In the final week of the Bates Dance Festival, the annual Different Voices concert showcases the internationalism of contemporary dance, with choreographers from the United States, Africa and Mexico bringing compelling styles and perspectives to the stage at 8 p.m. Thursday and Friday, Aug. 5 and 6, in Bates College’s Schaeffer Theatre, 305 College St.

Tickets are $24 for the general public and $12 for students and seniors, and may be purchased by calling 207-786-6161 or visiting the website.

On the program are new works by choreographers Claudia Lavista and Omar Carrum of Mexico’s Delfos Danza Contemporanea; the sensational Middle Eastern performer Donna Mejia; Mozambican choreographer Paniabra Gabriel Canda; Ethiopian dancer Shiferaw Tarikou, in his first U.S. appearance; Connecticut-based company elephant JANE dance; emerging choreographer Deborah Goffe; and Quebecois choreographer Helen Simoneau, a recent winner of the first prize for choreography at the Internationales Solo-Tanz-Theater Festival in Stuttgart, Germany.

In other festival news this week: Young Choreographers/New Works Showcase, an informal presentation of more than 20 new dances created by students and international artists during the festival, takes place from 1-5 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 7, in Schaeffer Theatre. There is no charge for admission and audience members are welcome to come and go throughout the afternoon.

Later that evening, the Festival Finale features students performing a high-energy evening of modern, jazz and Middle Eastern dance created by faculty members Lavista, Carrum, Michael Foley ’89, Doug Varone and Cathy Young. This event culminates the festival’s three-week intensive training program and also showcases the talents of local youth, ages 6-17, enrolled in the Youth Arts Program.

One of today’s most important companies in Latin America, Delfos Danza Contemporanea is known for a fully articulated, high-energy style, fast and free of constraint. “If we want to talk of the great figures of Latin American contemporary dance, the name of Claudia Lavista is unavoidable,” said a writer for Spain’s Por La Danza Magazine. A dancer, choreographer and teacher, Lavista founded Delfos in 1992 with Victor Ruiz.

She has received many awards for her artistry, including the prestigious National Arts Creators Fellowship from the Mexican National Endowment for the Arts in 2008 and the title of Best Female Dancer in Mexico’s National Dance Awards. She was named one of the 10 best Mexican dancers of the 20th century by a critics organization in 2001. Lavista has appeared in more than 70 works of dance, theater, video and opera, working with choreographers from around the globe and performing in some of the world’s most prestigious theaters.

An artist known for multilayered, deeply personal work, Carrum is a founding member of Delfos. He has been featured in more than 60 works of dance, theater and opera. In 2000 he was named Best Male Dancer at the 21st Annual INBA-UAM National Choreographic Competition. He has received numerous awards from Mexico’s national fund for culture and art, and in 2009 became the first Mexican choreographer to receive a Guggenheim fellowship.

A central figure in Mozambique’s dance landscape, choreographer Canda has made his mark with a powerful and imaginative choreographic response to the ravages of war. He began his career as a traditional dancer but was soon lured to modern dance through a series of collaborative research projects with Dancas na Cidade in Lisbon, Portugal.

Canda is the founder of CulturArte, a Maputo-based producing and training program for performers with and without disabilities. He directs the program in cooperation with artists Ariry Andriamoratsiresy of Madagascar and Boyzie Cekwana of South Africa.

Rhode Island choreographer-performer Heidi Henderson presents a new work with her company, elephant JANE dance, which has performed at the South Bank Centre in London; the International Festival of Dance in Taegu, Korea; and Jacob’s Pillow Inside/Out Festival, among other venues. Henderson has received three choreography fellowships from the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts.

Emerging artists in residence at the Bates Dance Festival showcase recent works to round out the Different Voices program. Choreographer, performer and video artist Goffe creates daring interdisciplinary work with her company, Scapegoat Garden, a collaborative dance theater troupe based in Hartford, Conn. She has received artist’s fellowships for her choreography from the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism, the Greater Hartford Arts Council and the Surdna Foundation.

Quebec native Simoneau has presented her work across Canada, the U.S. and in Germany and Greece.

A former leader of the Green Party of Quebec, Scott McKay visits Bates College to discuss globalization, national distinctiveness, sovereignty and the environment at 4:15 p.m. Thursday, March 18, in the Keck Classroom (G52), Pettengill Hall, 4 Andrews Road (Alumni Walk).

Titled Environmentalism and Sovereignty for Quebec: Perspectives from the Parti Quebecois, McKay’s talk is sponsored by the Sociology Department and the Mellon Foundation Faculty Innovation Fund. For more information, please call 207-786-8296.

McKay led the province’s Green Party from 2006 through 2008. He is now a member of Quebec’s National Assembly for the Parti Quebecois. His party has a special vision for the place of Quebec in Canada and the world. In favor of autonomy or outright independence from Canada, the PQ is for a progressive, environmentally conscious and culturally distinctive Quebec.

With 30 years’ experience working for environmental causes in Canada, McKay has contributed greatly to the PQ’s visions and hopes for a green, sovereign Quebec.

(This  lecture will be recorded at the request of Maine Public Broadcasting’s “Speaking in Maine” series for possible broadcast at a later date.)

The Portland Press Herald, Lewiston Sun Journal and Maine Public Broadcasting Network’s Maine Things Considered all sought out Tyler Fish ’96 during his recent visit to Maine and Bates as part of the 90th anniversary celebration of the Bates Outing Club. Last April, Fish and friend John Huston became the first Americans to complete an unsupported, unassisted ski trek to the North Pole. Fish tells the Press Herald that his Outing Club experiences fostered his adventurous spirit. ”Life is largely made up of people you meet and opportunities you choose to take,” he said. ”One of the things that helped me for sure is the Bates education that taught me that it takes a lot of hard work to do something well.”

Photographer Phyllis Graber Jensen traveled to New Orleans in September to photograph alums involved in various New Orleans rebuilding efforts, including Maggie Merrill ’98, seen here with Mayor Ray Nagin, for whom Merrill serves as policy director. Jensen also traveled to nearby Long Beach, Miss., to photograph Janet Collier Millard ’54, who rebuilt her seaside home after the hurricane.

With her 21st-place finish at a World Cup race in Pokljuka, Slovenia, on Dec. 17, Haley Johnson ’06 becomes the first woman to win a spot on the U.S. Olympic biathlon team, the U.S. Biathlon Team reported Thursday.

“We did know that she is able to finish in a good position but it was only during the last days that Haley really calmed down,” said head coach Per Nilsson. “She was confident of herself and her ability on the shooting range and what she showed today seemed just like a normal and perfect training race. It’s just amazing how she pulled that off.”

“It was amazing but it was also super simple,” Johnson said in a video statement afterwards.

The 2010 Olympics take place in Vancouver, British Columbia, Feb. 12-28.

Johnson, who studied at Bates for two and a half years before leaving to pursue biathlon training at the Maine Winter Sports Center in Caribou, was a two-time performer at the NCAA Skiing Championships. She placed 25th in the women’s 5K classical race at the University of Alaska-Anchorage in 2002, and 17th in the women’s 5K in 2003 at Dartmouth. In February 2003, she won the 10K freestyle event at the Williams College Carnival, the first Bates woman to win a carnival race.

“She has never gotten distracted along the way.”

Johnson’s success does not surprise her Bates coach, Becky Flynn Woods ’89. “Haley is successful because it was always clear that she was pursuing a goal,” Flynn said. “She has never gotten distracted along the way.” Attending Bates was perhaps a slight detour, Woods says, since Johnson had to take a break from biathlon competition while at Bates. “I think it was nice for her to concentrate only on her skiing, but it did leave shooting behind. It’s clear that biathlon was always part of her trajectory.”

Johnson is the third Bates alum to win a spot on a Winter Olympics team. All-America Nordic skier Justin Freeman ’98 competed at the 2006 games (Turin, Italy), and Nordic skier Nancy Ingersoll Fiddler ’78 competed in 1988 (Calgary, Canada) and 1992 (Albertville, France).

In the Summer Olympics, rower Andrew Byrnes ’05 was a gold medalist with the Canadian rowing team in 2008 in Beijing, China. Mike Ferry ’97 competed for the U.S. in the double sculls at the 2000 Olympics, and runner Arnold Adams ’33 was a member of the U.S. team at the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics but did not compete due to a foot injury.

Harlan Holden, a member of the Class of 1913 who attended Bates for two years, competed in the half mile at the 1912 Summer Games in Stockholm, while his Bates teammate Vaughn Blanchard ’12 competed in the 110-meter hurdles at Stockholm.

By Bill Walsh ’86

Hurricane Katrina didn’t stop people from living near the ocean. Along the Gulf Coast in Mississippi — where the monster storm came ashore — nine out of 10 people have come back.

Economist Howard Kunreuther ’59 knows that people will always take such risks. What he’d like is for them to pay for the privilege.

In a new book, At War with the Weather, Kunreuther argues that flood insurance rates should be related to risk. Those living in flood-prone areas should pay more than those on high ground. Those who take precautions, such as elevating their homes, should get a break on their premiums. And to avoid driving low-income residents from their homes, a federally subsidized insurance voucher system, similar to the food stamp program, could offset higher premiums.

This may not seem like a revolutionary concept, but in the quirky world of flood insurance, it is.

“Our society’s evaluation of things has not been rational.”

Flood insurance is heavily subsidized by the government, and mandates to carry coverage, even in high-risk areas, are poorly enforced. The result is a perverse incentive for people to live in risky areas, exposing the U.S. government and taxpayers to massive financial risk each time disaster strikes. “Our society’s evaluation of things has not been rational,” says Kunreuther, an economist at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and co-director of Wharton Risk Management and Decision Processes Center.

He says he isn’t trying to punish people who choose to live near the water. Rather, he’d like to create a system of financial incentives that would prompt people to mitigate against loss of life and property. “The idea of investing a couple of thousand dollars to make your home more storm-resistant isn’t something people are willing to do,” he says. “We want to get our return back immediately.” Such incentives would overcome the “myopia in all of us, myself included,” says Kunreuther, who calls himself an “irrational economist” because he knows that people’s actions are often not based on sound reasoning.

Kunreuther would like to see his ideas turn into federal legislation. However, it would inevitably mean raising insurance premiums, in some cases substantially. With more than half the U.S. population living within 50 miles of the coast, such increases would make even the steadiest politician nervous. Kunreuther calls it NIMTOF — the “Not in My Term of Office” syndrome.

Kunreuther’s ideas would likely have an effect on Gulf Coast residents like Janet Collier Millard ’54, who has a good view of the Gulf of Mexico in Long Beach, Miss. Although her home stood on pilings 17 feet above sea level, it was no match for Katrina’s 30-foot storm surge. She’s since rebuilt, and her new home is 3 feet higher than the original. Her neighbors call it the “treehouse.”

Millard had flood insurance — unlike a lot of people along the Gulf Coast — as well as wind and homeowner coverage. Most residents along the coast figured their hurricane damages were covered by their homeowner’s insurance. They were wrong. After the disaster, major insurers contended that most of the damage was caused by flooding, not covered by typical homeowner policies.

The resulting dispute triggered a major legal battle over coverage and refocused attention on the National Flood Insurance Program. “There was a big fight with insurance companies over ‘wind versus water,’” she says. “Although I had three separate policies, I had to go to arbitration to get help from the wind policy to enable me to rebuild.”

Since the devastation, Millard’s flood insurance premiums have barely changed at all but her homeowners and wind insurance premiums have nearly doubled, from about $1,000 to $2,400 a year. Millard harbors no illusions that another major hurricane won’t inflict the same kind of damage. After spending two years chasing after sleazy contractors and haggling with insurance companies, she said she won’t rebuild if her house is destroyed again.

But for now, this New England transplant is willing to pay extra in insurance to be able to stay where she is and enjoy the view.  “I sit here on my deck and look out at the water. There is always a breeze,” she says. “It’s home to me now.”

Nine college and university presidents including Bates President Elaine Tuttle Hansen were invited to join about two dozen members of national news media recently in a dialogue on higher education.

The 22nd Annual Higher Education Media Roundtable was hosted by Arizona State University President Michael Crow at the Harvard Club in New York City on Nov. 4, 2009.

National media outlets included National Public Radio, NBC, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Nature, Time, Newsweek, Kaplan/Washington Post, The Chronicle of Higher Education, University Business, The New York Review of Books, Bloomberg News, and Inside Higher Ed.

College and university presidents and chancellors participating where Alice P. Gast of Lehigh University; David W. Leebron of Rice University; Harris Pastides of the University of South Carolina; Freeman A. Hrabowski III of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County; John J. Neuhauser of Saint Michael’s College; Kent Hance of the Texas Tech University System; Robert C. Holub of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and presidents Crow and Hansen. Communications officers from each of the institutions also attended the meeting.

Discussion topics were broad-ranging and included: assessment, access, K-12 teacher education,
the impact of economic forces on higher education, three-year baccalaureate programs, tenure, swine flu, President Obama’s education policy, and the increasing academic and socio-economic stratification of higher education.

Sponsored by the sociology, politics and psychology departments, the event is open to the public at no cost. For more information, please contact this fduina@bates.edu.

A professor of political science and sociology at Boston University and director of the university’s Institute for Advancement of the Social Sciences, Greenfeld is internationally renowned for her research into issues of culture, mental illness and modernity. Her talk addresses the growing epidemic of mental illnesses such as depression and schizophrenia among Americans. Specifically, she will discuss the forces driving these illnesses and why we are falling prey to them.

The lecture is aimed at a general audience. As Bates associate professor of sociology Francesco Duina explains, her “approach is interdisciplinary, and it not only directly challenges established wisdom in the social sciences, but also preconceived notions of the medical community.”

Duina predicts that Greenfeld’s lecture “will provide us with answers that are certain to be illuminating, provocative and profound. Anyone eager to learn more about these illnesses and our modern world, more generally, should come and listen to Professor Greenfeld. They will not be disappointed.”

Greenfeld is also a University Professor in Boston University’s University Professors Program, an initiative for gifted students designed to “build bridges between disciplines.”

She is the author of several books including “The Spirit of Capitalism: Nationalism and Economic Growth” (Oneworld Publications, 2001), for which she won the 2002 Donald Kagan Best Book in European History Prize, and the first volume of her collected essays, “Nationalism and the Mind” (Roxbury Pub Co., 2006).