we've got a fish dish -- I think a Washington state Riesling is a really wonderful choice. Rieslings can be sweet and they can be dry, and I think a sweeter one would probably be too much unless you had some jalapeno in there, so then you would be playing with the contrast. But a dry Riesling would impart a wonderful fruitiness without being sweet." Robin Leventhal '88, founder and executive chef of the Seattle restaurant Crave, suggesting a wine to accompany her recipe for Roasted Corn and Cucumber Salad with Feta, Tarragon and Heirloom Tomatoes. Leventhal suggested topping the salad, which she prepared on the show, with grilled halibut

With college enrollments mushrooming in many nations and public support generally unable to keep up, the world is seeing a historic swing from public to private financing of higher education, according to a report scheduled for release today by the Institute for Higher Education Policy. That shift has become evident in a number of ways. First and foremost, more students and their families are paying their own way as countries impose tuition. And institutions themselves are looking for private cash in new ways, collaborating with businesses and starting up fund-raising departments. "There is a global shift in understanding that higher education has public and private benefits," said Jamie P. Merisotis '86, president of the institute, "and that there should be public and private participation" in paying for it.

"O Brother, Where Art Thou? is a wonderful film.. . . . Of course, the name comes from the great director Preston Sturges' film Sullivan's Travels, a satire about Hollywood. In that film, the main character was a film director who wanted to produce a great social epic that really shows the problems of the Great Depression. The problem is that he's a very wealthy man living in Hollywood and knows nothing about how the poor folks are living. . . . The CB take off from those ideas of what was it like to live in the Depression if you were not someone of means." -- Erica Rowell '87, author of the new book The Brothers Grim: The Films of Ethan and Joel Coen

A graduate of King's College, Lagos, 18-year-old Victor Babatunde '11 is one of three local three participants in the United States Achiever's Program of the Educational Advising Center, Lagos. Babatunde, Anthony Omusi and Isreal Ukawuba received full scholarships to study in the United States. Babatunde, a first-year medical student at the University of Lagos, will pursue a degree in chemistry at Bates before going on to medical school. The EAC, part of the Public Affairs Section of the U.S. Consulate, has offices in Lagos and Abuja and works with a number of public and private secondary schools. The program works with students through regular seminars to assist them throughout their application process to secure admission and scholarships for colleges and universities in the United States.

Benjamin E. Mays, educator, clergy and community activist, became president of Morehouse College on this day. He was Morehouse president for 27 years, the longest-tenured president in the institution's history. In this role, he strove to level the academic playing field of historically Black colleges and universities with White institutions. A gregarious man known for outstanding leadership, Mays helped Morehouse become one of the nation's most prestigious colleges for Black men. Mays' thirst for knowledge helped him overcome education limitations in South Carolina to become valedictorian of his high school. He earned a bachelor's degree from Bates in 1920, his master's in 1925 and his Ph.D. in 1935 from the University of Chicago. Mays died in Washington, D.C., on March 28, 1984.

Cambodian refugees were streaming into Thai border camps in 1980 when Scott Allen '84 signed up to do relief work. There he learned about effects of torture that would steer his adulthood as a physician. His sensitivity deepened through many interviews with Khmer Rouge victims. A clinical assistant professor at Brown University and an advisory member of Physicians for Human Rights, Allen is the lead medical author of a report, issued by Physicians for Human Rights and Human Rights First, challenging the CIA’s "enhanced" interrogation techniques. The report concludes that U.S. personnel engaging in those techniques "are at serious risk of violating U.S. law," and therefore at risk for criminal prosecution. "It’s pretty clear these techniques the administration has argued are not harmful, in fact, are quite harmful," Allen said.

Every evening, more Blackhawks and Chinook helicopters touched down outside, unloading the wounded and the dead. At certain moments Heather's own life felt snuffed out on the drab base. She did all that she normally did back in Texas . . . but nothing was the same. Food didn't taste good after she heard that one of her patients had been shot in the head during an attempt to procure lettuce for the mess halls. (Sun reporter Abigail Tucker observed Dr. Heather Cereste '91 last fall as she trained at Maryland Shock Trauma Center and then followed the doctor to Balad Air Base in Iraq, where Cereste served from January until May 2007. Cereste has since returned to San Antonio and her geriatrics practice.)

He has coached teams that have played in Eastern Massachusetts Super Bowls and players who have gone on to every level of college football and even the NFL. But what has Tom Lopez '69, now entering his 30th season as head coach at Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School, enjoyed most? "Watching kids who worked hard to finally become key contributors to the varsity as seniors," said Lopez, a former All-New England tight end at Bates who was a varsity assistant at Lincoln-Sudbury before becoming head coach in 1978. Lopez's son, Michael '04, who played at Lincoln-Sudbury from 1997 to 1999 and then at Bates, is the high school's junior-varsity coach and is starting his third year as an assistant alongside his father. The younger Lopez teaches at Framingham High.

Stephen Lattanzi '08 has been acting since the second grade, when he delivered the immortal line "Halt! Who goes there?" while playing a guard in a production of Robin Hood. After moving to Winchester, he performed with Cathy Alexander's Winchester Cooperative Theatre for Children. Now Lattanzi is directing a modern adaptation of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet through the Winchester Cooperative Theatre's Summer Acting Conservatory, which he and Alexander cofounded four years ago for high school actors lacking theater opportunities. The cast and production staff are all Winchester residents, though the conservatory is open to surrounding communities. "These kids are so supremely talented, and it's easy to connect with them since we're not umpteen years older," said Lattanzi. "We want to keep these kids going. They're too good to stop now."

"On Wednesday night, Paul Eickstadt was simply doing his job -- the truck driver on his way to Iowa carrying fresh bread when the 35W bridge collapsed beneath him. Eickstadt was trapped in his truck when the vehicle burst into flames. The 51-year-old had worked for Sara Lee since 1993 and was headed from Roseville to a bakery depot in Mason City, Iowa. The company described him as reliable, a guy who always got the job done. His death has shaken those who knew him. . . . According to neighbors, Eickstadt lived alone in Moundview. In fact, his brother was building a house right next door. Another family torn apart by this horrific tragedy." -- KMSP-TV reporter Paul Blume '98

Leon Nicholas '93, principal of the consumer goods and retail group at Global Insight, joined CNBC’s "Squawk on the Street" to share his insights on the retail sector in the upcoming back-to-school season. Predicting a slow season due to sagging consumer confidence, Nicholas said that Wal-Mart’s approach to cut prices by 10-15 percent on staple products such as pens and notebooks is a tactic they're trying because "other strategies have not been working." He believed that this was an opportunity for Wal-Mart to fall back on their traditional area of strength -- low prices -- and draw customers into their stores. Nicholas concluded that although Wal-Mart has always done well with low prices, "this may be a sign that the 'Wal-Mart era of efficiency' has run its course."

The coming season brought together Maine's college football community Wednesday, as coaches from the state's Division III programs and Division I University of Maine gathered for a luncheon held by the Maine Chapter of the National Football Foundation. The offensive line will be the strength of the Bates College team this fall, coach Mark Harriman predicted in his talk. The Bobcats went just 1-7 last year but returned all five starters from the O-line. "They struggled last year, but are a group of young guys who worked hard," Harriman said. On offense, the team lost three-year all-NESCAC running back Jamie Walker, but returns a group of strong receivers. On defense, the line took a hit, Harriman said, but his linebacker corps is intact, led by captain Todd Wilcox.

As municipalities in Southern Maine and Seacoast New Hampshire pass ordinances and ramp up enforcement in the fight against graffiti, passions are running high on both sides of the issue. For many graffiti artists, spray-painting cryptic words and images on public property is a legitimate expression of the artistic impulse. Don Lent, a professional artist in Durham, said graffiti "came out of the streets" like hip hop culture. Lent, a retired chairman of the Bates art department, called graffiti a genuine compulsion and a powerful visual voice. But, he said, there's a difference between writing vulgarities and painting purposefully. Covering up graffiti won't stop it, he added. "There are a lot of movements to paint it out," he said. "It's so alive, it doesn't matter. It will come back."

After two weeks of training in Redmond and Yakima, Wash., the Oregon Army National Guardsmen from Bend's 1st Squadron, 82nd Cavalry, were back home Wednesday, cleaning vehicles and moving equipment around the armory. There's no rest for the weary. As the squadron welcomes a new commander, Maj. William J. Prendergast IV '90, from Portland, it is undergoing changes reflected nationwide as more National Guard units are called on to fight in the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. While the National Guard has always had dual roles of responding to domestic disasters and serving as backup to full-time soldiers, the likelihood of deployment for Guard members has increased since Sept. 11. Now they are seeing their duties and time commitments increase. No longer are these men and women simply weekend warriors.

They shimmer like pearls, but the sight thrills Buddhists in a way no jewels could. These are the crystallized remains of 31 Buddhist masters, including the revered founder Sakyamuni, or Gautama. The Maitreya Project Buddha Relic Tour brings the 2,500-year-old cremation remains to Concord, Calif., in August. The exhibit is one of two continuously circling the globe, offering visitors the chance to commune with the tiny crystals of bone, tooth and clothing. Buddha discouraged followers from worshipping human remains, scholars say. But later the belief arose that a literal representation of enlightenment could inspire divine awareness. "In a strange way, in relics you have an ongoing reminder of impermanence," said John Strong, religion department chairman at Bates and the author of Embodying the Dharma: Buddhist Relic Veneration in Asia.

As a leader, explains Bates President Elaine Tuttle Hansen, "my philosophy is, in a sense, based on my time at Haverford." At that college, where Hansen was provost prior to arriving at Bates in 2002, she saw the vital role that faculty plays and the importance of shared governance. Haverford "was founded in the Quaker tradition of consensus -- a participative, inclusive style," she explains. "The more people you can get around a table with different perspectives and experiences, the better the solution." Institutions of higher education, she adds, pose distinctive leadership challenges because faculty and staff represent such a range of interests, viewpoints and areas of expertise. "In finding the right way to appreciate and support these different skill sets and cultures, you have to be versatile."

To the experts who traveled to Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary this week, tagging humpback whales promises to unlock the mysteries of their behavior. The electronic tags allow monitoring of movements and sound, information scientists hope will help them develop better ways to protect the humpbacks and other whales. Humpbacks hit the endangered species list in 1970 after years of commercial whaling, though scientists report that their numbers have bounced back. "Whales have been a big part of so many people's lives, but we still don't know much about how they live," said Duke postdoctoral researcher Ari Friedlaender '96, who joined the Cousteau Society when he was 4. "What pushes me forward is trying to learn things about these animals that will get other people jazzed about protecting them."

Justin Easter '03 knows what community Nordic ski clubs are all about. The new Summit Nordic Ski Club head coach joined a local club as a teenager. By his account, it wasn't much different from the team he is about to take over -- except that it was in Maine instead of the Rocky Mountains. Easter, who recently left the Subaru Factory Team after four years, once skied for a club in the mill town of Rumford, Maine. "There was so much support from the old mill workers," said Easter, who went on to win six all-American awards at Bates. "My dad was a coach and my 90-year-old grandfather still collected bibs after the race." Easter plans to maintain the important balance between Summit's club and high school teams.

Victoria Wyeth '01, grandchild of Andrew Wyeth, has been sharing family tales since the 1990s -- telling strangers about the Wyeth art, sure, but mostly spilling stories about Uncle Jamie playing classical music to calm his pigs or Grandma Betsy buying islands like other women buy shoes. And, of course, about Grandpa Andy and his models. In spring and fall Victoria leads tours through the Wyeth-packed Brandywine River Museum in Chadds Ford, Pa., then in summer returns with the clan to Rockland, Maine, to offer tours at the Farnsworth Art Museum, another Wyeth repository. Her father, Nicholas, is the agent for painters Andrew and his son Jamie. "Daddy sells the paintings, my uncle and my grandfather paint them, my grandmother titles them, and I talk about them," Victoria says.

For the first time in the 37 years since it was founded to encourage interest in novelist Charles Dickens, the Dickens Society will meet in Montreal to commemorate the writer's visit to the city in 1842. Members hope to trace what they can of the author's footsteps when they meet Aug. 17-19. Leading one of the more provocative panel discussions during the gathering will be Bates English professor Lillian Nayder, who is writing a biography of Dickens's wife, Catherine Hogarth. Nayder claims Dickens unfairly maligned his wife after he took up with an 18-year-old mistress. Most scholars accept Dickens's version of Hogarth "as an incompetent wife and unnatural mother," Nayder said. "I decided to take a closer look at her. I wanted to tell her side of the story."

What frustrates most college officials about the U.S. News rankings is its suspect methodology and oversimplifications. They know that what appears to be so precisely "counted" doesn't necessarily reflect what really "counts" as academic quality . . . At Bates, we try to provide evidence for what really counts in college. We advise prospective students to remember what they are looking for in a college experience can't be reduced to a mere number or ratio - just as we remind them that in our admissions process, their talents won't be measured by a single standardized test score. -- James Fergerson, director of Institutional Planning and Analysis at Bates College and a former member of the Association for Institutional Research Higher Education Data Policy Committee

Maine police agencies are growing less squeamish about arming themselves with electrical stun guns, often known by the brand name Taser. But the weapons' ease of use and lack of visible injuries have led to disturbing consequences in some cities, and in about 200 cases people shocked with Tasers have died, though the device's role in the fatalities is unclear. "I don't think the science has caught up with the marketing," says Dr. Robert McAfee '56, chairman of Portland's Police Citizen Review Subcommittee and a former president of the American Medical Association. "It's been sold as something less than lethal, and it may be less than lethal for some people (but) you won't know who those people are until you shoot them. For those who ultimately die, it's very lethal."

As the Bates Dance Festival celebrates its 25th anniversary, director Laura Faure is counting on big audiences to help celebrate that legacy of artistic excellence. Among dozens of performances open to the public, the focus will be the 25th Anniversary Gala, set for July 28 at Lewiston Middle School. Performers include many dance-makers who have used their festival residencies over the years to create lasting new work. The gala will be one of the most significant gatherings of dancers anywhere, said Rebecca Blunk of the New England Foundation for the Arts. "Bates is a distinct and powerful resource for the world of dance, and I underscore 'world' in that," Blunk said, as the festival assembles "an international community of dance-makers to interact, dance and discuss the issues of our time."

A Bates geology professor is studying up on Norway and its iconic fjords before a 10-day cruise to the Scandinavian country with Prairie Home Companion host Garrison Keillor. Through his "Geology of the Maine Coast by Sea Kayak" course, Dyk Eusden '80 met naturalist Natalie Springuel from the College of the Atlantic. Springuel already was affiliated with the July cruise and invited Eusden along. "It's a place I've always wanted to go because the geology is so similar to what I study here," Eusden said. Eusden and other naturalists will give onboard lectures, lead excursions onshore and write for the daily shipboard newsletter. On Eusden's itinerary: Walking through, and across, a glacier. He joins Keillor as well as the rest of the cast and musicians from the weekly radio show.

Until recently, psychologists have largely ignored first-person explanations of personality, the life stories we tell ourselves about who we are. But emerging research indicates these stories about our personal histories are as important as any other personality traits in driving our behavior. The stories we tell about ourselves "weave together the imagined past, the perceived present and the imagined future in an effort to provide our sense of self with some degree of unity and purpose," explains Jonathan Adler '00, a Ph.D. candidate in psychology at Northwestern. Our narrative identities can be even used as a means to change our lives, he says. "The stories constitute who we are, and changing the stories that we tell about ourselves does have the potential to change our lives in really meaningful ways."

Ruth Bass '55 was the first woman in the history of the Berkshire Eagle to cover police and courts, and eventually was named Sunday editor and columnist. Her work has appeared in Yankee magazine and The Boston Globe. A decade ago, Ruth authored an acclaimed series of of "Fresh from the Garden" cookbooks from Storey Publishing in Vermont. In May 2007, she added to her collected works when her first book of fiction, Sarah's Daughter, was published by Gadd Books of Great Barrington. The book is set in the late 19th century. Bass says that "writing fiction was much more fun" than nonfiction. "But because this is a book of historical fiction, I had to do some research. Ask me anything about water pumps or schoolhouses."

On behalf of a client whose cats were left with health problems caused by tainted pet food, Portland attorney Michael Bosse '93 is among lawyers nationwide suing Canadian manufacturer Menu Foods. Bosse is one of a handful of Maine lawyers at the forefront of the emerging field of animal law. In a panel discussion at a Maine State Bar Association meeting, Bosse said that the growing number of lawsuits involving animals reflects people's increasing willingness to spend lots of money on their animals. The Menu Foods suit now includes thousands of dog and cat owners, and Bosse’s case has been combined with cases from around the country. "How it is handled, as well as its outcome, is very important for the development of animal law," he said.

"Frank Lloyd Wright and the House Beautiful" is a major exhibition at the Portland Museum of Art. The exhibition's title, says PMA Chief Curator Tom Denenberg '90, refers to a phrase central to Wright's thinking: that an interior design, including doors, windows and furniture, should all contribute to quality of life. "Wright called that 'organic design,' this sort of 360-degree total notion of the site, the house, the way you lived in it, the furniture -- even, on occasion, the clothing you wore in the house," says Denenberg. "He was as interested in your lifestyle as he was in being your architect." For example, Denenberg points to high-backed chairs that Wright designed to allow occupants of his open-plan houses to create a room within a room when the occasion demanded.

Smell the wild roses, fly a kite, scramble on the rocks and wade into the surf. All these and more make for a perfect summer day along the winding roads and rugged shores of midcoast Maine. Among the attractions is the Bates-Morse Mountain Conservation Area, in Phippsburg, where the trail runs through a balsam and spruce woodland, a salt marsh, and to the top of Morse Mountain. The small parking lot fills up fast, though, and there are concerns about overuse, so if you can plan your visit for a weekday or offseason, it would help preserve the area, according to Bryan McNulty, spokesman for Bates College, which manages the property and uses it as a research haven for students and professors.

Two recent Bates graduates, Kathryn Moore and Jennifer Caban, have been named to the 2007 ESPN the Magazine Academic All-District women's track and field/cross country team. Caban was selected first team and Moore second team. Both were recently inducted into the Bates Scholar-Athlete Society, and Moore also received Bates' Female Athlete of the Year Award. Moore majored in biology and had a cumulative grade-point average of 3.40. A team captain all three seasons, Moore holds three Bates records and was the first Bates woman to win All-American honors four consecutive athletic seasons in the outdoor track 3,000 meter steeplechase (twice), cross country and indoor track distance medley relay. Caban graduated with a 3.72 cumulative GPA in environmental studies. She was All-America as a member of the distance medley relay.

Bates' annual Clean Sweep sale delighted bargain-hunters over the weekend and raised money for grateful nonprofits. "The line wrapped around to Campus Avenue," said Bates environmental coordinator Julie Rosenbach, who oversaw the event. "The money goes to nonprofits. They staff it -- volunteer for it and all the money goes back to the organizations according to how much work they put in." The college-wide sale offered nearly everything a student might leave at the end of the school year -- tables, chairs, refrigerators, microwaves, clothing, textbooks, magazines, curtains, pots and pans, shoes. "I saw jackets out here this morning that would go for $400 at L.L. Bean," said Marcel Chasse, a volunteer with Our Lady of the Rosary in Sabattus. "They were selling for $10, $15. Oh, it was unbelievable."

"[To be a Christian theater artist] means that men and women, isolated in time and space, armed with the power of the Holy Spirit, seek to imitate the creative life of the God of the universe, take their human experiences and, through prayer and meditation, transform their personal lives into a meaningful universal story of redemption . . . Through the power of the Holy Spirit and by the grace of God, Christians working on stage and before the camera can transform humanity's aesthetic experiences into religious experiences, as the life that had been a mystery is saved by the actual experience of the living God." -- Bates Professor of Theater Paul Kuritz in an interview about his recent book, The Fiery Serpent (Winepress, December 2006)

With her right knee in excruciating pain, Jackie Olson '07 realized one day that her Bates basketball career was over. She was determined, though, to continue as an athlete. The next day, she went to the college's Merrill Gymnasium, jumped on an ergometer rowing machine, and went to work. Three years later, the result is remarkable. Olson left Bates with a psychology degree -- and as a second-team Division 3 All-American rower and captain of the Bobcats' varsity eight boat that placed third at the nationals. "Her strength is an ability to work very hard with great intensity," Bates crew coach Ann Lewis said. Olson is headed to grad school at Boston College, and will row for the Eagles this coming year. "You can't really replace college rowing," Olson said.

"[The term "sustainable" is] a quagmire, but an excellent point of departure to discuss the fate of our planet. The burden and worry will be if the discussion gets so political that the environment becomes a polarizing issue. If it does we will miss a great opportunity for bringing people together who may have very different opinions on other issues such as Iraq and immigration but who are willing to come together to care for our planet. There is no question that the current generation of people of under 25 will take no prisoners on this issue; for our students, care for the planet is an essential part of a Bates experience." -- Bates College Museum of Art Director Mark Bessire on the exhibition Green Horizons, which explores sustainability

The newly elected officials of the Harvard Graduate Council, which represents the student body of the University’s graduate schools, are ready to tackle a range of issues, including calendar reform and development in Allston. Though Christopher Laconi '05, elected president of the council last month, said that the council's primary goal in the upcoming months will be to unify students from across Harvard's graduate and professional schools, he also said they would try to win a greater voice in university decisions for graduate students. In addition, "finding out how the expansion to Allston affects the various graduate schools" is high priority, Laconi said, as is determining how a calendar change that would move first-semester exams before winter break could enable graduate students to take classes at other schools within Harvard.

Bates geology professor Michael Retelle of Monmouth will be joined on this summer's journey to the Norwegian island of Svalbard by Matthew Moore, science teacher and coordinator of the environmental studies department at Kents Hill School. They and four others, including Al Werner, geology professor at Mount Holyoke College, will spend part of July on Svalbard, checking instruments that record the pace of glacial retreat in a project funded by the National Science Foundation. Retelle, for whom this will be the 25th summer on Svalbard, said that comparisons with photos from the 1930s show the glacial retreat resulting from global warming. "The warming is happening first in the Arctic and greater in the Arctic," Retelle said, causing what he calls "disturbing changes in climate and environment."

At Intermediate School 286, the Renaissance Military and Leadership Academy, baseball is a respite from daily pressures. The I.S. 286 team was formed last year when Andrew Jarboe '05, social studies teacher and now team coach, started tossing a ball around with a few students after class. This year, a friend who teaches nearby mentioned a new league formed by a group of teachers from other schools. Despite the lack of money for equipment and a practice field consisting of a rough patch of asphalt, Jarboe signed his team up. Here, the students can be all-stars, they can be somebodies. "There is no real official public middle school league in the city," Jarboe said. "They just don't have much of anything else. So this means a lot to them."

Governor Deval Patrick opted for management skills and not experience with parks and beaches when he chose Westfield Mayor Richard Sullivan '81 to lead the Department of Conservation and Recreation. But handling city government conflicts might be good preparation for the problems still lingering from the 2003 merger of the Metropolitan District Commission and the Department of Environmental Management. With Sullivan held in high esteem by his counterparts, and with the goals of his department broadly popular with the public, Sullivan will have natural allies in getting Patrick to fulfill his promise to increase DCR's annual operating budget. Unfortunately, Sullivan will not be able to count on much help from the governor for another burden he faces: undoing the legislative earmarks that limit his authority.

Sarah Cannon '00, an assistant women's rowing coach at Syracuse for the last two years, is joining the Virginia women's rowing staff as an assistant coach. "Sarah will bring a tremendous amount of energy to our program," Virginia women's head rowing coach Kevin Sauer said. "She is a very good coach who has had significant success working with college novices and high school-age athletes. Sarah's contacts with coaches at the high school level will help our recruiting efforts and I'm excited about her joining our program." Cannon's novice eight crew at Syracuse won the Big East Championship in that event in 2006 and 2007, and finished fourth at the Eastern Sprints this spring. Cannon rowed at Bates for four years and was a team captain for three years.

When a rainy day during a Cape Cod camping trip drove the Wetmore family to the movies, the film they saw was Star Wars. Eight-year-old Kevin was so impressed that he went on to see it another six times. That was 30 years ago, and now Wetmore '91 teaches theater arts at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. He's a film expert, a standup comic and the author of several books, including Empire Triumphant: Race, Religion and Rebellion in the Star Wars Films. Wetmore was also featured in a History Channel special celebrating the 30th anniversary of the series' start. "A work of art doesn't just mean, it generates meaning," Wetmore says. "Like many of my generation, I saw those films and they gave shape and meaning to my life."

After working on a ranch in California for three years, Gabe Clark '02 and Amanda Waterhouse Clark '02 wanted their own ranch. Today they own the Cold Spring Ranch, established in 1880 as a diverse beef and dairy farm. "Cold Spring Ranch is committed to supplying high quality grass-fed beef while operating responsibly within the environment and marketing it locally to the communities of Maine and throughout New England," said Gabe. "We have sold our beef in Kingfield, Rangeley, Salem, the Porter House in Eustis, the Apollo Bistro Restaurant in Waterville, Fore Street in Portland and to Bates College, who takes half our hamburger." he said. "We also repackage the meat and sell it directly from the farm." Studies show that grass-fed beef is healthier then conventionally produced beef.

Since 1969, Sri Lankans attending Bates have included Kanthaya Kantharupan ’73, Sonali Arseculeratne ’93, Ruani Seneviratne ’94, Ruwanthi N. Gunawardane ’96, Sulochana Dissanayake ’09, Don Rupasinghe ’10 and Mohamed Cader '11. "I have twice as many opportunities here as I would have had if I stayed at home," said Dissanayake, a double major in economics and theater. "I can’t imagine being anywhere else but Bates." Dissanayake was named a Dana Scholar in her first year at Bates and was one of the rare first-year students to be appointed as a junior advisor. She is president of the Robinson Players, Bates’ student theater group, for the 2007-08 academic year, and plans to introduce an annual competitive drama festival based on Sri Lanka’s annual Shakespeare drama competition.

A powerful, mostly male cast will bring A Few Good Men to the Community Little Theatre stage beginning June 1. Best known as a 1992 movie featuring Jack Nicholson and Tom Cruise, this is a tense courtroom drama about the proper limits of authority. Two young Marines are on trial for their complicity in the death of a fellow Marine at Guantanamo Bay. Their untried Navy lawyer uncovers some chilling secrets about life at "Gitmo." "There's a lot of testosterone at work here, and it's doing wonderful things for the show because it keeps everyone raising the bar," said director John Blanchette '87. Other actors and crew with Bates connections are college staffers Luke Douglass, Brian Pfohl and Ellen Peters '87, and alumna Becky Shor '01.

The greatest achievement for any college athlete is a national championship. For two Bates track athletes, the opportunity for championship glory comes this weekend when they compete in the Division 3 National Track and Field Meet in Wisconsin. "It really is the ultimate goal of any track competitor," said Lawrence's Rich McNeil '10, who will compete in the discus. McNeil's teammate, Pelham's Kathryn Moore '07, will be able to tell him what to expect. She will join her teammate in Wisconsin, marking the third year in a row that she will compete for an NCAA championship. Moore, who will wrap up her stellar college career in the 3,000-meter steeplechase, recently broke her own Bates record in the event with a 10:33.20 at the All-Division Open New England Championships.

For decades, researchers trying to understand the makeup of the personality have largely ignored the first-person explanation -- the life stories that people tell about themselves. Yet a few psychologists argue that personal narrative belongs in any three-dimensional picture of personality, and new findings are supporting their case. Jonathan Adler '00, a researcher at Northwestern, has found that people's accounts of their experiences in psychotherapy provide clues about the nature of their recovery. Former patients who had recovered, as indicated by standard measures, told very similar tales about their experiences. The findings suggest that effective psychotherapy gives people a sense of their own power, in effect altering their life story even as they work to disarm their own demons, Adler said. "The story is one of victorious battle," he said.

Boston University social scientist Thomas Whalen '86 (Kennedy Versus Lodge) insightfully applies to past U.S. presidents JFK's rubric from Profiles in Courage. As Kennedy did, Whalen seeks heroes willing to buck the political tide in order to do what is right. The ultimate example is Gerald Ford, who took the profoundly unpopular step of pardoning Nixon and paid the price in the next presidential election. Whalen also cites FDR's support for Great Britain against the Nazis in the days before Pearl Harbor despite an isolationist and antiwar electorate and Kennedy's siding with civil rights interests challenging segregation at the University of Alabama. Other examples of presidential courage are less obvious, such as Grover Cleveland's opposition to the annexation of the Hawaiian islands. Whalen's study constitutes intriguingly construed history, eloquently told.

Uriel Gonzalez '11 won a trip to Russia this year when he was chosen best Russian speaker at the Texas Olympiada of Spoken Russian. At the competition, held in March at the University of Texas at Austin, Gonzalez tied for best speaker with his friend Stephanie Tapia, who also won first place last year and made her Russian journey then. In all, 36 San Antonio Independent School District multilingual students earned 41 medals at the event. While Uriel hopes to hone his Russian skills, he also wants to learn about the architecture of the country. "I'm an artist also, and I want to be an architecture engineer," he said. "I can't wait to see the landscapes and buildings. I'm looking forward to rounding out my artistic abilities."

Hurricane Katrina ravaged St. Gabriel the Archangel, a church in New Orleans' Ninth Ward. The floodwaters claimed Gabriel, the church's angelic trumpeter, leaving it swollen and discolored. Carved in Italy, "this statue was a treasure to us," said the church's pastor, the Rev. Doug Doussan. But thanks to members of a Manayunk, Pa., synagogue and friends, Gabriel is mended and heading home. When volunteers from Philadelphia's Interfaith Community Building Group offered to restore the statue, "we had no idea what it would take," recalled furniture-maker Peter Handler '69, a member of Mishkan Shalom. What it took was, among other things, the intervention of a sculptor to recreate angel wings lost in shipping. "It's going to be hard to give him back," said Handler. "But we have a shared community now."

For 60,000 years, they have withstood shrinking habitat and the harsh extremes of the Ice Age and the desert. At only 2.7 centimeters long, the Devils Hole pupfish are one of nature's great survivors, an evolutionary miracle. But with only 38 of the pupfish remaining in their murky pool in a remote corner of Death Valley National Park, down from around 500 at the start of the 1990s, the species is in peril -- and trying to get the world to notice is harder than ever. It's important that people do everything in their power to try to save the species, said Paul Barrett '80, endangered species listing and recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "We don't have the right to play God," he said.

This is a great week for Maine composers. Contemporary local music buffs, brace yourself for three straight shows premiering new work by different composers. A gallery of sound is upon us. The Maine debut of Bates College orchestral director Hiroya Miura's composition Moon Petals will be performed by the G-Sharp Duo, which is violinist Emilie-Anne Gendron and pianist Yelena Grinberg. The piece is dedicated to the late composer and music theorist Jonathan Kramer, who tutored Miura at Columbia University. Kramer’s exploration of surrealism in music later in life, and creating music with its own commentary, influenced Miura. Moon Petals "was inspired by the paintings of Belgian surrealist Paul Delveaux," Miura explained. "I was fondly recalling my exchange with Jonathan during our composition lessons at Columbia."

The SAT and ACT are becoming optional at a growing number of colleges. At Bates, where the tests have not been required for 23 years, Vice President William Hiss '66 said the college found nearly no difference between the academic performance of those who submit scores and those who do not. "On this we hang the national sweepstakes of who goes to college and where they can go?" Hiss said. "It doesn't make sense." Many non-submitters come from rural communities or from inner cities, he said. Some grew up in homes where English was not the first language. "That's a pretty high proportion of the kids who go to college these days," he said. "That's where the demographic growth is. It's not in upscale white kids."

Dan Santorella '11 was recruited by Bates after an outstanding football career at Danvers High School. Four years of varsity football, membership in two national honor societies, working for his father's music publishing company and being the top male student-athlete in his senior class are just some of the activities that Santorella has been able to juggle -- and excel in. Virtually any institution would be happy to have Santorella on their campus, but he narrowed his choices down to the University of Miami and Bates. Then, "when I visited Bates in the summer of my junior year," said Santorella, "the first time I walked on the campus I could see myself going there. It had a certain 'wow' factor."

The funnies are serious business at the Center for Cartoon Studies, the new two-year school in White River Junction that prepares artists for careers in comics and design. Alexis Frederick-Frost '00 says he was "drawn here" to continue his education in storytelling so he could combine his loves for literature and drawing in one medium: the graphic novel. It is now a booming trend in publishing. Publisher Nomad Press hired Frederick-Frost to illustrate a pair of its children's activity books, Explore Spring! and Explore Winter!, that go to print this summer. They're science lessons for six-to-nine year olds. Frederick Frost, says Nomad's president Alex Kahan, has "just got a very unique look and an ability to interpret words which we wrote and bring them to life."

About 100 performing artists and arts administrators will gather in Phippsburg Monday and Tuesday to talk about their future. Laura Faure, director of the Bates Dance Festival, is an organizer of the Maine Performing Arts Network's annual conference, which this year focuses on the struggles of the performing arts. Maine has too small a population to support most performing artists full-time, so they have to travel, which is expensive and time-consuming. The conference aims to give people working in isolation access to others in their field and a chance to learn what's happening outside Maine, said Faure. "I am trying to pose some questions and have some conversations to get people thinking. Business as usual doesn't work. You've got to be paying attention to national trends."

Longtime Boston Globe Metro columnist Brian McGrory '86 has replaced Carolyn Ryan '86 as deputy managing editor for local news at the newspaper. McGrory now oversees coverage of the paper's Metro and regional editions in addition to the health and science staff. "Brian has distinguished himself throughout his career at the Globe," editor Martin Baron said. "He put his talents to work as a columnist in late 1998 and quickly became required reading. Whether he aims to provoke, illuminate, inspire, or simply entertain, Brian is a reporter first. And his mastery with words and narrative has made him one of the best metro columnists in the country." McGrory said he wants to ensure that the Globe is not just the "paper of record," but also the "paper of interest."

Eric Chasalow '77 composed an original score for the opera "The Puzzle Master," which premiered at Brandeis University during the CyberArts festival in May. The opera updates the story of Daedalus, the mythic inventor who created the labyrinth of the minotaur and that fateful pair of wings for his son Icarus. In the updated version, Daedalus (called Delling) is an engineer retired on a Caribbean island and looking back on his life. Chasalow, a composer on the Brandeis faculty who specializes in electro-acoustic music, has created a score that's highly challenging for the musicians but that has, as a Boston Globe reviewer wrote, "integrity, supple craft and at times arresting beauty."

An immune system component that is a primary cause of bone destruction and inflammation in autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis actually protects bone from infectious pathogens that play a major role in periodontal disease in humans, research at the University at Buffalo has shown. Therapies that target the component, IL-17, or its cellular receptor currently are being developed. However, UB molecular biologist Sarah L. Gaffen has discovered that, in contrast to its action in rheumatoid arthritis, IL-17 actually protects bone from certain pathogens such as Porphyromonas gingivalis. The study is covered in the May issue of the journal Blood. Researchers taking part in the study include Pam Baker '70, Helen A. Papaioanou Professor of Biological Sciences at Bates. Grants from the National Institutes of Health helped support the research.

The mother of Peter Goodrich '89 is fighting terrorism. In memory of Peter, who died on United Airlines Flight 175 on 9/11, Sally Goodrich started a school for girls in Afghanistan. She was initially approached by Maj. Rush Filson '92, a Marine serving in Afghanistan and family friend who was asking for educational supplies for students. "For the first time, I felt Peter's spirit back in my life," Sally says. She and her husband, Donald, went on to raise nearly $250,000 for a 500-girl school in Logar province. During an interview at the school, Sally says this is how she confronts terrorism. Terrorists recruit uneducated children, turn them into suicide bombers and thereby "trade on their lack of education. What better way to fight terrorism than to provide education?"

Eric Douglas '92 has joined the staff of the Gill Foundation as a senior officer in the leverage center, which works with LGBT and allied philanthropists to provide strategic vision and information on the issues and funnel more money into the movement for equality. "Working with the Gill Foundation's leverage center is a unique opportunity to help guide donors towards short- and long-term opportunities to build a strong, sustainable movement," Douglas said. "I look forward to helping donors develop a more strategic approach in both the philanthropic and political arenas." The Gill Foundation is the largest funder focusing exclusively on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender civil rights in the United States.

Peter Gomes '65 has been at Harvard University for 37 years and remembers when religious people there felt under siege. To be seen as religious often meant being dismissed as not very bright, he said. No longer. At Harvard these days, said Professor Gomes, the university preacher, "there is probably more active religious life now than there has been in 100 years." Nationwide, professors, chaplains and administrators on secular campuses agree, saying that students are drawn to religion and spirituality with more fervor than ever before, from an increased number of religious student groups to a bigger interest in religion courses. Gomes said more diversity at Harvard meant that "the place is more representative of mainstream America," which "provides a group of people who don't leave their religion at home."

Andrew Cyr '96 directs New York's up-and-coming Metropolis Ensemble, a chamber orchestra that builds each program of contemporary and classical music around the centerpiece of a premiere composition. Cyr, a native of Fort Kent, Maine, said that his goal for the ensemble is to send audiences away after each concert feeling like they've been to a party where the conversation, food and ambience have been fantastic. It's "a 'downtown' chamber orchestra in style and substance, very far removed from the hallowed, if rather straight-laced, halls of Carnegie or Avery Fisher," Cyr said. "Obviously, top-notch performances of great music of all eras are paramount to our mission. But we also take great care to make sure to choose atmospheric, off-the-beaten path venues that resonate magically with the performance."

College rankings like those published by U.S. News & World Report are spreading across the world in response to demand, but they vary widely in what they try to measure and how they measure it, says a report from the Institute for Higher Education Policy. The Washington-based research group recommends more global cooperation among researchers and the publishers of rankings, and more research into how the rankings affect "quality improvement in higher education." "Magazine and newspaper ranking systems have clearly emerged as the third dimension of the higher-education accountability marketplace," writes the institute's president, Jamie P. Merisotis '86. "With more than 20 different nations now engaged in some form of rankings that are regularly published, it is clear they are popular and here to stay."

Thos. Moser Cabinetmakers, the Maine-based creators of high-quality handcrafted wood furniture, is celebrating its 35th year -- and marking it with a milestone: the company's first fully upholstered pieces. The company offers a wide selection of fabric and leather upholstery, including options from Robert Allen, Knoll Textiles, Pollack, Brentano Fabrics and Henry Calvin. Moser was a speech professor at Bates before leaving to start his company in 1971. What was a one-man shop has grown to a staff of 95 cabinetmakers, roughly half men and half women, and his wife and their four sons all have been involved in the family business. The company now makes nearly 200 different pieces of furniture in its standard line, along with custom pieces.

Closing his eyes, he breathes in the color yellow and exhales blue. He twiddles his fingers one by one like a wave, reflecting on a past that has made him into this passionate and eloquently strange being that he is. This is Ed Romine '71, who has taught theater arts at City College for 21 years and has touched the souls of many students through his instruction. "I like to get inside their heads and hearts," Romine said. "I like to mess with them." Michael Johnson, who took Romine's class in the fall of 2005, said Romine has a knack for bringing out an emotional being in his students. "Ed is a genius, period." Johnson said. "He knows how to tap into the deepest part of a person's soul."

Chinese tourists love to visit Guilin, the southwestern Chinese city famous for its karsts -- the mountain-like limestone formations that shoot up throughout the region. There is a way to get away from the crowds, though. A charming countryside hotel opened in 2001 by Chris Barclay '89, the Yangshuo Mountain Retreat is an escape from the heat and noise of most Chinese tourist destinations and offers the kind of quiet increasingly rare in the world's new economic power. The YMR is quite comfortable, and what a view: The hotel sits next to the Yulong River and is surrounded by tree-covered karsts. "It has good feng shui," says Barclay, who has invested about a quarter of a million dollars into the place. "There's a really good energy about it."

In the aftermath of the bloody rampage at Virginia Tech, colleges are reviewing emergency protocols and seeking ways to beef up communication and response. Most Maine campuses are guarded by unarmed security departments, many of which receive annual training at the New England Campus Security Officers Training Academy at Bates each summer, and which work closely with local police departments. "We are the backup guys. We want the police there," said Tom Carey '73, former chief of the FBI's domestic terrorism section and now head of security and campus safety at Bates. Carey said campus security is a balancing act aimed at keeping the grounds safe without turning them into armed fortresses. "Colleges need to be open places. It is a hallmark of what we are in America," he said.

At first, the YMCA was "just a gym" for Robert Little '87 of Wilbraham. Little is managing director of the Real Estate Finance Group at Babson Capital, part of the MassMutual Financial Group. As a Springfield area resident, he found the YMCA a convenient place to work out. But soon Little found himself in positions of responsibility at the Y, as a member and later chair of the board of the YMCA's North End Youth Center, and later as chair of the Y's corporate board of directors. For the fourth year, Little is co-chairing the YMCA's Annual Campaign. "Now I see the Y is more than just a gym," he says. "Everybody gets something out of it, from the kid who's learning to swim up to the corporate level."

Kevin McHugh resigned as the athletic director at The College of New Jersey on Monday to accept a similar position at Bates College in Maine. McHugh will start his job as director of athletics and chair of the department of physical education at Bates on July 1. McHugh said it was hard leaving The College of New Jersey after 20 years. "However, I feel that Bates is the right place for me now, that I can make an impact there and that this is the time in my life for such a new adventure," McHugh said. Still, he said, "parting will be most difficult." McHugh "has been an important part of TCNJ's success, and we will be very sad to lose him from our community," said Barbara Gitenstein, TCNJ president.

A British cat named Felix who immigrated to America in 1957 aboard a reproduction of the original Mayflower is finding renewed fame as the subject of a children's book. Felix and his Mayflower II Adventures, which describes Felix's journey on the Mayflower II, was written by first-time author Peter Arenstam '85, who is also in charge of repairing and sailing the vessel. The release of the book coincides with the 50th anniversary of the sailing of the Mayflower II, a reproduction of the original Mayflower given by Britain to the United States. Arenstam said children have told him they liked the book because they could identify with the cat, who felt afraid in the beginning but became "a real sailor" by the end.

Will Boe-Wiegaard '06 earned a biochemistry degree and secured his place in Bates history by winning the NCAA Division III men's singles tennis championship. The Redding, Conn., native then decided to put his medical career on hold and pursue his dream of becoming a U.S. Open tennis champion. After his NCAA title, "I thought I knew everything there was about tennis, and I didn't need a coach," he said. "I learned I was wrong, and now I'm working with Gwinyai Zengeni," of the Doral Arrow Wood resort in Rye, N.Y. These days, Boe-Wiegaard said, "My game is higher than it's ever been and I'm banging on the door rather loudly."

Only 50 prestigious Watson Fellowships are awarded to graduating college seniors each year, but a large percentage come from New England schools. Khoa Pham, a Bates senior from Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, received a $25,000 Watson Fellowship for a research proposal titled "Exploring Global Vietnamese Youth in Search of Identity." Pham's Watson year will allow him to spend time in France, Germany, the Czech Republic, Russia, Japan and Australia. He will interact with Vietnamese youth in order to explore similarities and differences between Vietnamese students in different countries. "I plan to talk to them and see how they perceive themselves in relation to their parents, their families, their friends," he says. "It's like a personal passion. I think that's what the Watson is looking for."

Celebrating inventors who have turned their ideas into accomplishments, the Lemelson-MIT program's honorees this year include Lee Lynd '79. Lynd, a professor of engineering at Dartmouth College, won the program's inaugural $100,000 Award for Sustainability. Lynd is being recognized for inventions that are at the forefront of technologies for converting biomass feedstocks into motor fuels, as well as for his long-term advocacy of biofuels as a sustainable alternative to fossil fuels. "Lee's groundbreaking research has driven forward the public policy debate, the business world and the fundamental science of bioenergy," said Nathanael Greene of the Natural Resources Defense Council, one of Lynd's nominators for the award. Lynd shared Lemelson-MIT honors with Timothy Swager, whose explosives-sniffing technology is helping to make things safer for U.S. troops overseas.

When Rep. Anne Rand first came to the State House, in 1986, she noticed all the women wearing string ties and shoulder pads big enough to tackle any unruly lobbyist. Now, "I see a much more comfortable and relaxed fashion," the Portland Democrat said. Rand and a few other women legislators gathered in the State House cafeteria last week to talk fashion, politics and power. The unofficial meeting came at the request of Bates senior Aislinn Hougham, who is taking a class on gender roles and wanted to find out from the lawmakers how things have changed. Hougham, a American history major, said throughout history women have been hampered by their attire, but heard from the legislators that at least in Augusta, there's much more flexibility now.

Lewiston's Franco-American Heritage Center is becoming the place to go for people who love solo piano music. Friday night featured Duncan Cumming, a 1993 Bates College graduate who studied under Frank Glazer. Cumming also studied in Europe and received a doctorate from Boston University, where he serves as assistant director of the young artist's program at Tanglewood Institute. Cumming, who is also known for playing chamber music with the Cecilia Trio, has matured considerably as an artist. His playing was always technically flawless. It is now thoughtful, deliberate and balanced, without a wasted gesture or any histrionics, rather like Rachmaninoff. His program included works by Chopin, Debussy, Mozart andone of his teachers, Martin Amlin. The encores, after a standing ovation, were the Scottish tunes "Mairi's Wedding" and "Annie Laurie."

Meg Coffin '08, a standout in three sports, was approaching the midpoint of her senior year at Bates when injuries suffered during a November soccer game brought things to an abrupt halt. Now some very different options had to be weighed, as Coffin still had the winter semester and a spring season's worth of athletic eligibility remaining. She decided to take a leave of absence after the first semester, rehab her knee and return next winter in time to play basketball and lacrosse. Graduation plans were put on hold for a year. This winter she took in her fair share of Bates games from the stands, but it wasn't something she ever got comfortable with. "It's almost harder to watch than to play," she said. -- by Sun sports reporter Lynn Worthy '04

"The book is an answer to those who claim that globalization is making everything the same: that we are all adopting similar values, lifestyles, political institutions, economic institutions (above all, capitalism) and so on. The book shows that this is definitely not the case. Regional trade agreements (such as NAFTA in North America, Mercosur in South America, or the European Union) are structured very differently from each other, with major implications for how people live and how business is conducted." -- Francesco Duina, associate professor of sociology at Bates, in an interview about his book The Social Construction of Free Trade: The European Union, NAFTA and Mercosur. Duina, who lives in Cumberland, is also a visiting professor at the Copenhagen Business School in Denmark.

In their first-ever collaboration, Bates College and the Maine Music Society will perform a legendary piece of music at Lewiston's Basilica of SS Peter and Paul. More than 200 musicians will perform Brahms' "German Requiem." The musicians hope to introduce a new audience to the Brahms. "I just want them to come, have a good time, and appreciate the music," said Chris Ray '10, a cellist with the Bates College Orchestra. Leading the musical groups, which also include choirs from local high schools, are John Corrie, who directs Bates' choir and is artistic director of the music society, and Hiroya Miura, who conducts the Bates orchestra. Though called a requiem, Miura explained, "this piece is not really about death -- it's about the celebration of life, which makes it very unique."

Despite a starry junior season on the Watertown High School hockey team last spring, Ryan Quinn did the unthinkable: He quit hockey for track. Hockey, for Quinn, had been a means to an end -- a route to college. Quinn had his sights on Bates, and during a 2006 Bates visit spoke with track coach Al Fereshetian. When Fereshetian expressed an interest, Quinn was ready, switching to indoor track this winter in the hope of obtaining an athletic scholarship at Bates. He did, and his first and only indoor track season at Watertown was a smashing success. "Giving up hockey was a very mature decision," said his father, Charles Quinn. "He gave up something he truly loved in order to pursue his goal of attending a school like Bates."

In a firefight in Iraq in January 2005, Marine Capt. Jason Schauble '97 exposed himself to almost certain death to rescue a comrade. Despite suffering crippling wounds, he rallied his troops to win the battle, an action that earned Schauble the Silver Star. "I can't use my right hand anymore," said Schauble, who turns 32 on April 10. And because doctors took nerves from his legs to help the arm, he can't feel the backs of his calves or around his ankles. But if he had not been wounded, Schauble says, he would have remained in combat. His medical discharge enabled him and his wife, Melicia (also a former Marine), to get on with their lives together. Their first child was born in February.

Amidst the new generation of private equity entrepreneurs who have left established firms to run their own shops, some profitable firms operate far from the spotlight, focusing on deals that don't generate headlines but that are innovative and create new markets. Catterton Partners, for example, has carved out a niche in the consumer market. "We conduct our own trend research to support the diversity of our consumer focus," says Catterton founder and managing partner J. Michael Chu '80. The firm's diverse consumer holdings have included the Odwalla juice company and Breyers Yogurt, timely investments that caught the growing wave of interest in healthier foods.

Some soldiers believe it has actually gotten harder to receive disability benefits since the start of the Iraq war. National Guard Maj. Jesse Miller '92, an attorney in San Francisco, is helping one of them. He has taken on the case of a soldier he once commanded, Joe Baumann, a sergeant disabled by wounds suffered in Baghdad. Baumann has become a symbol of problems surrounding the military disability system, as he is caught in a bureaucratic limbo that promises little relief. "Part of this system is designed to make sure that the Army is not paying benefits to soldiers that otherwise don’t deserve them," Miller says. "But it shouldn’t be designed to ferret out the one malingerer out of 10 at the expense of the other nine's procedural rights."

Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor, author and Nobel Peace laureate, will deliver the keynote address at an April 18 ceremony announcing the Institute for International Sport's 2011 World Peace Summit. Wiesel will speak on the role of youth in world peace. The 2011 summit, expected to attract some 18,000 graduates of the Scholar-Athlete Games, first held in 1993, will coincide with the institute's 25th anniversary. "It's always been our goal to create an event to bring all of them back together and tap into their idealism and intellect," said Dan Doyle '72, the institute's founder and executive director. Wiesel, a leading social activist, founded with his wife The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity shortly after receiving the Nobel Peace prize.

Saturday was the day for state championship basketball, that annual winter rite that makes reserved Mainers into cheering zealots. Zak Ray '07, of Bangor, and Eric Shone '08, of Portland, understand. Each had their state championship moment when the joy felt like nothing they had experienced before. Or since. For Ray, it was the Bangor Auditorium in 2001, when, as a sophomore guard for Bangor, he played a key role in his team's one-point victory over otherwise undefeated Deering. One year later, in Portland, Shone led his team to beat Brunswick and net the state championship. Teammates at Bates now, Ray and Shone say their teammates from other states don't understand Mainers' passion for this season. "The tournaments are Maine," said Ray. "It´s what we do in the winter."

Because high giving rates boost a school's status in U.S. News & World Report's annual college survey and with potential donors, more colleges are manipulating their alumni-giving rates. Some, for example, ask alumni to donate a dollar, since the size of the gift isn't calculated in the giving rate. But some schools refuse to game the system. "I tell my board, 'If you want the participation rate to go up, there are a lot of quick ways to do it,'" says Kimberly Hokanson, Bates' director of alumni and parent programs. "You can ask alumni for a dollar. But that doesn't teach them to engage in a meaningful philanthropic relationship with the college." Bates alumni-giving slid to 41 percent in 2006 from 46 percent in 2001.

A screenwriter who got the film bug while working at Railroad Square Cinema and her partner will bring their works-in-progress to Railroad Square this weekend. Jenny Levison '87 and Josh Waletzky, of Hoboken, N.J., will show their documentary films, "Parting the Waters" and "Niel and Phil." A producer, playwright, screenwriter and social justice activist, Levison's film is Parting the Waters, a film that follows the challenges that an inner-city swim team faces in competing with better-resourced suburban youths. In the 1980s, Levison worked at Railroad Square, doing everything from selling popcorn to running projectors. "I learned a lot about the film industry" there, she says. (The March 24 New York Times also mentioned Levison for a New York performance of her play "The Next Big Thing.")

As a woman of a certain age, Rep. Elaine Makas '67, D-Lewiston, grew up loving the doo wop groups The Coasters, The Drifters and The Platters. Now, she's hoping to pass legislation to give them the respect they deserve. Makas, with nine bipartisan co-sponsors, is moving forward with "An Act to Ensure Truth in Music Advertising," which would require tribute acts to come clean. In other words, groups can't use those names if they aren't really The Coasters, The Drifters or The Platters. "I thought it was a pretty lousy thing to do to those groups," Makas said. Spearheading the effort on the national level is Bowser, aka Jon Bauman, from Sha Na Na, who testified in Maine on behalf of the bill at its March 20 public hearing.

What is medicalization? What are its causes and effects? Who benefits from medicalization, and who is harmed? What, if anything, should be done about it? Answers to these questions would have seemed quite obvious in the 1970s, when the term entered academic and medical publications: medicalization, the expansion of medical authority into the domains of everyday existence, was promoted by doctors and was therefore a force to be rejected in the name of specific kinds of liberation. -- Introduction by Rebecca Herzig, associate professor in Bates' women and gender studies program, and Jonathan Metzl, University of Michigan. In 2005, Metzl and Herzig convened scholars from diverse fields to debate the issues of medicalization, a discussion culminating in a series of essays published in a special section of The Lancet.

Danielle Rettinger took the SAT twice but still wasn't satisfied with her score. She hadn't performed poorly, but doesn't feel her score "represented me as a student." That's partly why she was attracted to Bates, where she is now a senior: Bates doesn't require applicants to submit standardized test scores. But taking into account all of the extra materials that Bates applicants are asked to submit is time-consuming. Dean of Admissions Wylie Mitchell says that admissions counselors normally wind up reading each applicant's folder cover to cover, multiple times. "If we had 16,000 applications, we'd be hard-pressed to do that," he says. But 16,000 or more applications is the reality for many larger universities. Without the SATs as a guide, admissions officers could get buried in the avalanche of applications.

Kitchen grease originally destined to be discarded sat in Bates laboratory flasks Tuesday. Maria Jenness '07 and Greg Henkes '08 explained to U.S. Rep. Michael Michaud, D-Maine, how they were converting used cooking oil into biodiesel fuel. It was part of a "green tour" Bates gave Michaud to show the environmental steps the college is taking. Bates hopes to convert used cooking oil generated by the dining hall into biofuel for campus use, said geology professor Beverly Johnson. Michaud also heard about Bates' use of biofuel to heat buildings and the energy-efficient design of two major construction projects. "We're not going to solve global warming overnight," Michaud noted. "It's going to take a lot of small steps to make that difference. Bates is going in the right direction."

Raw feed might sound as smooth as a slide along a steel guitar, but to a classically trained ear behind a thick glass slab it's lacking harmony and a second guitar on chorus. And when those ears are technically proficient, a once-rough cut soon becomes a record. That's production -- or a day in the life of Jonathan Wyman '97. Wyman, who started his recording career in New York with the likes of star producer Tony Visconti and the hip-hop artist Speech from Arrested Development, moved back to Maine in 2001 to get involved with Portland's booming music scene. He landed his current gig as a producer-engineer at Halo Studios in Westbrook, and since then has helped discover emerging artists including As Fast As, Jeremiah Freed, Pete Kilpatrick and Ray Lamontagne.

In 2002 Alex Matter, son of a close friend of Abstract Expressionist painter Jackson Pollock, found 32 works that Matter's late father had stored, labeled as pieces by Pollock. Five years later, with the authenticity of the paintings still in question, Boston College's McMullen Museum plans to show the controversial works for the first time. Months before opening, word of the show is spreading among art historians, who say they're pleased a museum with the McMullen's reputation will display the works. Mark Bessire, director of the Bates College Museum of Art, said he was surprised the McMullen would host the show. "It's definitely taking a risk, and exciting for them to be taking that risk," he said. "And because they have such integrity, I think it's great for them."

John (Jay) S. Spinale '85 is convinced he has found his dream job. This lifelong resident of Halifax, Mass., was recently appointed a judge in the Bristol County Juvenile Court -- apparently the first justice ever from this small town, and one of only three juvenile court judges in Bristol County and 40 statewide. "It's the greatest job there is," said Spinale, the son of Linda and John T. Spinale. He has run a legal practice with his father for the last 20 years. "All the things I liked about being a lawyer, like the research and case work, I now get to do every day," he said. Spinale was nominated in the fall by Gov. Mitt Romney from a pool of approximately 40 candidates.

A contingent of Asian-Americans protested a V-103 promotion Wednesday night in which the radio station held a contest for the best Asian-themed costume. Gabe Tungol '06, a 22-year-old Filipino-American, said the promotion for a station whose audience is largely African-American revealed cultural "misappropriation." "The premise is based on a perpetuation of misinformed, denigratory racial stereotypes, and harks back to an era in which yellowface was considered culturally appropriate," he told the AJC. Tungol, who signed in as a contestant and explained his objections on stage, said he was offended that some people were in white powder and slanty eyes, shuffling their feet and giggling like geisha girls. The crowd was mostly polite. Rick Caffey, station general manager, said Thursday that the contest probably wasn't the most thoughtful.

Corey Harris '91 has called the blues a blueprint from which one can build any house. In his case, that is a township where blues sits next to spirituals and New Orleans funk, reggae, calypso, African pop, ragtime, samba and rock. It's the work not of a dilettante but of an explorer who has toured the world in a listening mode. "I just try and get down with a groove that moves me," Harris explains from his home base in Charlottesville, Va. He has toured widely here, but also in Africa, Europe, the Caribbean, South America and Canada. Harris says: "As a musician, you keep your ears open -- I just try to absorb the things I hear." The result is a sound that harks back and looks forward.

Hailing from a family of New England nonconformists, Buckminster Fuller showed a propensity for creative thought and following his own path. At small Black Mountain College in North Carolina, with the help of students and professors, he began work on the geodesic dome, a project that would stun the architectural and engineering worlds. An estimated 500,000 geodesic domes exist today worldwide. The success of the dome gave Fuller international acclaim as a futurist. During his career, Fuller was awarded 28 U.S. patents, wrote 28 books and received 47 honorary doctorates, including a doctor of science degree from Bates in 1969. "You can never learn less; you can only learn more," Fuller once said.

A number of Mainers will be heading to the nation's capital to rally against the war in Iraq. Among them will be 44 Bates College students. Their bus will be one of at least five loaded with Mainers bound for Washington. Ben Linder '09 says he has been opposed to the war from the start, and he hopes that war protesters can build momentum. For her part, Rachel Salloway '09 says she'll show her support for the troops by demanding that they come home as soon as possible. Saturday's rally is sponsored by the national group United for Peace and Justice. Several groups are working with it, including Win Without War. The national director of Win Without War is former Maine Congressman Tom Andrews.

Zak Ray '07 has already had quite a season. Early on, Ray, a senior point guard, became Bates' all-time career steals leader, and scored the 1,000th point of his college career last week. Ray is also Bates' career assists leader, with more than 500 assists. Ray is ranked 12th nationally among all NCAA Division II basketball players. Teammate Rob Stockwell, a senior forward ranked in the top 25 nationally in points and rebounds, says Ray's lofty standing in Bates' record book is well-deserved. "It's just a testament to him and how unselfish he is," Stockwell said. First and foremost, Ray is concerned with winning and helping Bates to reach the NCAA Division III tournament. "It's nice to get the personal accomplishment, but there's a bigger picture here," Ray said.

C. Mead Welles '90 spends his time working on hedge funds -- and playing in a rock band with other hedge-fund managers from New York and London, all in the name of charity. Welles plays drums and guitar for the band the Subscribers, which has raised about $500,000 for charitable projects. He also founded A Leg to Stand On, a charity that provides corrective surgery and prosthetic limbs to disabled children in developing countries. The organization raised more than $430,000 dollars last year, providing more than 1,000 medical treatments. Since 2004 the charity has organized "Rocktoberfest," a party where the Subscribers and other bands perform. In its first year, the event raised $100,000 for A Leg to Stand On; last year it brought in $250,000.

In 2006, a department store in White River Junction, Vt., was reborn as the Center for Cartoon Studies, offering college-level training in a discipline often dismissed in academe. The field has exploded with the growth of graphic novels, comics from Asia and a global passion for cartoon-based animation. Second-year student Alexis Frederick-Frost '00 said he was doing "legitimate art" when he came here with a fine arts degree from Bates. He self-published a graphic novel about a bicycle race and is making a new graphic novel about a painter. But unlike his previous art studies, "the focus of this school is to make an object. It's like film school," he said. Whether he can make a living is another question, "but the field has a lot of momentum right now."

Without volunteer DJs, the airwaves would sound very different. Charlottesville has two non-commercial stations that are largely driven by volunteers, WTJU and WNRN. Concentrating on new rock music, Greg Weaver '03, a med student at the University of Virginia, has a WTJU rock show called "Can't Say That I've Heard It." Weaver always knew he wanted to be a doctor, but his first year at Bates "a guy on my floor convinced me to do a show," he says. "It was more of a talk show and we actually ended up getting kicked off the air. He had a habit of swearing." Language aside, Weaver's future as a DJ is cloudy. "My classmates say, 'You have a radio show? You're crazy. You're a med student,'" he relates. But not for always.

Nicholas Deysher '00 wants to become the next Mr. Rogers. A musician and a graduate student at the University of Miami, Deysher recently received the $10,000 Fred Rogers Memorial Scholarship. The scholarship is given to students pursuing a career in children's media. Deysher is putting together the pilot for his own children's show, which he has filmed at nursery schools, and plans to pitch the idea to major media networks. Even while he prepares for possible rejection, Deysher is glad to be working in a field that makes him happy. "I enjoy it so much, it's so rewarding," he said. "Even in the toughest times, it's going to fill me and carry me through and make me a happy person." He adds, “Ultimately, I’ve always felt like a big kid.”

Brunswick, Maine, metalsmith Jeff Clapp has spent the last several years creating pieces of artwork like bells and bowls from oxygen bottles that litter Mount Everest, along with other trash discarded by climbing expeditions. Clapp, who has sold more than 30 pieces, wants to teach craftsmanship to locals in Nepal to help them make money from trash left behind by climbers. Founder of Porter's Progress, a group that works to make life better for porters who carry equipment for Everest expeditions, Ben Ayers '99 has discussed the idea with Clapp. Ayers identified potential challenges to the project, including start-up costs, but likes the idea. "[It's] just crazy enough to work," he wrote from Kathmandu.

Despite Washington's palpable frustration with Baghdad, the Bush administration refuses to contemplate a Plan B, should its new strategy fail in Iraq. President Bush's new plan pins the lion's share of responsibility for stemming out-of-control violence on Iraqi leaders and security forces that have repeatedly fallen short of U.S. hopes. By placing such a large measure of responsibilities on Iraqis, the plan does contain a buried rationale for withdrawal -- should they fail to live up to U.S. demands to crack down on Shiite extremists. But Eric Hooglund, professor of politics at Bates, said it was difficult to see the administration taking the escape route. "The ideology has become so firm -- forget Democrats -- they can't even listen to what the Republicans are saying," he said.

Most high-school students probably wouldn't describe calculus as "fun." But those students probably haven't stepped foot inside the classroom run by Derek Asadoorian '98. With music, dance moves and an occasional game of bowling in class, Asadoorian's formula for teaching math is a hit with students at Groton-Dunstable Regional High School. "Math isn't a sexy subject, but it's got teeth," Asadoorian says. "When students grasp that connection to the real world, a light goes on, and it's kind of exciting." Years ago, high-school calculus was taught only to students at the top of their class, Asadoorian says. His class, taught to students in grades 10 through 12, is designed for beginners at all levels and aims to provide a good, working foundation for the first years of college.

Marblehead High graduates Jenna Barrows, Seamus Kraft and Ann Lovely '07 have one thing in common: they're now college seniors en route to success, thanks in part to local scholarships. All members of the class of 2003, they received grants from the Citizens Scholarship Foundation of Marblehead that helped them get them to three of the nation's most prestigious schools -- Barrows to Cornell, Kraft to Georgetown and Lovely to Bates, where she is a chemistry major. "I really liked the people and the climate of the school, and I knew I wanted a small New England college," Lovely said. Lovely is the captain of Bates' cross country and spring track teams. She is currently working on her thesis, for which she is attempting to test the purity of drugs.

People like Brenda Garrand '79, owner of Portland firm Garrand Marketing, are putting Maine on the map in advertising. Garrand Marketing's director of business, Gino Bona, beat 12 finalists and thousands of football fans who pitched a 30-second NFL ad to be televised during the Superbowl. Bona's winning concept? A humorous take on the sadness fans feel after the last football game of the season. Garrand has been working overtime to generate interest in Bona since he became a finalist last month, calling his win "a real confirmation of the quality of work that's happening in Maine." Garrand has been working to change the misconception that Maine is a land of frozen forests and plaid shirts, and Bona's win is just another piece of evidence that it is not.

Democrats may find it harder than expected to fulfill their campaign pledge to halve the interest rate on federal student loans. Student-aid experts and college lobbyists say the Democrats, instead, should take this historic opportunity to significantly expand the purchasing power of Pell Grants for low-income students for the first time in more than 25 years -- which could make higher education a reality for many qualified low-income students who now doubt they will be able to afford it. "What are you achieving by cutting the interest rate?" asked Jamie P. Merisotis '86, president of the Institute for Higher Education Policy, a research group. "You are not encouraging any more students to go to college, because you're cutting the interest rate on loans that students have already taken out."

"It was an attractive target for a number of players, and that said, this is a huge market. All the big research firms . . . have pegged the security-for-messaging marketplace as a huge growth opportunity. This has enabled Cisco to expand its product offering in these areas and really present a total solution to its customers. . . . [I]t certainly puts pressure on some of the traditional players like Symantec or Check Point who have come under a lot of pressure now from the Ciscos of the world, as well as the other players entering the e-security space, namely IBM and EMC." -- Brad Adams '92, managing director and co-founder of Boston Corporate Finance, on Cisco Systems' plans to buy Internet security gateway appliance vendor IronPort Systems

Corey Harris '91 is one of the first teachers at the Field School, a new all-boys middle school opening in Charlottesville, Va. As growing reports of the male crisis in education hit the media, Harris -- a well-regarded musician whose credits include a lead role in the TV series The Blues -- has partnered with Todd Barnett to create the new school. Harris will teach Latin, head the art and music program, and is heavily involved in fund-raising. Harris has a degree from tiny but prestigious Bates, received a Watson Fellowship and taught in New Orleans in the 1990s. "I've accumulated a lot of experience," says Harris, "and I feel it's time to share it with kids -- not just my own, but others.' "

Portland, Ore., native Rachel Cohen '94 is head of mission for a Doctors Without Borders group in Lesotho, fighting HIV and AIDS. Nearly one-third of adults in the small African nation carry the disease. "I spent my first semester at Bates living with a family in Quito, Ecuador. That had a huge influence on how I viewed not only scholarly pursuits, but also how I think of the world outside our small confines," Cohen says. "In Lesotho there was a palpable sense of political commitment about the epidemic," she adds. Because HIV "first affected very marginalized populations in the U.S. and Europe, there had to be a political movement to address the inadequacies of the system. That kind of nexus has always interested me."

Perhaps it is naivete, or stupidity, or my American privilege, but I still believe in dialogue, and in peace. I believe in it with the sadness of someone who knows that language is the crudest medium for pain, loss and hope. And I know that my own words cannot express enough: the love I have for Israelis, the pain I feel for Palestinians, and the fear that I carry for all of them. -- Jordie Gerson '99. This is the conclusion of her description of a year she spent in Israel seeking to better understand the regional conflict's impact on individuals. Gerson received a master of theological studies degree from Harvard Divinity School in 2004 and is a student at Hebrew Union College in New York City.

The Bringing Theory to Practice project is exceptional in its recognition that the rupture between students' curricular and cocurricular lives is mirrored—if not encouraged—by the analogous ruptures experienced by today’s faculty members. The project begins with the recognition that there is a mutually constitutive relationship between students and professors: the fracturing of the "whole student" mimics the fracturing of the whole professor, and vice versa. In so doing, the project seeks to specify -- rather than simply to declare—the concrete institutional and intellectual value of civic engagement, and to acknowledge that revamping educational institutions would result in some scholarly careers that look very different from existing models. -- Rebecca Herzig, associate professor of women and gender studies, is on the advisory board of the Bringing Theory to Practice Project.

On graduation day, a high school senior in Eastport, Maine, will receive the eighth Clarence E. Townsend Memorial Scholarship. There's one requirement: the recipient must have overcome adversity while maintaining a positive attitude. Shirl Penney '99 named the scholarship for his grandfather, who raised him. "We lived on $5,200 a year," Shirl says. Townsend always told him, "You need an education -- you need to work with your mind." When Shirl landed his dream job at a New York financial firm, he drove excitedly home to tell Clarence -- who, it turned out, was dying of cancer. Shirl called Bates and asked if they could overnight his diploma. When the diploma came, Shirl held the dying Clarence in his arms. "I said, 'Gramp, we did it. Here's our diploma.' "