Founded in 1920 to get students out of doors during the long Maine winter, the Bates Outing Club celebrates its 90th anniversary this year. Two events this week kick off the organization’s yearlong birthday celebration.

The Maine Legislature honored the student organization with a Legislative Sentiment on Tuesday, Jan. 26, during a ceremony at the State House, in Augusta, that included Gov. John Baldacci and Lewiston’s delegation to Augusta.

Maine Public Broadcasting Network reports on the BOC event in Augusta.

Later in the week, Tyler Fish, a Bates alumnus and one of the first Americans to complete an unsupported cross-country ski expedition to the North Pole, visits the college to discuss this grueling journey at 7 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 30, in Chase Hall Lounge, 56 Campus Ave. The talk is open to the public at no charge. For more information, please call 207-755-5990.

Fish, a member of the Bates class of 1996, and companion John Huston skied a distance of 500 miles in just under 60 days to reach the pole last year. Beginning their journey on Ward Hunt Island, the northernmost point in North America, the pair hauled more than 600 pounds of supplies and gear without any outside help or food drops. They eventually reached their destination on April 25, 2009, 10 hours ahead of an April 26 deadline imposed by the availability of flights out.

The pair kept an audio blog that describes almost every day of the journey.

In Augusta, meanwhile, Outing Clug members visited the State House for a photo opportunity with Baldacci, the Lewiston delegation to the Legislature and Bates alumni who work in the State House or serve in the Legislature.The sentiment was read at 10 a.m. in the House of Representatives by Clerk of the House Millicent MacFarland. The lead sponsor of the measure, Rep. Margaret Rotundo (D-Lewiston), followed the reading with remarks from the House floor.

The BOC, founded in January 1920, is among the oldest collegiate outing clubs in the country and believed to be the first at a private college to include both men and women from its beginning. One of the club’s most notable achievements was to extend the Appalachian Trail into Maine in the 1930s, where it now terminates at Mount Katahdin.

The club is one of the few remaining organizations of its kind that is completely student-run. It provides outdoor activities and access to equipment to its participants. Members of the Bates Outing Club often go on to careers in the fields of outdoors and experiential education, exploration, natural and environmental sciences, and other adventurous pursuits. Every year the club also hosts parts of Bates’ Winter Carnival and two clambakes — popular campus-wide events.

Typical BOC activities include hiking, skiing, canoeing, snowshoeing, rock-climbing and camping. Individual interests have expanded the breadth of activity, and over the years ice climbing, kayaking, surfing and snowboarding have all been added to the range of the club’s outdoor endeavors.

The Harward Center for Community Partnerships at Bates College kicks off its “Civic Forum on Reimagining Maine in the 21st Century” at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 28, in the Edmund S. Muskie Archives, 70 Campus Ave., with a panel titled “Poverty and the Two Maines.”

Four panelists will share their perspectives and discuss means of addressing the problem of poverty in the state. Panelists include Hannah Pingree, House majority leader, Maine Legislature; Sarah Standiford, Bates class of 1997 and executive director, Maine Women’s Lobby; Naomi Schalit, opinion page editor, Kennebec Journal and Morning Sentinel; and Eric Smith, Congregational outreach coordinator, Maine Council of Churches.

The Harward Center’s civic forum series explores civic, political and policy issues of significance to the Bates community, Maine and beyond. Additional panels this academic year include “Reimagining Globalism: Maine in the World’s Economy” on Jan. 16, 2008, and “Re-Imagining the North Woods: The Changing Environment of Maine” on Feb. 27.

All of these events are free and open to the public. Please contact the Harward Center for Community Partnerships at Bates College at 207-786-6202 for more information.

The Harward Center leads Bates’ efforts in community involvement, including programs in service-learning, community volunteerism and environmental stewardship. The center works with community partners to meet community needs and, in the process, to integrate civic engagement with the Bates educational experience.

Bates College’s Harward Center for Community Partnerships will screen There Ought to Be a Law, a new documentary film about a Lewiston woman who became a gun control activist after her teenager’s suicide, at 7 p.m. Thursday, March 22, in Room G52, Pettengill Hall. A discussion with state legislators, a mental health specialist and Cathy Crowley, the film’s protagonist, will follow the hour-long screening. Admission is free and open to the public.

The film follows Crowley in the months after her 18-year-old son, Larry, bought a shotgun at Wal-Mart and killed himself. Crowley felt compelled to talk to the salesperson who sold him the weapon. The Wal-Mart manager told her that the store was following the law and if she didn’t like it, she should try to change it.

So Crowley decided to do just that. She had no political experience and had never even voted. But she sat at her kitchen table for 10 hours and wrote to every single lawmaker in Maine’s state legislative directory. Several lawmakers agreed to sponsor a bill that would require a waiting period before young people could buy guns.

The film shows how the bill at first seemed likely to sail through the Legislature — but then ran into opposition from the state’s powerful gun lobby. Crowley’s campaign transformed her from a shy “average mom” into a savvy activist who buttonholed lawmakers and negotiated with committee chairmen in an effort to reduce Maine’s high youth suicide rate. Crowley has vowed to continue her fight, and a new version of the bill is now before the Legislature.

Two years in the making, There Ought to Be A Law offers a behind-the-scenes look at how the Maine Legislature operates and how average people can get involved in the legislative process. The film was co-produced by Anita Clearfield and Geoffrey Leighton of Durham and Shoshana Hoose of Portland.

Text of the Joint Resolution voted by the Maine Legislature, April 28, 2005, honoring the 150th anniversary of the founding of Bates College.

(4-6)  On motion by Senator ROTUNDO of Androscoggin (Cosponsored by Representative MAKAS of Lewiston and Senators: BRENNAN of Cumberland, DAVIS of Piscataquis, DOW of Lincoln, President EDMONDS of Cumberland, GAGNON of Kennebec, MAYO of Sagadahoc, MILLS of Somerset, RAYE of Washington, WESTON of Waldo, Representatives: ADAMS of Portland, BEAUDETTE of Biddeford, BERUBE of Lisbon, BOWLES of Sanford, CARR of Lincoln, CLARK of Millinocket, CRAVEN of Lewiston, CROSBY of Topsham, CUMMINGS of Portland, DAVIS of Falmouth, DRISCOLL of Westbrook,DUPLESSIE of Westbrook, FARRINGTON of Gorham, HANLEY of Gardiner, LINDELL of Frankfort, MAZUREK of Rockland, MILLETT of Waterford, O’BRIEN of Lewiston, PARADIS of Frenchville, PELLETIER-SIMPSON of Auburn, Speaker RICHARDSON of Brunswick, SAMPSON of Auburn, SHIELDS of Auburn, STEDMAN of Hartland, TARDY of Newport, TUTTLE of Sanford, WALCOTT of Lewiston), the following Joint Resolution:

S.P. 588
Joint Resolution recognizing Bates College on its 150th Anniversary

WHEREAS, 150 years ago, education leaders in Maine, including Oren B.Cheney, a former member of the Maine Legislature, saw a great, unmetneed in the State:  to broaden the educational opportunities for young men and women through the founding of a new institution of higher learning; and

WHEREAS, citizens of 49 Maine towns, from Biddeford and Portland in the south to Corinna in the north, from Parsonsfield in the west to Brooks in the east, then petitioned the Maine Legislature, requesting that theLegislature incorporate and endow a “Literary Institution . . . of a high order, on a broad basis, and centrally located”; andWHEREAS, the Maine Legislature on March 16, 1855 granted a charter and financial support for this new school, at first called the Maine StateSeminary, to be located in Lewiston, a choice of location that respected the guidance and support of Alonzo Garcelon, member of the Maine Legislature and leading citizen of that city, who, it is written, “had his heart set on it coming to the city”; and

WHEREAS, Oren B. Cheney and his fellow founders of this school sought to create a college with egalitarian ideals, in keeping with and reflecting the spirit of fairness, independence, hard work and good will of the State of Maine; andWHEREAS, the Maine State Seminary became Bates College in 1864, its new name honoring the philanthropy of Benjamin E. Bates, an industrialist and early developer of Lewiston manufacturing, who believed in the power of education to benefit the economic and social weal; and

WHEREAS, the motto of Bates College is the Latin phrase Amore ac Studio,”with ardor and devotion,” which complements the spirit evoked by the State of Maine motto, Dirigo, “I lead,” admirable qualities embodied by Bates College graduates who have served the public good of our State and our nation, epitomized by the late Edmund S. Muskie of the Class of 1936, Maine governor, United States Senator, United States Secretary of State and son of Maine; andWHEREAS, the founders of Bates College were ahead of their time with a belief in coeducation and “a woman’s God-given freedom to do anything for which she has the ability,” and the first female Bates College graduate in 1869, Mary Wheelwright Mitchell of Dover-Foxcroft, worked in the mills to pay for college yet once politely turned down a scholarship from Maine’s governor, requesting that the scholarship be provided to someone more needy than herself; and

WHEREAS, Bates College has stood throughout its history for the pursuit of social justice and equality, broadly defined, reflecting the beliefs of its founders, who were fervent abolitionists. Bates College graduates have linked education with service, leadership and obligations beyond themselves, qualities embodied in alumni such as the renowned civil rights leader Benjamin E. Mays, who graduated in 1920, served as president of Morehouse College and was the teacher and mentor of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.; andWHEREAS, many thousands of Bates College graduates, in the fields of business, law, science, medicine, education and the arts and in other fields exercise these qualities of leadership, citizenship and collaborative spirit, helping to sustain and better the communities, careers and endeavors in which they strive; and

WHEREAS, the first class to graduate from Bates College comprised eight students, all native-born Mainers; today the college enrolls 1,700 students who represent 48 states, the District of Columbia and 72 countries around the world and with great pride continues to enroll more than 150 students each year from the State of Maine; andWHEREAS, Bates College celebrates its presence in Lewiston and Auburn, communities that help to inspire the academic lives of both students and professors. Through Bates College programs that integrate service into the intellectual life of the college and bring campus and community closer together, service-learning students give more than 40,000 hours of service annually to 120 community agencies, schools and institutions; and

WHEREAS, Bates College students and faculty rejoice in the college’s location in the beautiful State of Maine, and they explore from thecoast to the mountains through academic and extracurricular programs, from kayaking trips along the Maine coast for geology courses and research at Bates-Morse Mountain Conservation Area in Phippsburg to annual orientation trips for new students that introduce each incoming class to the splendor and joy to be found in Maine’s environment; andWHEREAS, Bates College is today a national college of the liberal arts and sciences that prizes the inherent values of a demanding education and the profound usefulness of learning and understanding and is committed to academic rigor and ensuring in all its efforts the dignity of the individual and, by means of scholarship aid, access to its programs and opportunities by qualified learners; now, therefore, be it

RESOLVED:  That We, the Members of the Senate and the House of Representatives of the One Hundred and Twenty-second Legislature, now assembled in the First Special Session, join in recognizing BatesCollege upon its 150th anniversary and for its unswerving commitment to providing an education in the liberal arts and sciences, recognizing their critical role in a just and civil society; and be it furtherRESOLVED: That suitable copies of this resolution, duly authenticated by the Secretary of State, be transmitted to the President and the Chairof the Board of Trustees of Bates College.