As Bates College begins a yearlong celebration of the 25th anniversary of its Edmund S. Muskie Archives, two panel discussions in May examine topics close to the late U.S. Sen. Muskie and to the college itself.

Muskie, a member of the college’s class of 1936, was a Maine governor, U.S. senator and U.S. secretary of state whose achievements included landmark environmental legislation. The changing meanings of Earth Day are at issue in a panel discussion, co-sponsored by the Office of Sustainability and featuring an original Earth Day organizer, at 4 p.m. Thursday, May 6, in the Muskie Archives, 70 Campus Ave.

A panel the following week explores issues around diversity at Bates, which was the first co-educational college in New England and was founded by abolitionists. A Diverse History — Race, Class and Gender at Bates College in the 19th Century takes place at 3:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 12, also in the archives.

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Both events are free and open to the public. For more information, please contact 207-786-6354 or this muskie@bates.edu.

Dedicated in 1985, the Edmund S. Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library preserves materials documenting the history and experience of the college.

Holdings include a nationally significant body of materials relating to Muskie, including an important oral history and documentary collection that is one of the largest representing a non-presidential U.S. political figure.

The panel discussion Earth Day: Then and Now will look at the evolution of Earth Day from its founding 40 years ago, a time when environmentalism was considered radical, to its current role as a mainstream celebration. Panelists include:

Barbara Reid Alexander, midwestern coordinator for the inaugural Earth Day;

Leon Billings, staff director of the Senate subcommittee that produced the Clean Air and Clean Water acts, and later Muskie’s chief of staff;

Don Hudson, president of the Chewonki Foundation in Wiscasset;

and Bates senior Emily Grady. She will present a paper written by Katrina Lacher, a doctoral candidate at the University of Oklahoma, about the mid-20th-century perception of environmentalism as a radical movement. Lacher, who is unable to attend the panel discussion, used the Muskie Papers extensively last summer to research FBI surveillance of the first Earth Day and Muskie as a result of his involvement with the early environmental movement.

Professor of Economics Lynne Lewis will moderate.

In addition, a short silent film of Muskie speaking on the original Earth Day celebration in Philadelphia will be shown.

In its review of diversity at Bates, the May 12 panel will draw upon early photographs, the papers of Bates’ founding fathers and oral histories about the first African American woman to graduate from the college. The panelists are:

Margaret Creighton, a Bates history professor, who will moderate the discussion;

Bill Hiss, Bates’ executive director for international advancement, who will talk about diversity in the context of the college’s early history;

John Smedley, a physics professor who will profile Stella James, a physics major in the class of 1897 who was the first African American woman to graduate from Bates;

and Tim Larson, of the Bates class of 2005, who for his senior thesis used the early records of Bates to examine the progressive tradition at the college from 1855 to 1877 (the end of Reconstruction) in regard to race, class and gender.

Writing this on Earth Day, Campus Construction Update is pleased to note that the Hedge and Roger Williams renovation project is showing some green.

As workers yank off Hedge’s roof in the coming weeks, the sturdy old planks that form the roof decking have been spoken for by a company that will repurpose them. “It was someone who came through and saw them way back,” says project manager Paul Farnsworth.

The windows that are fast disappearing, giving poor old Hedge a gap-toothed look, have also been claimed for reuse, though by a different company.

That’s not all. “The wooden beams that serve as roof joists, we’re reusing on site,” Farnsworth says. “There’s also some steel structure that we’re going to use in the basement for shoring,” although these parts will ultimately be scrapped.

Roof work isn’t all that’s up at Hedge. Work is afoot in the basement too. In fact, “things are really going to start picking up” in the next few weeks, Farnsworth says. “It’s exciting.”

The stage is set to put a new supporting wall underneath the existing foundation and to install footers for a steel frame that will hold Hedge up. This is work that we described in this space two weeks ago, but there was a little chore that we neglected to mention.

Built in 1890, Hedge got an addition in 1926, and the basement floor of the new section was lower than the original. So the past couple of weeks, workers have been mining out a mess of concrete to make a single level from the split-level floor.

Outside, workers will apply “shotcrete” — essentially, concrete sprayed on with a hose — on the foundation to make a flat surface for the application of damp-proofing.

Meanwhile, you may have noticed that the dormer on the Pettengill side of the building has a big hole in it. That’s the beginning of the end for the dormer, which will be completely removed in the coming weeks.

And speaking of big holes, there will soon be a doozy on that same side of the building. The basement doorway that was widened a while ago to admit machinery will be expanded again — all the way up the side of the building. That opening is a major connection to the new addition and stair tower, signature features of the renovation.

At Roger Bill, too, a basement doorway has been embiggened so that the kind of Bobcat that has wheels and an engine can get in where the biped variety used to roam. Some concrete will be cut out to make way for footers to support a new steel skeleton, but nothing on the scale of the Hedge work.

Upstairs, the gutting continues. Most of the metal stuff such as heating ducts and piping is out, and “you’ll see a lot more wood coming out as they strip the floors down to the subflooring,” says Farnsworth.

That wood is recycled, too, but not for anything decorative that you might later admire in House Beautiful. You can’t get it out without breaking it up, says Farnsworth, so it’s ground up by a company for other uses.

Notes from underground: Faucets ran dry for a small part of the campus on April 22 thanks to work at Hedge. The building’s water shutoff valve was located in the footprint of the forthcoming addition, necessitating its relocation, which meant turning off the H20 for Dana, Pettengill and Lane halls. That was squared away by noon.

And the tidy slit trench running through the parking lot behind Alumni Gym should be all healed up by the weekend of April 24. That trench was cut to reroute the main fiber optic line that connects Merrill Gym and its companion buildings to the campus computer network. The line formerly ran under the lawn behind Roger Bill, right where the addition will be built.

Can we talk? Campus Construction Update welcomes your questions and comments, unless they’re mean, about the Hedge-Roger Williams renovation project. Please e-mail staff writer Doug Hubley at this E-mail, stating “Construction Update” in the subject line.

The gathering features a free barbecue and the distribution of bulbs for spring planting on a first-come, first-served basis. Scrod Pudding, a popular Maine contradance band, will perform.

“Schoolchildren, friends, neighbors — everyone’s invited,” says Laura Biscoe, director of the Office of Special Projects and Summer Programs at Bates. The event, she says, is a way for Bates to express its gratitude to the Twin Cities and its concern for the environment.

Biscoe says that some 6,500 bulbs for spring planting, including 15 varieties of lily and gladiolus, will be distributed during the gathering. Working with Bates students in the Longley School Mentoring Program, afterschool pupils at Lewiston’s Gov. James B. Longley Elementary School packed the bulbs in bags with planting instructions and markers for the blossom colors.

For more information, call Special Projects and Summer Programs at 207-786-6077.

The gathering will feature a free barbecue and the distribution of spring planting bulbs on a first-come, first-served basis. There will also be live music.

As the college’s president nears his retirement, at the end of June, the event presents “a good opportunity for members of the community to extend a farewell wish to Don and Ann Harward,” says Director of Alumni Relations Elizabeth Sheppard, who is organizing the festivities. Harward’s initiatives to strengthen the relationship between the college and the Twin Cities are likely to be remembered as an important legacy of his 13 years at Bates.

For more information about the event, call the Bates College Concierge at 207-786-6255.

In his book “The Consumer’s Guide to Effective Environmental Choices,” Leon addresses questions environmentally conscious consumers face every day: Paper or plastic? Minivan or station wagon? Cloth diapers or disposables? Beef or chicken? Leon argues that because some decisions, such as the choice of a car, have a disproportionately large effect on the environment, there is little reason to feel guilt over the occasional paper cup tossed in the trash. At Bates, Leon will discuss how individuals can most effectively improve environmental quality through their purchasing and consumption and priority actions individuals can undertake in their personal lives to reduce environmental damage.

Leon is a former member of the Union of Concerned Scientists in Cambridge, Mass., where was deputy director of programs and oversaw the organization’s research, advocacy and educational outreach. He also co authored “A Small Price to Pay: U.S. Action to Curb Global Warming is Feasible and Affordable.”

Other Earth Day activities at Bates College include a “Mountain of Clothes” from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Participants will clean out their closets and bring unwanted clothing to help build a mountain of clothes on the Chase Hall terrace. Clothing will be donated to charity. Call Camille Parrish, environmental coordinator at Bates College, at 207-786-8319 for more information. A guided nature walk at Lewiston’s Thorncrag Bird Sanctuary will be held from 10 a.m. to noon. Participants are asked to meet at 9:45 a.m. outside Chase Hall for transportation to Thorncrag. Contact Camille Parrish at 207-786-8319 to register. A cleanup of Mount David will be held from 2 to 3:30 p.m. “Celebrating the Places We Call Home: Stories from Lewiston-Auburn,” stories and photographs of Lewiston-Auburn citizens as collected by Bates students in Environmental Studies 212 will be held from 3 to 7:30 p.m. in Chase Hall.

Several Bates students, faculty and staff will read from age-appropriate books that celebrate the environment and raise environmental awareness. Bates will donate several children’s books with environmental themes to each public library at the “read-ins,” including The Lorax by Dr. Seuss, One Less Fish by Kim Toft, Meeting Trees by Scott Russell Sanders, There’s Still Time by Mark Galan, North American Endangered Species by Colleayn Mastin, A Log’s Life by Wendy Pfeffer, Can We Save Them? by David Dobson and Will We Miss Them? by Alexandra Wright.

Co-sponsor of the National Environmental Education Act, Nelson is best known as founder of Earth Day in 1970, an event that drew participation from 20 million Americans. During his 18 years in the U.S. Senate, Nelson (D-Wis.) introduced bills to mandate fuel efficiency standards in automobiles, control strip mining and preserve the 2,000-mile Appalachian Trail, as well as ban the use of DDT and Agent Orange. He also wrote legislation that created the St. Croix Wild and Scenic Riverway and Apostle Islands National Lakeshore. During two terms as governor of Wisconsin, Nelson won approval of a one-cent-per-pack cigarette tax to finance state acquisition of one million acres of parks, wetlands and wildlife habitat.

In his 14 years as counselor of The Wilderness Society, Nelson has received the Only One Earth award and an Environmental Leadership award from the United Nations Environment Programme.

The annual Muskie Environmental Lecture honors the environmental legacy of Edmund S. Muskie, who graduated from Bates in 1936. The Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act bear the former Secretary of State and U.S. Senator’s imprint.