1. Live Commencement webcast features honorands Bassler, De Niro, Ifill

2. College community remembers Evan Dube ’15

3. Audio: Poems and prose from Bates’ creative writing majors

4. College Night in Town: Students, L-A make it a date

5. Video: Student stories underscore value of Bates philanthropy

6. Want college search help? Attend the Admission Alumni Legacy program, June 10-11

7. Backpack video journalists tell inside stories about Bates life

8. Champion thrower David Pless ’13 hits Sports Illustrated’s Faces in the Crowd

9. Services for Professor Emeritus of Political Science Garold Thumm announced

10. Bates in the News

1. Live broadcast of Commencement to feature honorands Bassler, De Niro and Ifill
Molecular biologist Bonnie Bassler, actor Robert De Niro and PBS Newshour senior correspondent Gwen Ifill will speak and receive honorary degrees at Commencement on Sunday, beginning at 10 a.m. on the Historic Quad. Watch online: bates.edu/live. See complete schedule: bates.edu/commencement.

2. The college community remembers Evan Dube ’15
Evan Dube, a member of the Class of 2015, died May 19 in Scotland while on a Short Term course working on the Shetland Islands Climate and Settlement Project. He collapsed after a brief ocean swim while on a cookout with fellow students. At a College Chapel memorial gathering May 24, mourners shared glimpses of a spirit inspirational in its eager openness, and were invited to “embrace Evan’s life and memory…and embrace each other as we try to move through this,” in the words of James Reese, associate dean of students.

3. Audio: Poems and prose from Bates’ creative writing majors
Listen in as students of Rob Farnsworth, poet and senior lecturer in English, read their poetry and prose at the annual senior thesis reading in Muskie Archives.

4. College Night in Town: Students, L-A make it a date
From Park Street to Lisbon Street and through Courthouse Plaza, droves of students, professors and staff members waved and swapped “hi’s” to and from downtown adventures in food, drink and music. The inaugural “College Night in Town,” the brainchild of two students and featuring all-in participation from businesses and student contributors, made it possible to sample and celebrate, in just a few hours, the diversity of downtown Lewiston and Auburn offerings.

5. Video: Student stories underscore value of Bates philanthropy
Romina Istratii ’12 of Athens, Greece, says she was fortunate to find Bates on the map when she did her college search. “And that is how it happened — I opened a map,” she said with a smile. Her quip drew a warm laugh from a gathering of donors whose philanthropy helps to fund the college’s nearly $30 million outlay of scholarship aid each year.

6. Want college search help? Attend the Admission Alumni Legacy program, June 10-11
The first question is what brand of diaper for your child. Then suddenly it’s the swirl of confusing questions about your child’s college search: tours, applications, interviews and, gulp, financial aid. Make it easier on you and your child by attending the college’s Admission Alumni Legacy Program, June 10-11, on campus. With in-depth panels and workshops, you and your child will learn from nationally recognized professionals, including college admission deans and directors as well as secondary school counselors from around the country. Deadline for registration: May 31.

7. Backpack video journalists tell inside stories about Bates life
Bates communications professionals recently turned loose three enterprising student journalists to create their own video stories about Bates life. The backpack journalists’ videos include stories about the college’s student-led EMS squad, a Lewiston-Auburn college aspirations program and President-elect Clayton Spencer’s first full day visiting campus.

8. Champion thrower David Pless ’13 hits Sports Illustrated‘s Faces in the Crowd
Still the gold standard for recognition of amateur athletic excellence, SI‘s Faces in the Crowd featured David Pless ’13 in its May 28 edition, noting that Pless, the reigning Division III indoor shot champ, is unbeaten in D-III competition this season and is “the only D-III athlete to make it to the Penn Relays discus and shot put finals this year.”

9. Services for Professor Emeritus of Political Science Garold Thumm
Services for Garold Thumm, professor emeritus of political science who died May 18, 2012, at age 96 in Springfield, Mass., are May 26, 10 a.m., at First Church of Monson, Mass., and visitation is today, May 26, 6 to 8 p.m. at Lombard Funeral Home in Monson. In a story in Bates Magazine after his 1987 retirement, Professor Thumm said his goal in the classroom was to involve everyone in the proceedings. So he called on all of his students regularly, “which many feel is a brutal way to conduct a class, but I did it anyway,” he said. Far from brutal, his teaching was beloved. Joyce White Vance ’82, now U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, remembers her mentor’s quick smile and how he folded his arms across his chest while pondering a challenging question. “He wouldn’t let you take the easy way out. He taught us to analyze an issue before taking a side, not take a side and then try to fit the argument to it.”

10. Bates in the News
As Clayton Spencer prepares to leave Harvard to become the eighth president of Bates, The Harvard Crimson reviews her 15 years of service there. The Maine Public Broadcasting documentary Desperate Alewives, featuring Bates environmental economist Lynne Lewis among others, gets a New England Emmy nomination. Overseas, the major German newspaper Berlin Zeitung reviews a gallery exhibition by Bates art faculty member Robert Feintuch, whose portraits of men offer wry explorations of powerlessness and vulnerability.

Gathered students, staff and faculty fill the College Chapel pews during a memorial service for Evan Dube '15. Photographs by Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College.

“We’re here to embrace Evan’s life and memory, and we’re also here to embrace each other as we try to move through this,” Associate Dean of Students James Reese told Bates folks gathered to remember a much-loved, now much-missed student.

“Share what you want to share and be who you want to be about this enormous matter, whenever you want,” Reese told the Bates people who had been closest to Evan Dube ’15, who died May 19 during a Bates Short Term trip to Scotland.

Reese spoke during a noontime memorial gathering on May 24 for Dube. Bates’ goodbye to Dube will be long, but this first remembrance revealed a path toward healing as people who knew him, or wished they had, shared glimpses of a spirit inspirational in its eager openness.

Professor of History Michael Jones, one of the Bates faculty members who led the Shetland Islands trip, remembers Evan Dube '15.

Filling the College Chapel were hundreds of Bates faculty, staff and students, including friends who were by Dube’s side when he slipped from life on a beach on the island of Shetland Mainland.

Organized by the Multifaith Chaplaincy, the memorial wrapped readings, recollections and music in periods of silence that afforded a little time for reflection. “We see silence not as a place where nothing is happening,” explained Associate Multifaith Chaplain Emily Wright-Magoon, “but as a place where a lot is going on, where all of our inner voices are speaking within us, among us.”

Silence is “a really profound way of being together in community” — and more than welcome as a distressed campus sought to make sense of Dube’s passing.

Interim President Nancy Cable shared a message that Evan’s parents, John and Eileen Dube, have posted. “Many of you have asked us, ‘What can we do to help?” the Dubes wrote.

“And our family would like for each of you, for all of you, to do a random act of kindness for someone, anyone . . . a person you’ve just met or someone you don’t know at all. In that way you will honor the memory of who Evan truly was: a gentle soul, a kind heart who loved all, unconditionally.”

Indeed, Evan’s open-heartedness resonated through the Chapel as students, staff and faculty shared impressions and memories. “He wanted to be friends with everyone,” said his friend and classmate John Goodman, who quoted a Latin saying that Dube had posted on his Facebook site: “Alter ipse amicus,” translated as “a friend is another self.”

Olivia Norrmen-Smith '13 and Justin Lipton '12 perform "Blackbird" by John Lennon and Paul McCartney during the service.

One of Dube’s floormates from the 280 College Street residence noted Evan’s willingness to let arguments go and bygones be bygones. “He loved us as a family,” she said, “and we didn’t know each other before we got here.”

A few people, including one of the faculty members who led the Short Term visit to the Shetland Islands, noted Dube’s eager embrace of classical and medieval studies. During the trip, said history professor Michael Jones, he had asked Dube to help transcribe an old handwritten document, and gave him a website on paleography, the study of old handwriting, that might help with the task.

“He gave me, after that, his website on paleography,” Jones said, to appreciative laughter.

As we deal with the pain of losing someone close, part of the struggle is simply trying to find a place for such a loss, a way to understand it that enables us to keep going. Dube was a Buddhist, and one reading from a Buddhist philosopher offered some comfort from that perspective.

Those attending the service find comfort in each other and the opportunity to reflect.

Aung Myint ’14, who comes from Myanmar and leads Buddhist meditation sessions at Bates, read from Contemplation of No-Coming, No-Going by author and teacher Thich Nhat Hanh:

“Birth and death are only doors through which we pass, secret thresholds on our journey. Birth and death are a game of hide and seek. So love with me, hold my hand. Let us say goodbye, say goodbye to meet again soon. We meet today, we will meet again tomorrow, we will meet at the source of every moment.”

Another kind of comfort, harder but maybe more cathartic, came from Evan Dube himself. Wright-Magoon and Multifaith Chaplain Bill Blaine-Wallace read from a few Twitter posts that he had made in November and December. In one, the Bates first-year quoted A.A. Milne, from Winnie-the-Pooh:

“How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.”

• View story from The Harvard Crimson, May 24, 2012.

On Sunday night, at least 200 Bates College students, faculty and staff members crowded into Perry Atrium in the college’s Pettengill Hall for comfort and support, and to share thoughts and stories about Evan. He was remembered as a young man who was studious and serious, exuberant and funny — and a caring friend.

From Plaistow, N.H., Evan was pursuing classical studies at Bates. He amassed an impressive theatrical resume during his high school years and had already entertained the campus with his performance as the cowboy Virgil in the Department of Theater’s production of Bus Stop last fall.

Associate Dean of Student James Reese recounted that in September 2011, during orientation for the first-year class, Evan also impressed his classmates and others by winning an annual competition to become the first new student to recite the Bates mission statement by heart. “He spoke every word correctly and in a way that gave every word meaning.” Reese also noted that when the time came to publicly recognize Evan for his win, he wasn’t present, because he had left early to do homework.

College Multifaith Chaplain Bill Blaine-Wallace recounted Evan, a Buddhist, “bounding” into his office to introduce himself and to say, “I have some very unusual religious beliefs, and I thought that as chaplain you should know.”

The event concluded a difficult day for the Bates community as the campus learned Sunday afternoon about Evan’s passing via an email message from Dean of Students Tedd Goundie.

“We will be absorbing this terrible loss for many days and long into the future,” Goundie wrote. “Please join me in keeping Evan’s family and friends in your thoughts and prayers.”

Evan’s fellow students in Scotland are receiving grief counseling and will return to Boston on Tuesday.

The Bates Multifaith Chaplaincy and the college’s Health Center are providing counseling for members of the campus community.

Incident background

Evan was one of 10 Bates students in a study-abroad class co-taught by Gerry Bigelow, Bates lecturer in history, and Professor of History Michael Jones.

The students were participating in the Shetland Islands Climate and Settlement Project, an ongoing archaeological research project funded by the National Science Foundation, involving scholars from Bates and other higher education institutions.

Following a preliminary investigation, Scottish law enforcement authorities stated that “there do not appear to be any suspicious circumstances surrounding the incident.”

The authorities have given this account of the incident:

Class members went to a beach south of the town of Lerwick, on the Shetland island called Mainland, to have a cookout. They arrived a little after 9 p.m. local time. Shortly afterward, Evan dived into the ocean briefly, then collapsed as he left the water.

Evan’s companions took immediate action, beginning resuscitation efforts and calling emergency medical services.

A local ambulance arrived on the scene within minutes, followed quickly by a helicopter that airlifted Evan to the nearest hospital, in Lerwick. Resuscitation efforts administered from the outset were unsuccessful.

The college has no other information about the incident to offer — simply that we have lost a member of our Bates community long before his time.

Tobi Liaw '12 mixes paint while Jee Hye Kim '12 applies it as they work on their mural at the Lewiston-Auburn 911 Communication Center. Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College.

On a normal disaster-free day, most of us probably give little thought to the people who pick up the phone when we dial 911. But the emergency dispatchers who serve Lewiston, Poland and Auburn have recently been much on the minds of two student artists from Bates.

Jee Hye Kim of Fort Lee, N.J., and Kimberly “Tobi” Liaw of Ontario, Calif., have dedicated their talent and free time this spring to making things better for the staff of the Lewiston-Auburn 911 Communication Center.

These everyday heroes spend most of their waking hours in a dark room looking at computer screens and waiting for the next distress call. The center itself is behind locked doors in the basement of a fire station in Auburn.

Robinson Copland, office manager and himself a dispatcher, wanted to spruce up the dispatchers’ working environment. So he reached out to Bates.

Kim and Liaw, both seniors, responded to the request that came via a friend. Robinson worked with them to design a mural that serves two purposes: to bring a glimpse of nature indoors, and to honor the work of both the dispatchers and the firefighters, EMTs, police and others who cope with emergencies.

The mural shows a variety of first responders in action, framed by screens juxtaposed against a woodsy backdrop. Liaw and Kim painted the mural, measuring 10.5 by 6.5 feet, in acrylic in a busy main corridor at the communications center.

“This is a morale booster,” says Copland. “We work in a bunker — the only ‘window’ that we have is a camera on the parking lot.”

“The nature theme came from Jee Hye and Tobi. But the screens, that was my idea — just to represent what we do to the dispatchers who walk through here every day. It’s a constant reminder to the people that know what we do, because they are the unsung heroes.”

For eight hours a day, 16 if they pull a double shift, the L-A dispatchers each face a battery of flat screens displaying myriad information — incoming phone numbers, emergency-service radio frequencies, maps, views from surveillance cameras, etc. The room is kept dark to make the screens easier to read.

Tobi Liaw '12, foreground, and Jee Hye Kim '12 work on the mural at the Lewiston-Auburn 911 Communication Center. Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College.

Four to six dispatchers are on duty around the clock. They not only send first responders to emergency situations, but themselves offer as much aid as possible over the phone. They rely on a complex set of protocols, arranged like flow charts, that can guide callers in all kinds of dire situations, from an accidental poisoning to a stuck accelerator in a car.

“We can deliver a breech baby over the phone,” Copland says. “It’s scary as hell.”

The Bates artists volunteered their time, about 30 hours in all, and a grant from the Harward Center for Community Partnerships paid for materials. “This is a good thing to do for the community that I’ve been a part of for the last four years,” says Liaw. “And I really wanted to do something to give back.

“I can’t imagine working 16 hours with no windows, and all you hear about is the bad stuff that happens. So I hope in some way this can bring some joy to their day.”

Friends and roommates, the pair complemented each other well in executing the mural. Liaw did more of the natural imagery, while Kim focused on the technical depictions.

“I’m very detail-oriented,” says Kim. “And she paints all over the place.”

With poet and writing adviser Rob Farnsworth looking on, Karen Nicoletti '12 reads from her novel during the 2012 Mount David Summit. Photograph by Rene Minnis.

As is his custom at the annual senior thesis reading, creative writing adviser Rob Farnsworth blessed the graduating Bates poets and novelists whom he has advised during the academic year.

A poet and senior lecturer in English, Farnsworth invoked the four ingredients that Herman Melville said writers need to continue their important but often thankless art.

“May you go forth into the world,” Farnsworth told the seniors, “and find what every writer needs: time, strength, cash and patience.” And like any good public reader, he paused at “cash” for appropriate humorous effect.

Farnsworth also praised them for their “dedicated commitment to the life of the imagination.”

The seven readers and their voices at the May 17 event (an eighth creative writing major, Emily Cull of Greenville, S.C., was unable to attend):

Alison Cornforth of Warren, Maine, read autobiographical poems. The experience of creating them, she said, raised emotional issues, “but I ended up writing them anyway.”

Listen to Alison Cornforth read her autobiographical poetry.

Alana Folsom of Los Angeles read part of her prose thesis that explains, like a parable, the curse on the small Southern town that is the focus on her story.

Listen to Alana Folsom read prose about the curse on a small town.

Lil Henry of Lee, N.H., read from her poetry on relationships, including one about difficult emotions a young mother feels toward her new baby.

Listen to Lil Henry’s poetry about human relationships.

Karen Nicoletti of Brewster, N.Y., read from her prose thesis about a saxophone player and Juilliard dropout who winds up playing for handouts in the New York City subway.

Listen to Karen Nicoletti read a selection from her prose thesis.

Charlotte Simpson's poetry and prose explore the power of imagination to pull us into the unknown. Photograph by Rene Minnis.

Meg Ramey of Bethesda, Md., read her gritty and realistic poem “Violet” and a selection from her prose thesis dealing with mental and emotional disorientation.

Listen to Meg Ramey read her poetry and prose.

Charlotte Simpson of New York, N.Y., read the poem “Opener” and a prose piece called “Space Is the Place,” each about submitting to one’s imagination and the unknown.

Listen to Charlotte Simpson read two pieces whose theme is the lure of the unknown.

Michelle Schloss of Unionville, Conn., read a biographical poem, 18 stanzas each with 10 lines about Zelda Fitzgerald, from her wild Roaring Twenties days to her suicide in 1948.

Listen to Michelle Schloss read her biographical poem about Zelda Fitzgerald.

Shown listening to Marc Bamuthi Joseph in April are, from left, Katie Straw '12, Yasin Fairley '12, Ashley Booker '12, dance professor Rachel Boggia and theater lecturer Kati Vecsey. Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College.

Just weeks after Mark Bamuthi Joseph dazzled local audiences with his performance piece red, black & GREEN: a blues, a theater production workshop at Bates is debuting an original adaptation of Joseph’s ballet libretto Home in 7.

Retitled Home, Among Other Transitional Places, this piece integrating dance, drama, poetry and video will be performed at 7:30 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, May 17-19, and at 2 p.m. Sunday, May 20, in Gannett Theater, Pettigrew Hall, 305 College St.

The performances are open to the public at no charge. For more information, please contact 207-786-6161.

Directed by Senior Lecturer in Theater Katalin Vecsey and with choreography and video design by Visiting Assistant Professor of Dance Rachel Boggia, Home, Among Other Transitional Places is the first original mainstage theater-dance collaboration from the Department of Theater and Dance, formed this academic year after the creation of a dance major at the college in 2011.

The seven performers in the piece include six students in the annual theater production workshop held during Short Term, Bates’ intensive five-week spring semester.

A poet, performer and educator, as well as director of performing arts at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, Joseph wrote Home in 7 for performances by the Atlanta Ballet in 2011. As this academic year’s artist in residence at Bates, he worked with the theater workshop faculty and students during the first week of the Short Term course.

“It’s so rare to be able to work with the playwright or originator of a text,” Boggia reflects. “He’s also a great teacher and mentor. He really connects with the students.”

Home, Among Other Transitional Places is a dramatic presentation of Joseph’s six-part autobiographical poem about his relationship with the city of Atlanta. A New York native who attended Morehouse College, Joseph was inspired by the city’s history, particularly stories of the Atlanta child murders in the late 1970s and early ’80s.

“History is made faceless as the next generation loses a connection,” Joseph told Creative Loafing Atlanta, an alternative weekly newspaper. “I’m interested in facilitating that conversation between the solid forms of today and the city’s ghosts.”

The Bates students faced the challenge of making the piece their own without changing the text, a daunting task considering the cast is all women, only one of whom has visited Atlanta. “But it works out fine,” says Vecsey. “It’s really interesting how gender and location hasn’t really been an issue.”

Joseph will make a taped appearance in the digital images projected around the actors and dancers.

The performance is under 45 minutes long and will be followed by a question and answer session with the students, Vecsey and Boggia.

Joseph is one of America’s vital voices in performance, arts education and artistic curation. This year he was an inaugural recipient of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Artist Award, and last year received the Alpert Award in the Arts for Theater. In 2007, he graced the cover of Smithsonian Magazine after being named one of America’s Top Young Innovators in the Arts and Sciences.

A Bates crowd at the Courthouse Plaza on Lisbon Street listens to the all-college a cappella performance that concluded "College Night in Town." Photograph by Mikey Pasek '12.

Walking from Park to Lisbon Street through Lewiston’s downtown Courthouse Plaza, students, staff and faculty waved and swapped “hi’s” on their way to and from adventures in food, drink and music.

It was the inaugural “College Night in Town,” and the overwhelming participation of local businesspeople and student contributors made it possible to sample and celebrate, in just a few hours, the diversity of what downtown Lewiston and Auburn have to offer.

Reporting for Bates Communications: Elana Leopold ’12, Erica Long ’12 and Elizabeth McKean ’12.

More than 400 students, faculty and staff from Bates, Lewiston-Auburn College, Kaplan University and Central Maine Community College bustled along the main streets and the mill canals of these red-brick cities in pursuit of Greek gyros, French bistro dishes, wine and beer tastings, and discounted spring rolls; poetry readings and displays of student art; and performances including jazz, Bollywood dance and an a cappella finale that packed an open plaza.

College Night in Town began what’s hoped will be a long tradition, likely to take place each fall and spring from now on. The event is designed to cultivate strong social and economic ties between local students and businesses downtown. How does it work? The businesses offer discounts and special programming for student customers, while the organizers drum up interest, as well as student artists and performers, on campus.

Isaiah Rice '15 performs at the Courthouse Plaza on Lisbon Street during "College Night in Town." Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College.

“It’s meant to be a spark that reminds students of all of the amazing attributes in the Twin Cities,” says co-organizer Mikey Pasek ’12. “Streams of students realized the important connection between the college and the community. We wanted to create the college town environment that Lewiston-Auburn can be, and that students hope it will be.”

The evening’s only hardship was having to decide what to skip. One popular dining option was Mother India, on Lisbon Street, whose tangerine-hued interior and spicy flavors provided the perfect antidote to an overcast evening. Savory crowd-pleasers included the saag paneer, tandoori chicken and garlic naan.

Chopsticks Restaurant in downtown Lewiston was the place for some shared appetizers — special-offer $3 crunchy spring rolls and sweet teriyaki chicken skewers — and a well-attended 45-minute set of folky originals and covers by Sawyer Lawson ’12.

“I like the friendly restaurant environment, a little less formal than a concert,” said Nina Slote ’12. “Sawyer’s music is great to hear in a low-key space with food and other friends to chat with.”

Some of us dressed smartly to dine at Fuel, where delicacies like poached salmon sous vide and steak au poivre — usually reserved for parents’ visits — were discounted. Others opted for wood-fired pizza at Forage, the new foodie-oriented market on Lisbon Street, or sampled Narals, another new restaurant, which serves Middle Eastern cuisine in Auburn.

Narals was another of the many venues that hosted back-to-back student performances, along with the Lisbon Street plaza, the Lyceum Gallery and She Doesn’t Like Guthrie’s, as well as Chopsticks. Ska’d For Life, an energetic group powered by horns and the soulful voice of Olivia Norrmén-Smith ’13, kicked off the night. Their 30-minute set served up covers like Amy Winehouse’s “Valerie” and Spoon’s “Underdog” to an excited audience on Narals’ dance floor.

Those of age were beckoned into The Vault, a specialty wine and beer store, by a complimentary beer tasting and a friendly shop dog named Malcolm. Students flocked to the old bank vault in the back of the store to sample distinctive brews, including one with a faint smoky flavor, a hoppy double I.P.A and a tasty pale ale. Others browsed bottles of specialty red and white wines.

She Doesn't Like Guthrie's is full up for a Strange Bedfellows performance during "College Night in Town." Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College.

Guthrie’s, the eco-friendly restaurant and performance space, incorporated artwork from Bates students into an already appealing décor featuring cozy lighting, wooden tables and guitars hanging on the wall. Students munched delicious burritos and panini while awaiting the main event: a stand-up comedy routine by Bates’ Strange Bedfellows.

Playing to an SRO crowd, the Bedfellows worked up audience enthusiasm to such a pitch that the owners of Guthrie’s inquired about bringing them back in the future.

About 20 people attended the Multifaith Chaplaincy’s weekly nondenominational service {Pause}, transported for the occasion to Kimball Street Studios. For {Pause}, which asks attendees to focus as much on the silences as the performances, moving to Lisbon Street offered a poignant opportunity for campus-dwellers to meditate on the sounds of downtown. Car alarms, sirens and passersby were not a distraction, but rather a complement to the readings of original poetry and a cello performance, all by Bates students.

The evening concluded in the Lisbon Street plaza with a well-attended address by Mayor Robert E. McDonald and an a cappella concert featuring the Merimanders, the Deansmen, the Crosstones and Take Note. McDonald thanked participants for the impressive turnout and involvement in the community. He cited the evening as a great success.

Cody Tracey '15 of Baltimore, Md., performs in the Lyceum Gallery in Lewiston during the inaugural “College Night in Town," May 9, 2012. Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College.

Next year co-organizer Megan Murphy ’13 will lead College Night in Town, building an even better town-gown connection onto this strong foundation. While younger students gained a much better idea of just how much downtown has to offer, the fellow seniors we talked to regretted that they’d only enjoy this event once.

But they were gratified that they managed to check a few hotspots off the “things to do before I graduate” list. Anyway, we can always come back: L/A will be waiting.

Author Peter Beinart. Photograph by Guillaume Gaudet.

Peter Beinart, whose latest book predicts a breach between young U.S. Jews and Israel if that country maintains its current policies toward the Palestinians, speaks at 5 p.m. Tuesday, May 15, in the Edmund S. Muskie Archives, 70 Campus Ave.

Beinart’s talk is sponsored by the Bates chapter of J Street U, a national student activist organization promoting peace, security and social justice for Israelis and Palestinians. The event is open to the public at no cost.

Beinart is the author of The Crisis of Zionism, released in March by Times Books. In it, he argues that despite Israel’s many accomplishments, liberal Zionism faces a tremendous challenge. As Israel’s Jewish population continues to expand in the West Bank, the possibility of a two-state solution decreases, and the likelihood of Israel ceasing to remain a democratic Jewish state grows.

Equally concerning for Beinart is the possibility that as Israel fails to live up to its founding values, young progressive American Jews will fail to identify with this state founded to be the national home for the entire Jewish diaspora.

Beinart also offers a groundbreaking portrait of the two leaders at the center of the crisis: Barack Obama, America’s first “Jewish president,” a man steeped in the liberalism he learned from his many Jewish friends and mentors in Chicago; and Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister who considers liberalism the Jewish people’s special curse.

Beinart is a senior political writer for The Daily Beast, associate professor of journalism and political science at City University of New York, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation and the former editor of The New Republic. He has written for Time, The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, The Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, The Boston Globe and The Atlantic.

His first book, The Good Fight: Why Liberals — and Only Liberals — Can Win the War on Terror and Make America Great Again, was published by HarperCollins in 2006. His second book, The Icarus Syndrome: A History of American Hubris, appeared in 2010, also published by HarperCollins.

Karl Fisher '14, left, talks with Charles E. Clark '51 at the Mount David Society Scholarship Luncheon on March 30. Clark is the author of Bates Through the Years: An Illustrated History, published as part of the college's 2005 sesquicentennial.

Romina Istratii ’12 of Athens, Greece, says she was fortunate to find Bates on the map when she did her college search.

“And that is how it happened — I opened a map,” she said with a smile.

Her quip, delivered at the Mount David Society Scholarship Luncheon on March 30, drew a warm laugh from the gathering of donors whose philanthropy helps to fund the college’s nearly $30 million outlay of scholarship aid each year.

Indeed, the warmth radiating from the audience toward the several student speakers reflected something senior Jeff Beaton of Haverhill, Mass., said in his remarks.

At Bates, he said, “We all want to see each other succeed. We are interested in each other’s passions. We thrive on celebrating each other’s achievements and we care wholeheartedly about each other’s success.”

Bates, she says, “gave me confidence and it gave me a dream.”

And Istratii made sure the donors understood the value-added proposition of their philanthropy to Bates, a place of “extraordinary character in a world of very ordinary things.”

Romina Istratii '12

Interim President Nancy Cable

President-elect Clayton Spencer

Don Rupasinghe '13

Addie Pelletier '12

Jeffrey Beaton '12

Walter Garcia Fairfax '12

Bates, she says, “gave me confidence and it gave me a dream.” Without Bates, “I would not have a vision today. Without Bates, I would not be who I am. Most importantly, I would not have become closer to who I wish to become.”

Each year, the Mount David Society Scholarship Luncheon, held in conjunction with the Mount David Summit, personifies the value and immensity of the Bates financial aid program.

At Bates, four out of every 10 students receive college-administered scholarships. The average grant is $35,089, while the average financial aid package (including grant, loan and campus employment) is $38,700.

President-elect Clayton Spencer addressed the intersection of excellence, access and financial aid in her very first public comments last December.

With only a small percentage of U.S. families financially capable of paying the full price of a higher education of the kind offered by Bates, it’s absolutely essential to have a robust financial aid program to make that education available to the vast majority.

“Bates is not an opportunity for the privileged; it’s an opportunity for any student who has the talent and desire to seize it and use it as a transforming piece of their lives,” Spencer said.