I admit, freely, that I’m not generally up on my Icelandic culture, news, and happenings… although I was totally aware when, this past fall, they entered a state of extreme economic crisis. But, it was just Iceland, right? Well, in the growing state of economic concern that the United States now resides, I find it refreshing to be able to really understand the issues and results of Iceland’s economic troubles. And how did I do this, you ask? My four favorite letters : W-R-B-C

The Bates College Radio station, WRBC, brought Icelandic band FM Belfast to perform a free concert this past Saturday night for the Bates community. A totally great band that I would never have discovered were it not for the WRBC, the four fashionable Icelandic rockers also participated in a symposium on Saturday, similarly open to the Bates community, in which they discussed what’s ACTUALLY going on in Iceland Bates’ own Associate Politics Professor Aslaug Asgeirsdottir, also of Iceland, providing two contrasting but informed points of views. [More...]

The election at Bates

Hey all. Regardless of what presidential candidate you supported there is no doubt that Tuesday night was a special night for America. To see Barack Obama, an African-American, be elected as President of the United States, is truly something remarkable. Whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat, this is a historic moment in our country’s history and one that I know I will never forget.

I watched the results come in with close to 200 other Batesies in the Mays Center on a large projector. The atmosphere was festive and it was amazing being there and watching with so many other people who had voted for the first time and were so invested in the presidential race. I will leave you with these pictures and a video that I took with my new camera so you have an idea of what it was like. Until next time… once again congratulations to Barack Obama.

A team-building game sends AESOP trip leaders sprinting toward other peoples' shoes. Below: the Shoe Confessions circle; in the third and fourth images, first-years and trip leaders prepare to begin their expeditions; and in the last picture, sailing on Montsweag Bay, near Wiscasset.

On a sunny lawn near the Benjamin Mays Center, 80 or so Bates students are playing a game you might call Shoe Confessions.

The game works like musical chairs, except there’s no music and no chairs. Gathered in a big circle, the students aren’t wearing their shoes — instead, they’re standing behind them. One person in the center of the ring reveals to the group something personal. And then all the people who share that characteristic have to scamper across the circle to find somebody else’s shoes to stand behind.

Since there’s one fewer pair of shoes in the circle than there are students, the individual who can’t reach any footwear goes to the center of the ring for the next round of soul-baring.

This day’s confessions reveal, for instance, that only three students have been to India and only six spent the summer in Lewiston. But most of them love the ocean and quite a few have been summer camp counselors — fitting interests for a group that would, in a few days, be leading brand-new Bates students on a variety of adventures in the Annual Entering Student Outdoor Program.

AESOP sends small groups of students hiking, camping, climbing, kayaking and canoeing across northern New England with the aim of helping the newbies make personal connections before classes start. This year’s 80 leaders, working in pairs, will bring more than 250 first-years to destinations from Isle au Haut to Baxter State Park to Vermont’s Long Trail.

“It’s a good way to introduce kids to Bates before they really get to Bates,” explains John Leavitt ’08, who is co-directing the 2007 program with Alida Ovrutsky ’08. “They meet individuals who are experienced with the school. Because, essentially, most first-years have very little experience with the school — they just know they want to go here.”

“AESOP gives you an instant social connection and an instant small group” of acquaintances, Ovrutsky adds.

The joys and challenges of the outdoors tend to forge group solidarity, Ovrutsky explains. “Even though a group might come from all diverse backgrounds, be interested in all different things, upon completing AESOP they have one thing in common: they completed this together.

“Whether it’s backpacking 35 miles on the Appalachian Trail or simply surviving four nights in the woods when you’ve never done it before, AESOP provides you with a sense of accomplishment and a sense of bonding that I don’t think a regular orientation would provide,” she says.

Games like Shoe Confessions speed the bonding. The trip leaders are learning it on this raucous August afternoon near Garcelon Field so they can play it with their first-years in the wild. The leaders will also be trained in wilderness skills and first aid, and their preparation culminates in a three-day, leaders-only shakedown expedition where they try out what they’ve learned.

AESOP showcases Bates values in action. Tapping the College’s longtime emphasis on individual initiative and personal responsibility, AESOP has been organized solely by students for years, and students lead virtually all the trips. (In a typical exception, geology professor Dyk Eusden ’80 is applying his sea kayaking expertise as co-leader of the Isle Haut expedition this year.)

“That puts us up to a really high standard,” Ovrutsky says. “And that’s another thing that makes the program as strong as it is, because everyone takes it really seriously.”

In addition, says Ovrutsky, she and Leavitt have impressed upon trip leaders the importance of keeping in mind Bates egalitarianism.

“We’ve been telling our leaders to remember, when they’re talking to their first-years about Bates life, that everyone’s coming from a different background and that everyone’s interested in different parts of Bates. So they’re catering their trips to every first-year at Bates, not just one subset of people.”

AESOP’s roots reach back to the early 1980s, and the current name of the program was in use by 1990. Expeditions last three or four days and the groups typically number from six to 10 first-years, plus the co-leaders. The trips are rated for difficulty — for instance, a backpacking trek rated Level Five, the hardest category, will include at least one 10-mile day under full pack. Of the types of activities, sailing, surfing and base-camping trips tend to draw the most interest.

This year’s trips begin Aug. 28. The Long Trail in Vermont’s Green Mountains, the oldest long-distance hiking trail in America, is a new destination. Acadia National Park, Isle au Haut and the Presidential Range of the White Mountains are popular trips. “People all want to go to the Presidentials because it’s such a storied range,” Leavitt says.

But Leavitt’s own first-year AESOP experience was on the Level 5 Mahoosuc Notch trip, which he later led as a sophomore and which the program still offers. “I really enjoyed it,” he says. “I made some friends on that program that I’m still pretty close with today.”

“I was already fairly proficient in the outdoors,” he adds, “so basically I learned all about Bates.”

Prizewinning poet and fiction writer Marge Piercy, whose critically acclaimed narratives link people, passion and politics, will read from her work during the Annual Writers Harvest at 8 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 25, in the Benjamin Mays Center at Bates College. The public is invited to attend and donations will be accepted. Proceeds will benefit the Maine Coalition for Food Security and the Good Shepherd Food Bank as part of the Writers Harvest, the annual literary benefit to fight hunger and poverty sponsored by Share Our Strength (SOS).

Author Erica Jong calls Piercy “one of the most important writers of our time,” one “who has redefined the meaning of the female consciousness in literature and in doing so has begun to redefine the meaning of literature.”

Combining political activism with a notable career as a novelist, poet and teacher, Piercy lives in Wellfleet, Mass. Her 15 novels include City of Darkness, City of Light,The Longings of Women, He, She, and It, Woman on the Edge of Time and Gone to Soldiers. Her latest novel, Three Women (William Morrow, 1999), tells an intergenerational story about a mother, daughter and granddaughter.

Piercy’s books of poetry include What Are Big Girls Made Of? Early Grrrl, Mars and Her Children, My Mother’s Body and Circles on the Water. Her latest collection, The Art of Blessing the Day: Poems With a Jewish Theme (Alfred A. Knopf, 1999), won the 2000 Paterson Poetry Prize. Poet Lyn Lifshin calls the volume “an exquisite book.”

Piercy has published fiction and poetry in hundreds of journals, periodicals and anthologies, while conducting workshops and lecturing at more than 250 institutions in several countries. A political activist for many years in civil rights, anti-war groups, Students for a Democratic Society and the women’s movement, she has sponsored various benefits around the country to raise funds for political causes.

A Detroit native, Piercy earned an A.B. from the University of Michigan and an M.A. from Northwestern University. She and her husband, Ira Wood, founded Leapfrog Press, a small literary publishing company, in 1997. She is also a consultant for various arts and humanities councils nationwide.

Each fall, Writers Harvest invites writers to fight hunger and poverty by reading from their works in bookstores, college campuses and community centers around the country. SOS distributes 100 percent of event donations to statewide anti-hunger and anti-poverty efforts. Since its inception in 1992, SOS’s Writers Harvest has raised more than $800,000 for the fight against hunger.

The panels will be organized around several themes: the political economy of social and environmental sciences, scientific knowledge and discourses of difference, modernity and medicine and natural vs. national science.

Michelle Rowley, assistant lecturer in the gender and development studies program, University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad, will deliver the keynote address “Border Conversations: Interrogating the Seams of Science” at 3:15 p.m. A roundtable discussion, moderated by Rowley, will follow the talk.

The conference begins at 9 a.m with introductory remarks, followed by the first panel, “The Political Economy of Social and Environmental Sciences. Participants include Bates senior Bradley Wilson, on “Producing Sustainable Coffee”; Rachel Narehood Austin, assistant professor of chemistry and environmental studies, Bates College, on “A Post-Modern Approach to Assessing Environmental Risk: Gauging the Human Health Risks Posed by Lead Exposure”; and Lillian Guerra, assistant professor of history, Bates College, on “Cuba, Cubans and the Harvard Summer School for Cuban Teachers: Making a Science of Civilization.”

The second panel, “Natural/National Science, Modernity and Medicine,” begins at 11 a.m. Panelists are Scott MacEachern, associate professor of anthropology, Bowdoin College, on “Genes, Tribes and African History”; Susan Bell, professor of sociology, Bowdoin College, on “Sexuality, Culture and Social Change: Connecting ‘Women’; and ‘Science’ in Microbicide Research”; and Kiran Asher, assistant professor of political science and women’s studies, Bates College, on “The ‘Global Environment’ Discourse and Biodiversity Research in Columbia.”

Following a break for lunch, the third 90-minute panel, “Scientific Knowledge and Discourses of Difference,” begins at 1 p.m. with Anindyo Roy, assistant professor of English, Colby College, on “Labor Visibility and the Colonial Apparatus: The Case of Leonard Woolf”; NeEddra James, a Bowdoin College religion major, on “Imaging and Imagining the Black Female Subject in 19th-Century Anthropology”; and Patricia J. Saunders, assistant professor of English, Bowdoin College, on “Those Who Insist on Be(Come)Ing: Anthropology and the Task of Translating Identity for Caribbean Subjects.

The 3:15 p.m. keynote address and roundtable discussion will be followed by a 90-minute reception at the Benjamin Mays Center. For more information, call 207-786-6472 or 207-725-3670.

The conference is sponsored by the Women and Scientific Literacy Project; the political science department, the environmental studies program and the Office of the President at Bates College; The Hewlett Group; and the English department at Bowdoin College.

The academic-year series features individuals who represent a variety of religious traditions, disciplines and professions such as psychology, dance, peace activism and education. Speakers lead participants through a brief encounter with a spiritual practice or experience that has been important in their own lives.

The next scheduled speaker is John McDargh, associate professor of theology at Boston College, who will discuss Living at the Margins, Living at the Center: A Gay Christian Theologian’s Journey March 18 at 4:30 p.m. in the Benjamin Mays Center.

For more information about the series, call 207-786-8272.