Called to the table

Stories from November 2008

Called to the table

Saturday, November 1, 2008 3:09 pm

Conversations about food remind us that a liberal education prepares the whole human being for life.

A chain of such experiential moments — the solo fast being just one of the more salient examples — stretched from one end of Short Term to the other. As far as I knew, nothing quite like "Wake Up!" had ever been tried at Bates before. It was a hybrid that wedded rigorous academic inquiry with direct, personal, unmediated experiential learning.

Newman’s Own Letter

Saturday, November 1, 2008 2:22 pm

It's common knowledge that the late actor Paul Newman once asked Bates to recast its Newman Day tradition. The evidence is this 1987 letter from the actor to then-President T. Hedley Reynolds. What's not been known until now is how Newman probably learned about the Bates tradition. That part of the story involves the person copied on the letter, Laurette Cousineau (now Carle), Class of '86.

Alumnus and Bates Contemplates Food

Saturday, November 1, 2008 1:51 pm

The cover of the Fall 2008 Bates Magazine shows Nicolas Lindholm '86 displaying tomatoes grown on his family-operated organic farm, Hackmatack Farm, in Penobscot, Maine.

Video: Cruising with the 'Croo'

Saturday, November 1, 2008 12:00 pm

Over the pre-meal din and at the top of their lungs, the staff cries, "Dinner!" All becomes quiet, and the first course of the evening meal at Greenleaf hut, 4,200 feet above sea level in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, is served.

Cruising with the ‘Croo’

Saturday, November 1, 2008 11:56 am

Run by the Appalachian Mountain Club, Greenleaf is among eight high-mountain huts staffed by about 50 college-age men and women, known as "croo." Last summer, five Batesies were hut croo, a number tied with Middlebury for the most in the huts.

What's the Dam Point?

Saturday, November 1, 2008 11:46 am

Shortly after a press release announced Lynne Lewis' scholarly article on dam removal, the Bates environmental economist learned where her academic research really hits home.

The Maine Course

Saturday, November 1, 2008 11:39 am

The Bates Contemplates Food initiative is a call for an informed examination of food choices. For many of us, these choices involve what foods to buy. A select few, though — such as the alumni on enumerated below — are choosing what foods to produce for the people who buy. And while every food decision is a life decision, the choices made by people whose livings depend on producing food take place on planes different from the ones we occupy.

The Packet— In death, the chance to know a Bates life

Saturday, November 1, 2008 9:40 am

Three times a year, I receive a packet from the editor of this magazine, a packet that no one else receives. In it are the stories of 50 or 60 people, all part of the Bates community in some way: alumni, faculty, staff. But they are united by more than being part of this community.

Feeding the Bobcat

Saturday, November 1, 2008 9:24 am

Sylvan Ellefson '09 and his Nordic teammates trust the Bates food chain.