Ali Akhtar, assistant professor of religious studies and of classical and medieval studies, has organized a lecture series on encounters between Europe and the Islamic world and offers a talk in the series March 25. Photograph by Michael Bradley/Bates College.

With a talk called Coming to Terms With Islamic Spain: Contemporary Stagings in Modern Spanish Theater, an expert in Spanish theater from Bard College opens a lecture series exploring cultural encounters between Europe and the Islamic world at noon Monday, March 4, in the Muskie Archives, 70 Campus Ave.

David Rodriguez-Solas of Bard opens the series, titled Europe and the Islamic World: Cultural Encounters in Theater, Art and Politics. The series is open to the public at no cost. For more information, please contact Ali H. Akhtar at aakhtar@bates.edu or Jeanne Beliveau at jbelive2@bates.edu.

Three lectures will follow in this series, all in Pettengill Hall, 4 Andrews Road (Alumni Walk):

• Nebahat Avcioglu, a professor of art history at CUNY Hunter College, offers the lecture Turquerie and Orientalism: Cultural Transfer Between Europe and the Ottoman Empire in the 18th and 19th Centuries at 4:30 p.m. Monday, March 11, in Pettengill G65;
• Series organizer Ali Humayun Akhtar, an assistant professor of religious studies and of classical and medieval studies at Bates, speaks on Post-Graffiti Damascus and Cairo: Arab Street Art as a Global Aesthetic at 4:30 p.m. Monday, March 25, in Pettengill G52;
• Michelle Campos, an associate professor of modern Middle Eastern history at the University of Florida, gives the lecture Between Empire and Nation: Muslims, Christians and Jews at the End of the Ottoman Empire at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 2, in Pettengill G65.

Rodriguez-Solas is a visiting assistant professor at Bard College who teaches Spanish and Latin American and Iberian studies. He is the author of Teatros nacionales republicanos: la Segunda Republica y el teatro clasico espanol, (2013, “Republic National Theaters: the Second Republic and Spanish Classical Theater”).

Avcioglu specializes in Islamic art and architecture. Her publications focus on imperialism, art and travel, the Enlightenment and exoticism, 19th-century Orientalism in architecture, post-classical Istanbul and modern and contemporary mosques in Europe.

Akhtar studies the complex interactions among political, religious and intellectual establishments in Europe and the Islamic world in medieval and early modern times. “Scholars can paint a picture of the medieval political and intellectual landscape throughout the Mediterranean region in a way that can help modern societies better understand their current affairs and trajectories,” Akhtar says.

Campos has lived and conducted research in Israel and Palestine, Egypt, Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon. Her areas of interest include the late Ottoman Empire, the social history of historical Palestine, Muslim–non-Muslim relations, urban history and social networks.

The series is sponsored by the Department of Religious Studies and the Program in Classical and Medieval Studies, with additional support from the following: the Office of the President; divisions of humanities, social sciences, interdisciplinary studies; departments of politics, art and visual culture (in conjunction with the Alison Lockwood Fund for art history), Spanish, theater and dance, French and Francophone studies, and anthropology; and the program in European studies (in conjunction with the department of German and Russian studies).

The Rev. Patrick Cheng.

Christian theology and queer theory might strike many as mutually exclusive. But the two disciplines are in fact intimately related, as a Massachusetts theologian will argue in a Bates College lecture at 7 p.m. Tuesday, March 12, in the Edmund S. Muskie Archives, 70 Campus Ave.

The Rev. Patrick Cheng offers the annual Zerby Lecture in Contemporary Religious Thought at Bates. The event is sponsored by the Multifaith Chaplaincy. For more information, please call 207-786-8272.

“Christian theology should listen and bridge different groups,” Cheng told the Swathmore College publication The Phoenix earlier this year. “In general, LGBT and Christian groups have a bad reputation for not listening and communicating.”

Cheng’s talk at Bates, Strange Bedfellows: On the Intersections of Christian Theology and Queer Theory, will make a case for a close relationship between the two and provide an overview of queer theology. Weaving together theology, philosophy, gender studies, and ethnic studies, Cheng will discuss issues of erasing boundaries, of race and sexuality, and of temporality.

Cheng is associate professor of historical and systematic theology at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass. He is the author of the forthcoming Rainbow Theology: Bridging Race, Sexuality, and Spirit (Seabury Books, 2013), the first book-length treatment of theologies by LGBT people of color.

He also wrote From Sin to Amazing Grace: Discovering the Queer Christ (Seabury, 2012) and Radical Love: An Introduction to Queer Theology (Seabury, 2011).

Cheng holds a doctorate in systematic theology from Union Theological Seminary, a law degree from Harvard Law School and a bachelor’s degree from Yale. He is an ordained minister with the Metropolitan Community Churches and contributes to the Gay Voices sections of the Huffington Post.

The Rayborn Lindley Zerby Lectureship on Contemporary Religious Thought was established with a gift to Bates by the Campus Association in April 1965. The series was initiated the following year by the late Samuel Miller, dean of Harvard Divinity School.

The lectureship honors Zerby, a man who devoted many years to the growth of Bates College as a teacher and as dean of the faculty. As an instructor at Bates, he was promoted to assistant professor of religion in 1932, associate professor in 1935 and full professor in 1942.

Zerby chaired the Department of Religion and Philosophy from 1930 to 1945. He served as director of the College Chapel from 1945 until his retirement, in 1962, and was appointed dean of the faculty in 1958.

Ali Akhtar, assistant professor of religious studies and of classical and medieval Studies. Photograph by Michael Bradley/Bates College.

Six new tenure-track members of the faculty began teaching at Bates College in autumn 2012, representing the fields of dance, economics, German, neuroscience and psychology, religious studies, and classical and medieval studies.

All beginning their Bates careers as assistant professors, they are:

Ali Humayun Akhtar, religious studies and and classical and medieval studies;

Rachel Boggia, dance;

Jason Castro, psychology and neuroscience;

Raluca Cernahoschi and Jakub Kazecki, who were hired in a joint appointment to the German faculty;

and Paul Shea, economics.

(Bates has also engaged biologist Larissa Williams, who starts at Bates during winter 2013, and historian Lydia Barnett, who begins teaching at Bates in autumn 2013.)

Ali Humayun Akhtar

Read a profile of Akhtar.

Assistant Professor of Dance Rachel Boggia. Photograph by Michael Bradley/Bates College.

Appointed assistant professor of religious studies and of classical and medieval studies at Bates, Akhtar studies the complex interactions among political, religious and intellectual establishments in Europe and the Islamic world in medieval and early modern times.

Akhtar is a native of New Jersey. Prior to Bates, he taught at Bard College and at New York University, where he received his doctorate in both history and Middle Eastern studies. He completed his bachelor’s degree at Cornell in 2004.

Rachel Boggia

Read a profile of Boggia.

Appointed assistant professor of dance at Bates in 2012 after two years at the college as a visiting faculty member, Boggia employs sophisticated technology in her art and teaching.

Boggia served as acting director of the Bates dance program in 2010-11 after teaching at Wesleyan University and at Connecticut and Dickinson colleges. She earned her MFA in dance from The Ohio State University in 2003 and a bachelor of science degree in neurobiology at Cornell in 2000.

Jason Castro, assistant professor of psychology and neuroscience. Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College.

Jason Castro

Read a profile of Castro.

Analyzing neural electrical patterns and chemical imaging that reveals cellular activity, Castro, assistant professor of psychology and neuroscience, investigates the relationships between the properties of neurons and sensory capabilities, such as the ability to distinguish between odors.

Castro came to Bates from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, where he had been a postdoctoral fellow since 2008, the year he received his doctorate in neuroscience at Pittsburgh. In addition to a 2002 liberal arts diploma from the European College of Liberal Arts, Berlin, Germany, Castro earned bachelor’s degrees in biology and English literature at the University of Rochester.

Raluca Cernahoschi

Read a profile of Cernahoschi.

Assistant Professor of German Raluca Cernahoschi. Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College.

Cernahoschi, who has been a visiting professor at Bates the past two years, is a native of Romania. But her Romanian education never introduced her to one of her primary academic interests: the literature produced by that nation’s German minority.

Instead, it wasn’t until her graduate studies at the University of British Columbia that she discovered this literature. “I happened to be taught by one of the only North American experts on this literature,” Cernahoschi explains — Peter Stenberg, now professor emeritus of German at UBC.

She taught previously at Central Connecticut State University, McMaster University and UBC. She earned a bachelor’s degree in German studies and English at Mount Holyoke College.

Jakub Kazecki

Read a profile of Kazecki.

Kazecki has done considerable research on the connection between war and humor, as evidenced by his book Laughter in the Trenches: Humour and Front Experience in German First World War Narratives, released in July 2012 (Cambridge Scholars Publishing).

Assistant Professor of German Jakub Kazecki. Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College.

A native of Poland, Kazecki taught at Central Connecticut State University for four years prior to Bates, and previously taught at McMaster University in Ontario and the University of British Columbia, where he received a doctorate in Germanic studies.

He earned master’s degrees at Adam-Mickiewicz-University in Poznan, Poland, and at Dalhousie University, Halifax, N.S.

Paul Shea

Read a profile of Shea.

People’s expectations influence the economy, which makes the accurate prediction of expectations important to economists. That’s an aspect of the field that interests Shea, a macroeconomist and econometrician who develops mathematical models for such predictions.

Working with algorithms that simulate various factors affecting economic behavior, he aims to model expectations such that the agents — the theoretical people in his models — “are just about as smart as the people who actually make decisions in the economy.”

Paul Shea, assistant professor of economics. Photograph by Michael Bradley/Bates College. Photograph by Michael Bradley/Bates College.

Sponsored by the Multifaith Chaplaincy and the Office of the Special Assistant to the President for Diversity and Inclusion, the event is open to the public at no cost. Audience questions will be welcome. For more information, please call 207-786-8272.

Kirk Read, professor of French and francophone studies at Bates, will moderate the panel. The panelists are:

Angela Bauer-Levesque, academic dean and Harvey H. Guthrie, Jr. Professor of Bible, Culture, and Interpretation at the Episcopal Divinity School, Cambridge, Mass.;

the Rev. Patrick Cheng, professor of historical and systematic theology at Episcopal Divinity School;

the Rev. Raymond Clothier, a United Church of Christ pastor, college chaplain and social worker living in Lewiston;

and the Rev. Joseph Daniels, a Roman Catholic priest and the pastor of Corpus Christi Parish, Waterville.

In her teaching and writing, Bauer-Levesque has emphasized various aspects of social location (gender, race, sexual identity) and their impact on biblical interpretation. Her publications include The Indispensable Guide to the Old Testament (Pilgrim Press, 2009); Seeing God in Diversity: Exodus and Acts, coauthored with Episcopal Divinity School alumna Elizabeth Magill (Morehouse Publishing, 2006); and Gender in the Book of Jeremiah: A Feminist-Literary Reading (Peter Lang Publishing, 2003), as well as various essays in anthologies.

A writer and editor for the website Out in Scripture, Bauer-Levesque has served as a co-chair of the Feminist Hermeneutics and the Bible section of the Society of Biblical Literature for the past six years.

Cheng was appointed to the faculty of Episcopal Divinity in 2010. His research interests relate to the intersections of sexuality, race, ethics and theology. He is the author of Radical Love: An Introduction to Queer Theology (Seabury, 2011), which has been used by seminaries and congregations around the world. His most recent book is From Sin to Amazing Grace: Discovering the Queer Christ (Seabury, 2012).

Cheng is an ordained minister with the Metropolitan Community Churches, and he blogs for the Religion and Gay Voices sections of the Huffington Post.

Clothier has particular experience with spiritual direction and guiding people as they discern vocation. For the last 11 years, he helped students explore connections between work and meaning through the Faith and Work Initiative at Millsaps College in Jackson, Miss. He has served as a college chaplain at Millsaps and at Nazareth College of Rochester.

He has also been an HIV social worker for the University of Mississippi Medical Center and an outreach worker to the homeless mentally ill in Nashville.

Daniels was ordained a priest in 1990 and served the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland in various parishes, colleges and hospitals thereafter. He teaches in the formation program for the Permanent Diaconate as a facilitator with Loyola University New Orleans and frequently addresses issues pertaining to bioethics and end-of-life care.

Like sands through the hourglass, so are the final days of the renovation of Hedge and Roger Williams halls.

On Monday, June 27, faculty in philosophy, religious studies and environmental studies will receive key-card access to the renovated Hedge Hall and be able to start settling into their spiffy new offices. ES will occupy the first floor, religious studies the second and philosophy the third.

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In both cases, explains project manager Paul Farnsworth, the buildings will remain off-limits to the remainder of the campus community for some time yet. “The spaces still won’t be schedulable” through the online R25 room-reservation system, he explains, and general contractor Wright-Ryan Construction will still be around. “It makes life difficult for the contractor if there are people in the building while he’s trying to finish things.”

Still, installing Bates inhabitants has to be one of the final milestones. The timetable is especially tight for the Roger Bill’s occupants, Farnsworth adds, because their former digs in Hathorn Hall are scheduled for
sprucing up, too.

At Hedge, the punch-list process rolls on, as the general contractor and then the architect inspect what’s been finished and flag things that fall short. As for new construction, there’s precious little left: expansion joints on the roof and between the new and old sections of the building and some flooring here and there — notably on the ground floor, where dampness in the floor slab has forced a change in plan.

Bates is committed to using construction products that don’t emit toxic vapors, which means that the flooring adhesive is a benign water-based product. But it needs a dry surface to stay stuck, so a water barrier needs to be laid over the ground floor concrete
to keep the moisture at bay.

Meanwhile, moving day looms ever larger. “I just took the classroom committee through the building,” Farnsworth says. “These are people who deal with room scheduling, and we walked them through so they can get a visual on the spaces.”

Previously, we had asked Farnsworth what Commencement visitors could expect to see on the construction site. This time around, unable to let go of a good premise for a question, we wondered what would greet alums and families returning for Reunion, just days away.

One thing that will greet them is the opportunity to tour both buildings, at 11 a.m. Friday, and 1:30 and 4 p.m. Saturday. Tour groups will meet up outside the main entrance of Hedge on Alumni Walk.

For passers-by, meanwhile, there won’t be anything as dramatic as the instant lawn that materialized around Hedge Hall during Senior Week. In fact, Farnsworth says, the construction fence will stay up around the Bill and no grounds work will take place till after Reunion. The continuing need for cherry pickers on the site necessitates both those conditions.

Aside from landscaping, though, the Bill will show marked progress since just late May. On the outside, the roofing slates will likely all be in place, and workers should be nearly done installing the dark-gray ContinentalBronze sheet metal on the walls of dormers and other non-brick faces.

Inside, drywall is virtually finished, with the stairwell inside the new addition being the last stand for the wallboard hangers. Plenty of primer paint has been splashed around, too, and the first color coats have been applied through much of the building. Ceiling grids are going up and ceiling systems being installed — lights, sprinkler heads, etc.

“The pace of work has greatly accelerated” at the Bill because of experience gained at Hedge, Farnsworth says. “A lot of the questions that were unique to the installation here at Bates, we’ve answered in doing Hedge. So people don’t need additional instruction, they just march on.”

Can we talk? Campus Construction Update welcomes your questions, reminiscences and comments about campus improvements. Please e-mail staff writer Doug Hubley at dhubley@bates.edu, stating “Construction Update” in the subject line.

Note: Campus Construction Update returns the first week of July.

As Bates continues to transform two 19th-century residence halls into state-of-the-art academic buildings, the college has received a $150,000 grant from the George I. Alden Trust to support the renovation project.
The grant supports the $15 million expansion and renovation of Hedge Hall, built in 1890, and nearby Roger Williams Hall (1895) into homes for academic departments and programs. The Alden Trust, established by George Alden in 1912, supports learning institutions that demonstrate educational excellence, exciting programming and effective administration.

“We are deeply grateful for this support from the Alden Trust,” says Bates President Elaine Tuttle Hansen.

“It’s a validation of our belief in the important role that the built environment can and should play in the liberal arts experience. These renovations are more than mere facelifts — they support a number of educational priorities at Bates,” Hansen says.

The new spaces are designed to bring faculty and students together both formally, in classes, and informally in lounge and common spaces,” she explains. “This supports our belief that significant learning happens as much in the social arena as in classroom and lab.”

In addition, she says, “Bates’ nationally recognized commitment to sustainability is prominently reflected in the Hedge-Williams project,” which, like all new major construction at the college, conforms to the equivalent of the “silver” rating in the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) system of standards.

Finally, by providing new focuses for activity and stunning new visuals at the east end of a major college thoroughfare, the Hedge-Williams project continues the redefinition of the central Bates campus.

“Foundation funding for infrastructure and capital projects has become increasingly rare,” notes Susan Orton, director of foundation, corporate and government relations. “The Alden Trust understands this, and that’s why this grant is particularly meaningful to all of us at Bates.”

The nationally known design firm JSA, with offices in Jacksonville, Fla., and Portsmouth, N.H., did the architectural work for the renovations.

Designed by noted architect G.M. Coombs as a chemistry lab, Hedge Hall was converted into a student residence in 1965. In its return to academic service, it will house the Program in Environmental Studies and the departments of religious studies and philosophy. Currently at 14,764 square feet, the building will gain nearly 5,200 square feet in the renovation, including a major addition.

Roger Williams Hall, designed by Lewiston architect Elmer Thomas, opened in 1895 as the home of Cobb Divinity School at Bates. It was converted to combined residential and administrative use in 1908, becoming fully residential around 1964.

Expanding from about 27,300 square feet to more than 34,000, the hall will house the departments of German and Russian studies and of romance languages and literatures; the Program in Asian Studies; the Language Resource Center; and the Off-Campus Study Office.

Begun in March 2010, the Hedge-Williams project is the fourth and final undertaking of the first phase of Bates’ campus facilities master plan, which also produced a new residence on College Street; the New Dining Commons, on Central Avenue; and the pedestrian boulevard on campus called Alumni Walk.

Anticipated completion date is summer 2011. The Hedge-Williams project also represents a significant act of historic and architectural preservation, as these buildings, constructed within the college’s first 50 years of existence, help tell the early history of Bates.

Hedge and Roger Williams will feature spacious facilities that combine classrooms, lounges, offices and common areas to create intellectually stimulating and emotionally nurturing spaces for students and faculty to come together.

The departments and programs moving to Hedge were previously located away from the center of campus in small wooden buildings. The new location in Hedge will promote easier collaboration and camaraderie both among them and with other disciplines in nearby buildings. Aesthetic additions include new dormer and first-floor windows and a new staircase entrance with a glassed-in stairway that will present an inviting view for passers-by on Alumni Walk.

Among distinctive new features in Roger Williams Hall (familiarly known on campus as “Roger Bill” or “the Bill”) is a “cultural kitchen.” New dormers, an addition behind the building and a glass-metal stair tower will transform the exterior.

Hedge and Roger Williams will be 35 percent more energy-efficient than required by ASTM International, a major standards-development organization. “Green” building tactics include hydronic, or water-based, heating and cooling systems; Web-based processes for measuring and verifying energy use; the recycling of construction waste materials; low-flow water fixtures; and motorized windows for automatic ventilation and mitigation of solar warmth gains.

• View the slide show above by clicking the thumbnails.

Orientation for the Class of 2014 helped ease first-year students into Bates life by offering something for everyone: time to settle into residence halls, hiking in the White Mountains during AESOP, hearing greetings from President Elaine Tuttle Hansen and considering the Convocation address by Professor of Religious Studies Marcus Bruce ’77, who looked at the “Shared Vocation” that Bates’ newest students are entering into.  Photographs by Phyllis Graber Jensen and Matt Baker-White ’13.

Associate Professor of Religious Studies Cynthia Baker is something of an expert on the dynamics of households and communal spaces in ancient Judaism. So when the editors of the book series Key Words in Jewish Studies invited her to submit a proposal, she suggested the word “space.” Sorry, she was told, that’s already taken.

So Baker got right to the point and suggested looking at the word “Jew” itself. Her proposal was readily accepted and, in fact, recently won a National Endowment for the Humanities grant for Baker, who spoke with Bates Magazine editor Jay Burns.

What new do you bring to this topic?

Some studies have looked at the origins of “Jew,” others at the Jew in modern European theater or in contemporary American literature. But no one has conducted an analysis of the term with this kind of sustained attention and historical spread.

When someone asks why the term “Jew” is unique, what do you say?

Being a professor, I generally answer a question with a question. Can you think of any other word that is both a term of great pride and so obviously an epithet that it demonstrates that a hate crime has been committed? “Jew” is not an ethnic slur, but it certainly can function that way. The word “queer” is a taunt that has been reclaimed, but “Jew” didn’t originate as a taunt and often serves as a term of honor.

Was the term always complex?

It derives from a geographic location that the Bible calls “Judah” and, later, “Judea.” But from its earliest appearances, the term “Judean,” from which we get “Jew,” seems fraught and troubled, being applied on the one hand to only some of the people who lived in that region, and on the other hand to people who were unwelcome minorities someplace else.

Will you confront the question of “who is a Jew?”

Absolutely. First, it’s important to know that right up to the cusp of modernity, defining “Jew” preoccupied non-Jews far more than it did Jews. Both the Old Testament and the classical Jewish document, the Talmud, for example, speak of “Israelites,” not “Jews.”

Then what happened?

Christianity. In the New Testament, “the Jews” are used as a foil for what comes to be known as Christianity. Yet most of the New Testament’s primary authors — Matthew, Mark, John, and Paul — were Jews. Depending upon how you define “Jew,” of course. The formation of Christianity is the single most important phenomenon that gives “Jew” its various dimensions today.

Besides the first and the 20th centuries, what other historical eras most inform the term “Jew”?

The next era would be the Jewish emancipation of the 18th and 19th centuries. With the liberation and enfranchisement of Jews who had been largely confined to the Pale of Settlement in the Russian Empire or the ghettos of Europe came new debates on Jewish identity among both Jews and non-Jews alike. Are Jews a religious group? A separate race? A nation within a nation? The Jew doesn’t quite fit into any of the grand Enlightenment schemes, and we begin to see seemingly contradictory identities imputed to Jews. For example, “the Jew” becomes emblematic of socialism but also becomes the stereotype of the capitalist.

When you really start paying attention, you realize that understanding the term “Jew” is key to understanding the rise and development of Western culture as a whole.

What do you make of the trading of “Jewish” for “Jew”?

Saying “Jewish” softens the word, almost as if there were etiquette involved. But then the question becomes, what’s going on psychologically, sociologically, and anthropologically in that aversion or adaptation?

How will you explore the Holocaust?

I don’t have any radical new insights to offer there. In one sense the Holocaust is unfathomable. Yet at the same time it obviously represents a nexus of historical and cultural dynamics that are nameable and traceable, and to which the term and figure of “the Jew” are absolutely central.

In Annie Hall, Diane Keaton says to Woody Allen, “You’re what Grammy Hall would call a real Jew,” and he replies, “Oh. Thank you.” Why does that line get laughs?

Because it precisely encapsulates everything we’ve been talking about. “Jew” is always two things at the same time, and humor is about concisely encapsulating that kind of collision. In this case, the collision is around the content of the word “Jew” and who gets to define “real Jew.”

Is your own identity relevant to this project?

No doubt. But I wouldn’t say that I’m looking for answers in that respect. My life as a scholar, an occasional public intellectual, a teacher, or even at home in my garden tends to be much more about questions than answers. At dinner the other night, a colleague made the offhand comment: “Oh, Cynthia, she’s always been this kind of liminal character.” The word “liminal” suggests “in between” — the psychological, spiritual, and physical place between point A and point B. That’s where I feel most at home, most myself — and in that sense, this project, this “Jew,” has everything to do with who I am.

How a tradition of learning inside, outside, and around the classroom influences Bates facilities growth

By President Elaine Tuttle Hansen

The unstaged photograph below shows history professor Hilmar Jensen and his honors thesis advisees, Ariela Silberstein ’10 and Anthony Phillips ’10, enjoying late-night ice cream in their Pettengill Hall history lounge amidst the implements of their academic trade — computers, texts, a cell phone, Diet Coke, and some Chex Mix.

Through the photo, we feel the energetic blend of old tools and new approaches. We appreciate the complex process that fuels the scholar’s mind and body, and the way that academic work connects to external sources and destinations across space and time.

The sight of Bates learners and teachers in dialogue is familiar to us, yet it captures an intentional educational ideal — one that privileges a rich mix of study and interaction — 155 years in the making here at Bates.

While reputed to be utterly demanding, Bates’ earliest professors welcomed students to their homes (sometimes by necessity, for those who didn’t have campus offices) with a style that George Millet Chase, son of President Chase, once described as relentlessly “simple and informal.”

As they guided each new generation of students, the earliest faculty also seemed to embrace the concept of a changing world. It was said of philosopher, theologian, and botanist Benjamin Francis Hayes that his “doctrine never petrified.”

Quaint as such language sounds today, that approach — meet students where they are, then carefully push them further than they imagined possible — is still alive and formative.

Take the renovation and expansion of Hedge and Roger Williams halls, for example. By fall 2011, each will offer thoughtful juxtapositions and intersections of classrooms, lounges, offices, and common spaces where students and faculty will meet formally and informally. Inside, outside, and around the classroom, they will learn with and from each other.

Moreover, the denizens of our newest academic buildings reflect our long resistance to fragmentation and factionalization.

Hedge will house the religious studies and philosophy departments as well as the environmental studies program — and we’re not yet tired of joking about a building that embraces “heaven and earth” on just three floors. In doing so, Hedge brings together the Western academy’s oldest disciplines with one of the newest, future-oriented, and global “interdisciplines,” an arrangement that embodies an important theme of liberal arts colleges in the 21st century.

Whereas the earliest colleges and universities trained clerics in religion and philosophy in order to save our eternal souls, today these institutions promote research and problem-solving — by humanists, artists, social scientists, and natural scientists — who work across traditional boundaries to improve life on this endangered planet.

Meanwhile, the Bill welcomes our non-English-language study programs as well as the technology-rich Language Resource Center and the Off-Campus Study Office. Among our peers, only Bates has gathered under one roof the programs that teach and practice the cross-cultural competence that our students and our world need today.

The faculty and students working within the Bill will, in effect, extend the reach of Bates as they learn to transcend some of the boundaries that divide and endanger us. They will look outward through multiple cultural lenses and use, quite literally, different words to describe, understand, and design solutions for the world’s common problems.

Like the initiatives outlined in our academic plan, “Choices for Bates,” our facilities improvements will continue to encourage learners and teachers to cross paths, challenge boundaries, and connect and collaborate.

And this brings us back to the deceptively casual scene of a professor and his students, 155 years in the making.

“Identity terms” are the words that people use to affiliate themselves and others with particular groups — ethnic, racial, religious, social and so on.

Cynthia Baker, associate professor of religious studies at Bates, recently received $50,400 from the National Endowment for the Humanities to support her research into one of history’s most fraught identity terms: “Jew,” a word that can convey praise, pride, prejudice or pure description.

No studies exist that analyze the use and the historical development, from ancient times through the postmodern era, of that term, Baker says. The NEH grant will enable her to research and write a book slated for publication in the “Key Words in Jewish Studies” series published by Rutgers University Press.

The book will map the emergence, evolution and current permutations of the term “Jew.” Baker’s yearlong research will involve experts and archives in the U.S., Europe and Israel, among other resources. She will examine ancient inscriptions and conduct art-historical analyses of images of Jews including those from medieval European churches, manuscripts, modern cartoons, propaganda and current pop art.

“The project is important both in its specificity and as a case study for analyzing the dynamics of identity formation and attribution,” Baker notes in her proposal for the grant. “Who decides the content of identity terms, and how does that content come to be generated over time, within and across societies? How is it that a single identity term — ‘Jew,’ for example — can be made to convey such a broad range of (often diametrically opposed) meanings?”

She notes that worldwide political and social developments make this research more compelling than ever. “In an age of ethnic nationalisms, mass migrations and identity formations across national lines, understanding the dynamics of collective identification becomes an increasingly urgent concern,” Baker says.

Baker will carry out her research in several phases, including the examination of ancient evidence for the origins of the term “Jew,” and the exploration of the term’s many overlapping and competing definitions over time — Christian, anti-Semitic, nationalist, etc.

Baker earned her B.A. at Wesleyan, master’s degree at Harvard, and doctorate at Duke. She has taught at Duke, Cornell, Swarthmore and Santa Clara University. Her research explores ideas about gender, ethnicity and nationalism in the formative periods of Judaism and Christianity and in modern historiography on these periods. Her book Rebuilding the House of Israel: Architectures of Gender in Jewish Antiquity was published by Stanford University Press in 2002.

Baker’s NEH grant is called a Fellowship for College Teachers and Independent Scholars.

The National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965 established the NEH. An independent federal agency of the United States government, it is dedicated to supporting research, preservation, education and public programs in the humanities.