Loring Danforth, professor of anthropology, is this year’s Kroepsch Award recipient. Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College.

Asking students to examine their own cultural investments and engage with one another is part of getting them to think like anthropologists, says Danforth, Charles A. Dana Professor of Anthropology.

When students begin to see the cultural underpinnings of their hobbies and beliefs, “that’s the most fun.”

At the same time, he says, “you get students who are insulted, offended, troubled. That can be really agonizing to work through, but it means you’re hitting on something really important and interesting.”

Danforth’s ability to work through these sometimes-visceral discussions has earned him a devoted following of students throughout his more-than 30 years of teaching at Bates.

This year, he received the college’s Kroepsch Award for Excellence in Teaching, established in 1985 by a gift from Robert Kroepsch ’33.

Watch a brief video about Loring Danforth. Produced by Phyllis Graber Jensen.

Danforth will give the Kroepsch Lecture on his experience leading 16 Bates students on a Short Term trip to Saudi Arabia last May.

His lecture, titled “#Bates2Saudi,” takes place at 4:30 p.m. Thursday, March 21, in Room 201 of the Edmund S. Muskie Archives and Special Collections, 70 Campus Ave.

The lecture is open to the public at no cost. Refreshments will be served at 4:15 p.m. For more information, please call 207-786-6066.

Proposed and coordinated by Saudi native Leena Nasser ’12, Danforth’s student at the time, the excursion introduced the class to Saudi culture and included meetings with a range of activists, professionals and everyday citizens.

Leading the trip proved to be as much a learning experience for Danforth as his students.

“I was being an anthropologist myself, just taking notes furiously,” he says. At the same time, he recognized that he was “modeling for the students asking questions, doing interviews and taking notes.”

The cultural exchange did not always go smoothly. Danforth recalls an incident in which one of his non-Muslim students attempted to pick up a copy of the Q’uran, an act widely regarded as taboo in the Muslim world.

Danforth used the incident as a teaching opportunity, engaging their Saudi hosts in a debate about how non-Muslims interact with Islam’s sacred text.

Steven Kemper, chair of the Bates anthropology department, says Danforth “brought to this department a notion that anthropology, the content of the discipline, is a moral endeavor…that it is a way of treating people and caring about people.”

Danforth puts the writing on the wall for his students. Photograph by Ryan Donnell.

Nasser agrees. She says, “There is a lot of diversity” among students at Bates, “but not many classes utilize this diversity and perspective in the classroom like Professor Danforth.”

Reflecting on her experience in Danforth’s courses, Claire Jakimetz ’08 of Litchfield, Conn., says, “Every class was a dialogue — a safe, supportive environment to pose questions, dissect puzzles and offer our own explanations.”

Almost a year later, a few students from the Saudi trip continue to meet with Danforth to discuss ways they can use their experience to dispel myths about Saudi Arabia and Muslim culture more broadly.

Together, they have contributed essays and op-eds on the subject. Danforth is contemplating writing a book based on his “furious” notes and observations.

It’s an example of how Bates is the “perfect balance of teaching and scholarship,” he says. “And you need to do both really well and really seriously.”

“To have a community of people who are good scholars and care about teaching has been a blessing.”

Danforth’s lecture is co-sponsored by the Kroepsch Award Selection Committee, the college division chairs, Information & Library Services and the Dean of the Faculty’s Office.

Anthropology major Devin Tatro ’14 talks with Saudi men at a desert farm in the Eastern Province during a Short Term trip last spring to Saudi Arabia led by Dana Professor of Anthropology Loring Danforth. This was a rare moment in Saudi society: women talking with men publicly, and not asked to wear the abaya. Photo: Ana Bisaillon ’12.

Danforth’s letter is in response to a review by Michael J. Totten of On Saudi Arabia published in the Times. Danforth takes issue with Totten’s review for not criticizing “House’s portrayal of Saudis as passive, somnolent, undereducated, docile and unquestioningly obedient. These generalizations oversimplify what is in fact a very complex, diverse and rapidly changing society.”

• View letter in The New York Times, Nov. 29, 2012.

Eight years ago, a landmark article in the journal Science — contributed to by Bates archeologist Bruce Bourque — offered a pair of conclusions that altered our understanding of marine ecosystems.

First, humans had been depleting marine ecosystems far longer than anyone thought, practically since we learned to fish. Second, our management of marine ecosystems had failed to take into account the once-incredible abundance, like Columbus seeing the Caribbean swarming with sea turtles, of fish and other marine vertebrates.

Bourque’s contribution was based on excavations of shell middens at Turner Farm, a 5,000-year-old indigenous settlement on the Penobscot Bay island of North Haven. There, he found evidence that prehistoric fishermen, using nothing more than bone hooks and hand nets, were able to deplete the nearshore population of Atlantic cod. For example, cod went from 74 percent of all fish bone fragments 4,350 years ago to just 2 percent 400 years ago.

For Bourque and colleague Beverly Johnson, associate professor of geology, these ancient fish bones continue to yield clues not just about the past, but also about how to manage Maine’s coastal fisheries.

Any effort to conserve marine resources is faced with “shifting baselines” — an uncertainty about what a healthy marine ecosystem actually looks like.

For example, if prehistoric fishermen could overfish the cod stock, it’s little surprise that Maine’s marine ecosystems have been so drastically altered over the past century by modern fishing techniques. Today, fisheries regulators are constantly deploying various conservation strategies and tactics. Areas of the Gulf of Maine have been placed off limits. Fishing days and trip limits have been reduced. Rules about fishing gear and fish sizes are constantly changing.

But any effort to conserve marine resources, says Bourque, is faced with “shifting baselines” — an uncertainty about what a healthy marine ecosystem actually looks like.

“Restore fish to what level?” asks Bourque, a lecturer in anthropology at Bates and chief archeologist for the Maine State Museum. “If the baseline is the 1950s, you’ve already got a collapsed cod stock. Is that where you want to set the baseline? Probably not.”

To help establish a better baseline understanding of the Maine prehistoric coastal ecosystem, Bourque and Bev Johnson, a geochemist, conducted isotopic analyses on some of Bourque’s archive of 20,000 fish and human bones from the Turner Farm site.

Such analyses — done at Bates — can often determine, among other things, what these animals and humans ate. When Johnson’s students perform isotopic analyses of their own fingernail clippings, for example, “it is possible to discern vegans from omnivores, and students who summer in Europe from those who don’t,” she says.

As they looked at the Turner site human bones, they learned that these ancient people mostly ate fish and shellfish (more often than deer and bear), further supporting the idea that prehistoric fishermen could have locally fished down their local ecosystem.

On the marine side, Johnson and Bourque gained greater understanding of the ancient coastal food web — the complex who-eats-what relationship among predators and prey, from cod at the top down to “primary producers,” like kelp and seagrass, that fuel the base of the food web.

The researchers found little change in this food web from about 4,350 years ago to the more recent past. Then, around 400 years ago, the isotopic analyses revealed a fundamental change at the base of the web: Kelp or seagrass was disappearing.

“It begged to be further investigated,” says Johnson.

She had an inkling. Given that kelp currently dominates nearshore food webs, she wondered if seagrass was once much more abundant and more important to the food web than it is today.

Last year, Johnson chased this question all the way to Denmark. During her sabbatical as a Phillips Fellow, she worked with Don Canfield of the University of Southern Denmark, once again analyzing Bourque’s fish bones. This time, she did an isotopic analysis for sulfur. (Carbon and nitrogen analyses were done at Bates.)

For Johnson, adding to what’s known about an ecosystem at the cusp of human involvement is as good as it gets.

The results confirmed Johnson’s hunch. From about 4,350 years ago to 400 years ago, seagrass was as important as kelp to Maine’s nearcoastal marine food web. From that idea, she infers that seagrass was itself more plentiful in prehistoric times than it is today. And if seagrass was once key to the pristine Maine coastal food web, then logically “we need to restore and preserve current seagrass beds,” says Johnson.

For Johnson, adding to what’s known about an ecosystem at the cusp of human involvement is as good as it gets. “My whole background is about understanding the long-term record of change, and seeing what happens when humans come on the scene,” she says. “In Maine there are tons of these opportunities.”

Generally, it’s thought that seagrass began its decline with the arrival of Europeans, perhaps due to increase in water turbidity due to settlement. The questions, of course, keep coming. Was the historical decline in seagrass a local or regional phenomenon? What was the exact timing of this change? In fact, Johnson, Bourque, and colleagues like Bates biologist Will Ambrose and Robert Steneck of the University of Maine are seeking National Science Foundation funding to support further research.

Ultimately, it’s just another lesson in appreciating complexity and how the past informs the present, says Bourque. “The Gulf of Maine was hugely more rich prehistorically than it was at the turn of the 20th century,” says Bruce Bourque. “You just cannot understand marine ecosystems over a short period of time.”

By Edgar Allen Beem, photographs by Phyllis Graber Jensen
Freelance writer Edgar Allen Beem of Yarmouth is the author of “Backyard Maine: Local Essays by Edgar Allen Beem.” This story references research by Beverly Johnson, Bruce Bourque, and Robert Steneck of the University of Maine initially published in “Human Impacts on Ancient Marine Ecosystems” (2008) in the chapter “Possible Prehistoric Fishing Effects on Coastal Marine Food Webs in the Gulf of Maine.”

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On one of their three sea-going geology trips along the Maine coast, students paddle 13 miles from Stonington to Isle au Haut.

Bates College students spent the last week of April encouraging Native American schoolchildren in Maine to picture themselves attending college in the state.

The Bates students visited schoolchildren of the Maliseet, Micmac, Passamaquoddy and Penobscot tribes — collectively known as Wabanakis.

From April 27 to April 30, five students and a professor visited Wabanaki pupils in grades four through eight in Presque Isle, Houlton, Indian Township, Pleasant Point and Indian Island. At most of the stops, the Bates group offered a presentation including a slide show, anecdotes and a trivia game.

“The goal was to allow the students a time to imagine themselves in college and choose what they might be interested in,” explains Danielle Scherer, a Bates sophomore from Chestnut Ridge, N.Y.

The tour of schools and Indian cultural centers was part of the Wabanaki-Bates-Bowdoin-Colby Collaborative, a partnership among the colleges and Maine’s Native American tribes to encourage Wabanakis to take advantage of higher education in the state.

Nationally, Native American students are disproportionately enrolled in two-year colleges, as opposed to four-year programs, and are much less likely to finish college than their non-Native American peers, according to a 2007 U.S. Senate report.

At Bates, out of nearly 1,800 students, only six Native Americans — and none from Maine — were enrolled in fall 2008. Enrollment at Colby and Bowdoin was similarly low.

But Bates “is committed to recruiting and retaining Maine students,” explains Marylyn Scott, a Bates dean involved in the WBBC Collaborative. “This is a population of Maine students that we have not previously tapped into, and it’s incumbent upon us to do so.

“Recognizing the history of the tribes and their relation to the state, and the atrocities that have been committed against them, this is a way we can help enhance their community, and enhance our community as well.”

For Bates, the WBBC program is one of several initiatives that are increasing the numbers of, and improving the campus climate for, students from groups historically underrepresented in academe.

The Bates students on the WBBC trip were struck by the extraordinarily close familial and personal relationships among the Wabanaki, explains Hannah Richardson, a sophomore from Concord, Mass. Though many Americans expect at age 18 to leave home and start redefining their bonds to home and family, that’s less the case with the Native Americans in Maine — a cultural trait that could pose obstacles to success in the traditional college track.

“We came to understand how difficult it is for these students to leave home and the comforts these relationships provide,” Richardson says. “We began to brainstorm ways that we could portray college as a place where home relationships can coexist with new college relationships.”

The experience of reaching across cultural boundaries was particularly important for two of the Bates students, who are taking the course “Contemporary Psychotherapies,” taught by Professor of Psychology Kathryn Low. The trip had no therapeutic aspect, but “part of the course focuses on connecting to those of different cultures, races and ethnicities,” says Low, who accompanied the Bates group.

“We look at some culture-specific illnesses and treatments, and learn about culturally sensitive approaches. In groups that have experienced discrimination or oppression, there may be specific consequences of those experiences that should be considered.”

In another piece of the WBBC Collaborative program at Bates, Native American high school students visit campus during the summer to get a sense of how the admissions process works and what classes are like.

That initiative inspired a member of the Maliseet tribe, Isaac St. John of Houlton, to start at Bates this fall with the class of 2013.

A third part of the program has to do with the campus climate — the ability of a school to ensure a fulfilling experience for students from all backgrounds. “It involves a lot of self-examination,” Scott says. “If these students matriculate to our schools, is the environment ready to receive them? Can we provide the support they will need? What can we do to make sure that the students will succeed here?”

The WBBC trip took place during Bates’ five-week spring Short Term, which gives students the opportunity to concentrate on a single topic. Coincidentally, a second group of students will take a similar journey during this Short Term.

They are members of a course on Wabanaki history taught by Associate Professor of History Joseph Hall Jr. The course includes visits to the Penobscot and Passamaquoddy communities, where the Bates visitors will interview residents on a variety of issues.

Information and knowledge are two different things. Teachers like Joseph Hall Jr. proffer the first, but their real work is leading students to the second.

Hall does that so well that Bates students chose him for the prestigious 2009 Kroepsch Award for Excellence in Teaching.

Yet in some areas of his specialty, early American history, associate professor Hall remains a student himself. That’s something that excites him about his Short Term unit “Wabanaki History in Maine” (the state’s Penobscot, Passamaquoddy, MicMac and Maliseet Indians are collectively known as Wabanakis).

This year, joining Hall in teaching the course will be James Francis, Penobscot tribal historian, and Rebecca Sockbeson, a Penobscot now completing her doctorate in education policy at the University of Alberta. But the course also includes visits to Penobscot and Passamaquoddy communities, where the Bates contingent will interview residents on a variety of issues.

When Hall last taught the course, in 2007, “they would tell us their stories about everything from Penobscot culture and environmental issues to Maine child welfare practices and their impact on Passamaquoddies.”

“In every instance the students would ask, ‘What do you want us to do with this? What do you want us to take away from what you’re telling us?’ — I was always quite proud that they would ask that question.”

The Native Mainers’ answers were consistent. “Every single person said, in some way or another, ‘I want you to tell the truth to everyone else.’ And that’s a really powerful responsibility.”

Lavina Shankar, professor of English at Bates College, delivers a talk titled “Dogs and Their Humans: Bonds and Boundaries,” at noon, Thursday, March 19, in Callahan Hall of the Lewistion Public Library, 200 Lisbon St. Part of the Great Falls Forum series, cosponsored by Bates, the Lewiston Sun Journal and St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center, the talk is open to the public free of charge.

Shankar was inspired by the loss of her beloved pet German shepherd to cancer three years ago to create a course using literature as a lens through which to examine the unique relationship between canines and humans.

Drawing on texts that range from fiction and poetry to psychology, philosophy, religion and environmental studies, Shankar explores issues such as animal rights, evolution, interspecies communication and the healing power of pets. “Teaching this class,” she says, “has taught me important lessons about humanity, mortality and spirituality, and I’m looking forward to sharing my thoughts and experiences with the local community of dog lovers at the Great Falls Forum and though listening to others’ stories of love, loss, and joy.”

For more information, call the forum at 207-513-3135.

“Red Sox Nation,” a course taught by Professor of History Margaret Creighton, uses the Olde Towne Team to discuss issues like race, class and gender in America.

According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, the Sox class now has academic competition from a likely source: the New York Yankees.

Read the Bloomberg.com story here.

Professor of German Denis Sweet launched an experiential Short Term course in 2008 that “really deals with one’s self, one’s place in the world and one’s place in society.” He offers the life-changing course once again in Short Term 2009. See a multimedia presentation about the experiences shared by Sweet and his students in spring 2008.

View the multimedia presentation of Professor Sweet’s 2008 course.