"No occurrence in time or space has the seal of forever stamped upon it," writes William D. Booth, director of Hampton University's religious studies program. "All happenings have a tenure, and in due time must exit from life's stage." Reflecting on the year's end, Booth comments on the phrase "it came to pass," reminding us that "the troubles and the triumphs of our yesterdays and of our tomorrows are fleeting." Booth urges his readers to remember that all things pass, so "neither the days of triumph nor days of trouble can unravel you." He quotes Benjamin Elijah Mays '20, who wrote, "Man must believe that however hard the road, however difficult today, tomorrow things will better. Tomorrow may not be better, but we must believe that it will be."

At the U.S. Cross Country Championships in Soldier Hollow, Utah, Jan. 3-10, David Chamberlain '98 will race for a place on the 2006 U.S. Olympic cross country team. "It's a matter of going out and getting it done," he said. A member of the 16-man U.S. ski team at five World Cup races in Canada last November, Chamberlain has been teaching at Gould Academy in Bethel while training for and competing in world-class Nordic racing. He is married to U.S. biathlete BethAnn Chamberlain, who is racing this week in Fort Kent at the U.S. Olympic biathlon trials. [David Chamberlain was named to the Olympic ski team on Jan. 17, joining brother Kris on the men's squad set to compete at Turin Feb. 10-26.]

Peg Olney '57 was demure when contacted about being named Mattapoisett's 2005 Woman of the Year. "It took some convincing to get her to accept," said her husband, David Olney '56. Her volunteer work includes taking part in Mattapoisett Land Trust programs, driving for the arm of the Council on Aging that provides transportation to medical appointments and service at the Historical Society Museum. "It's hard to say 'no' when people ask you to do things," she said. She and David's commitments also earned them the 2004 Philip J. Zeimetz Award for volunteer activities. "She's a totally unselfish person and extremely dedicated," said church secretary Liz Field. " 'I'll be right there,' that is the kind of person she is."

Sparks House, an eyecatching yellow building across Harvard's campus from Memorial Hall, has for 30 years been the official residence of Peter Gomes '65, Plummer Professor of Christian Morals and Pusey Minister of The Memorial Church. The grand 19th-century residence and its resident are well-matched. Here dwells a man who lives large and whose hobby, antiquing, fills the space. In his study, photographs of Gomes with distinguished friends and colleagues abound and books are piled deep on a table. "These books are fuel for my life's work," he says. "It's a good thing I read fast." Gomes remembers being a graduate student at Harvard's Divinity School in 1967 and watching Sparks House being moved to its current location. "I never thought I'd be living in it," he says.

When it comes to sizing up the college scene, picking the right school, and knowing what you can and can't control, Leigh Weisenburger, a Valley Regional High School grad and an assistant dean of admissions at Bates, has good advice. During your visit, spend some time at a college's post office, Weisenburger suggests. "Leave your parents for about half an hour. See the action — how students interact, what they're wearing and the magazines they're receiving," she says. "Get a sense of how things operate." Weisenburger encourages students to take the traditional tours, observe classes and attend informational meetings on campus, but says that the best way to get a real sense of the campus is to find an unconfined setting for observing and talking with people.

Tennessee lawmaker Russell Johnson was in Maine in December visiting bottle redemption centers and other facilities opened because of Maine's bottle bill. In an attempt to combat roadside litter, Maine began to levy deposits on bottles and cans in 1976. Johnson has been trying to do the same in Tennessee for five years, and is introducing a bill again this year. Marge McCormick Davis '76, a Portland native, came to Maine with Johnson to work on the bill. "Everybody acknowledges that litter is worse than it ever was," she said, noting that people from outside of the state notice it, too. Johnson hopes to make Tennessee the first in its region to pass such a bill. If he succeeds, the bill would take effect in January 2007.

Jesse Connolly '01, the Democratic activist who managed John Kerry's presidential campaign in Maine and helped engineer the defeat of the effort to repeal the state's gay rights law, will now go to bat for Gov. John Baldacci. Connolly, 27, of Portland was tapped by Baldacci to manage his 2006 re-election campaign. "He has done a lot of good things in his four years, and I believe he deserves a second term. We will communicate that to the people of Maine," Connolly said. Connolly led the campaign that ended last month when 55 percent of Mainers voted to keep the gay rights law. Baldacci staunchly supported the antidiscrimination measure as it made its way through the legislative process. Last year, Kerry carried Maine with 54 percent of the vote.

Maine's public education system needs a sweeping overhaul if students are to flourish in the future, says a panel of educators, business people and politicians. The Select Panel on Revisioning Education in Maine has issued a long list of recommendations, many of which grow from a concern that Maine isn't ready to meet the challenges of the 21st century, said James Carignan '61, who chairs the state board and the special panel. Carignan said his panel set out to come up with a six-page report after three or four meetings, but enthusiasm was so high that the panel issued a 60-page report after a dozen meetings. Carignan is the former dean of the college at Bates. Also on the 15-member panel are Weston Bonney '50 and Colleen Quint '86.

Kennebec Village on Madison Avenue will gain a new store when a Dollar Tree opens in May 2006, the owner of the shopping center said Wednesday. Donald Sheldon '82, a Massachusetts developer and lawyer, purchased Kennebec Village two months ago. Sheldon said he and other retailers were concerned about vacancies there. Currently, a paint store and a restaurant are the sole occupants. Sheldon said he wants to place several stores in the old Shop 'n Save store, but prefers to fill the old Kmart space with one big store. Jeffrey Hewett, the town's director of economic development, said that Sheldon's willingness to divide the former Shop 'n Save should pay off. "Don being willing to move into smaller spaces is going to make a big difference," Hewett said.

Most non-profit officials expect 2005 to end with record-setting donations. Despite reports that Hurricane Katrina and other natural disasters may have exhausted donors' giving ability, many charities have received donations of at least $10,000, with some in the multimillion-dollar range. The big donations are prompted in part by a new tax law -- passed by Congress out of concern that Katrina would hurt some charities -- that expanded tax breaks available to wealthy donors. "By having another 50 percent that I can use to offset capital gains and so on, I decided this would be the year to make some special grants to the causes I care about," said Frank Wendt of Southport, Conn., a retired investment banker and regular contributor to Bates and other charities.

Victoria Wyeth '01, the youngest member of the famed Wyeth clan, waxes ecstatic about the beauty of the bucolic valley that her grandfather, famed artist Andrew Wyeth, still calls home. "I wake up early in the morning, when the sun is just coming up, and oh, my gosh, the light!" gushes the younger Wyeth, 26. She has just finished a talk at the Brandywine River Museum, where many of her grandfather's most famous paintings of the area's snow-covered hills and weathered farmhouses reside. Outside, another Wyeth winter is just around the corner. So, too, is a major celebration of her grandfather. "Andrew Wyeth: Memory & Magic," a key retrospective of the 88-year-old artist that opened last month at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, already is drawing renewed attention to the scenic Brandywine Valley.

On Dec. 20, Ruani S. Freeman '94 of Waterville has a date with the president of Sri Lanka, Mahinda Rajapakse. Freeman's journey comes nearly a year after a tsunami struck Sri Lanka and seven other Asian countries. An American born and raised in Sri Lanka, Freeman poured her time and resources into the Sahana Project, a humanitarian effort she conceived to help rebuild an entire Sri Lankan village after the disaster. Rajapakse will honor those efforts during the reopening of the village of Kalamitiya, whose 31 homes were rebuilt largely with donations from Mainers. "Maine has been very much like Sri Lanka for me," Freeman said. "It's small and people know and trust each other." The project has raised $80,000 so far, about half its aim for the entire village.

A tribute to six-decade community leader C. Eric Lindell '40 will be held Wednesday at the New Bedford Whaling Museum. The event is being hosted by the Lindell family and friends, including his son, Craig Lindell '68. The reception will feature remarks from individuals who will recall Eric Lindell's remarkable record of community service, which includes service to the Bristol County Economic Development Council, Housing for New Bedford Inc., the Community Foundation of Southeastern Massachusetts, United Way of Greater New Bedford, Junior Achievement, the Whaling Museum and the New Bedford public schools, where for years he read to children. Lindell came to New Bedford after World War II to work for the Fairhaven Corporation, a ladies' handbag manufacturer. He retired as resident manager of the company in 1978.

An alliance of private equity firms and the McClatchy newspaper group are both considering entering the running to buy Knight Ridder, the San Jose-based newspaper company. But a board member of Gannett, the nation's largest newspaper company, said Thursday the company was not planning at this time to bid on Knight Ridder, which faces a shareholder revolt demanding the company be sold. "Given the softness of the advertising markets across the country, I'm not sure anyone is really ready to step up and bite off a big chunk like Knight Ridder," said Gannett director Karen Hastie Williams '66, a retired attorney who has served on Gannett's board for eight years. "I think everyone is watching at this point and thinking, 'What if?' ''

The Hingham Republican Town Committee hosted a reception honoring Darrell Crate '89, chairman of the Massachusetts Republican Party, on Monday, Nov. 21, at the Ninety-Nine Restaurant in Hingham. Now serving his second term as volunteer chairman of the Massachusetts GOP, Crate has been chairman since January 2003. He is currently the executive vice-president of Affiliated Managers Group Inc., a publicly traded asset management holding company. He is also a member of the Bates Board of Trustees and is chairman of the Bates Alumni Fund. Crate received his bachelor of arts degree from Bates and his master's in business administration from Columbia Business School. He and his wife, Nancy, reside in Beverly with their four children.

"We have to start thinking about the so-called post-petroleum economy. There's no doubt about that." -- Peter Rogers, assistant professor of environmental studies, commenting on Bates' decision to buy only electricity generated in Maine from renewable sources.

In a move designed to "practice better environmental stewardship," Bates will purchase all of its electricity from renewable energy sources in Maine, specifically biomass generating plants and small hydroelectric producers, President Elaine Hansen announced. "Bates by itself is not considered a large user by electric power suppliers," said Hansen. But working through Maine PowerOptions, an Augusta-based nonprofit purchasing consortium, "we increased our bargaining clout by teaming with hospitals, other nonprofit organizations and local governments. We know that we have a motivated campus community that will help us reduce electricity consumption as the college commits to using renewable energy from our own state." The new arrangement will reduce the college's greenhouse gas emissions almost to their 1990 levels, according to a study completed by Camille Parrish, learning associate in environmental studies.

As the holidays approach, many brace for leaner wallets. Jacqueline Wicks, president of a new Web site called PEERtrainer, offers advice about another holiday aftermath: fuller waistlines. The site enables like-minded people can monitor and encourage one another in groups to achieve their fitness goals. Wicks said the site, which is free and offers users anonymity, provides a simple, structured means for organizing participants into groups of four. Wicks, who founded the company with her husband, Habib Wicks '94, said obtaining diet and fitness knowledge was less of a problem for most people than putting into practice what they know. "All we ask of you," said Ms. Wicks, who started the site while trying to lose weight after giving birth, "is to be positive."

A Republican lawmaker has offered expanded options in Maine's DirigoChoice health insurance program, which faces GOP challenges heading into next year's gubernatorial election. Rep. Kenneth Lindell '86 presented his plan to the Legislature's Insurance and Financial Services Committee, which is looking at proposals to improve the program designed to extend coverage to uninsured or underinsured residents. Lindell calls for a combination of a low-cost catastrophic insurance policy with employee-owned health savings accounts. Lindell, of Frankfort, said it would offer a consumer-driven option in addition to the more traditional plans available. "I advanced this not as a dig to the governor or to his health insurance plan, but out of a genuine concern it is not working," Lindell said. The committee will resume deliberations on a Dirigo overhaul on Dec. 7.

Hurricane Katrina brought the politics of race back into the public eye. On Wednesday, the MU Black Culture Center at the University of Missouri will present "Public Images and Political Interests in the Aftermath of Katrina: Criminals or Victims?" The event is part of MU's 13th annual Black Culture Week, which runs through Thursday at the Gaines/Oldham Black Culture Center. John McClendon, former director of the MU Black Culture Center and founder of Black Culture Week, will be the guest speaker. McClendon is now associate professor of African American studies and American cultural studies at Bates, and is the author of CLR James's "Notes on Dialectics": Left Hegelianism or Marxism-Leninism? and editor of the American Philosophical Association's Newsletter on Philosophy & the Black Experience.

The first St. Louis gay lawyers' association has been set up, joining the growing ranks of specialty bar groups nationwide. "A big part of this is consciousness-raising. It's easy for us to be marginalized in the legal profession," explained Jason Hall '97, president of the new group, Lawyers for Equality. "We want to provide an independent legal voice." Hall, 30, an associate at Bryan Cave LLP, said he's the only member of his firm's office in St. Louis who publicly has identified himself as gay. "We think it's great that Jason is taking a leadership role such as this one," said Betsy Bousquette, a Bryan Cave partner in New York. "Diversity is one of our firm's core values." Lawyers for Equality plans to have a public rollout in January.

A fourth generation of the Raye family has invested in Raye's Mustard, ensuring that the company will stay in the family and keep operating in eastern Maine. Founded in 1900 by the late J. Wesley Raye, Raye's Mustard Mill was passed down to Raye's son and then a grandson before going to Nancy Raye, the founder's granddaughter, who transformed the company into a gourmet mustard producer. Her cousin, Kevin Raye '83, and his wife have bought into the business and will assume its day-to-day management. Nancy Raye is approaching retirement but wanted to keep the business in the family, said Kevin, a state senator. "They probably would have removed the equipment and moved it off someplace else," he said. "But we didn't want that to happen."

For 20 years, David Beneman '80 made his living like every other criminal defense lawyer in Maine. Beginning next year he will be like no other. Beneman has been named the first federal public defender for the district of Maine. He will oversee an office that will handle the majority of federal criminal cases against people who cannot afford a lawyer. Creation of the office is a marked change in Maine's court system, which until now has relied entirely on court-appointed private lawyers assigned to indigent defendants. "Maine needs this," Beneman said. Maine's federal courts handle a small portion of the state's criminal cases, but the federal cases involve some of the most serious crimes, such as drug conspiracy cases and certain gun possession charges.

In a Chronicle ad, the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation listed the recipients of its Graduate Scholarship for 2005. Among the 76 recipients named and pictured was Matteo Pangallo '03, now taking a one-year master's course on the study of Shakespeare and his contemporaries, taught jointly by King's College and the Globe Theater in London. "To every Scholar selected, every institution nominated and every institution a Jack Kent Cooke Scholar will attend, we say thank you and congratulations," the foundation stated.

At a branch of the Greater Pittsburgh YMCA, five clowns from the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus juggled, flipped and twirled their way through a recent program aimed at introducing kids to the science of the circus. Dan Berkley '03, host clown for the program, has a bachelor's degree in physics from Bates and has been with the circus about a year. The program is designed to show children how much fun science can be. The clowns perform tricks to illustrate the laws of gravity, balance and rotational velocity. "There is a lot of physics in circus acts," Berkley said. The 4- and 5-year-olds at Friday's program watched with rapt attention as two clowns juggled bowling pins and another kept seven balls in the air.

". . . Capitol Hill, as it usually does, has moved on to the next crisis. I was up on the Hill yesterday, talking to lawmakers, and I was the only reporter up there asking about Katrina and money for Katrina. Reporters were talking about a leak investigation. They were talking about ethics investigations. They were talking about Iraq. They were talking about everything except Katrina. It was really stunning that this storm -- the largest natural disaster in American history -- hit just over two months ago and already Washington has really stopped talking about it." -- Bill Walsh '86, Washington correspondent for the New Orleans Times-Picayune

Attorney Amanda A. Meader '01 has joined the Real Estate Practice Group at the law firm Bernstein Shur, one of northern New England's largest full-service law firms. Her practice will focus on commercial acquisitions, sales and leasing. A Freeport resident, Meader has experience in zoning, land use and real estate matters affecting municipalities. She serves on the Freeport Zoning Board of Appeals and is a member of the Women's Law Section of the Maine State Bar Association. Meader is a 2004 graduate of Cornell Law School in Ithaca, N.Y. A native of Fairfield, Maine, she is a 1997 graduate of Lawrence High School. The firm's Real Estate Practice Group represents hundreds of small and mid-sized family-owned businesses as well as many large developers, banks and businesses.

This month Nathan Hale-Ray High School softball coach Lou Milardo '66 received what he regards as the singular honor of his life: induction into the Connecticut High School Coaches Association's Hall of Fame. "This is the No. 1 honor because it's given by your peers," said Milardo, who has a lifetime record of 532-145 as coach of the Little Noises. This will be Milardo's 30th year as softball coach at the little East Haddam school, the place where he spent his entire career, teaching math from 1968 until he retired in 2001, but staying on as softball coach. His record is legendary. His teams qualified for the state tournament 29 times, won nine league championships and won four of the eight Class S championship games they played in.

The Bates women's soccer team is gearing up for its first trip to the NCAAs in eight years. Under the watchful eye of head coach Jim Murphy '69, who also coaches women's basketball, the Bobcats are coming off of the school's first ever NESCAC championship and they know full well that Saturday's NCAA tilt with Eastern Connecticut State will only add to the pressure. But for Murphy and junior Meg Coffin, who plays both sports, competing on the basketball court and soccer pitch offers some similarities. "The fact that they can count on a right wing being on the right side of the field and at the right area is just as crucial as running an offensive play in basketball," Murphy said.

Bates College is giving students with overdue library books some incentive to help the community while avoiding late fees. The college library will forgive any fines for overdue books if the offenders bring in food donations from now until the end of semester. "We're trying to get the books back at the end of the semester, which falls right after Thanksgiving, so it's a good opportunity to get the books back and help the community," said librarian Julie Retelle. The donations will be taken to the Good Shepherd food pantry on Lisbon Street.

Phil Barr '05, a swimmer at Bates and survivor of the 2003 fire at the Station nightclub in West Warwick, R.I., rejoined the swim team and completed his senior year with 87 percent lung capacity. His leadership and spirit earned him the 2005 NCAA Sportsmanship Award. He helped set up the Station Family Fund to aid victims of the fire.

Originated centuries ago by American Indians, lacrosse is now one of the fastest-growing sports among high school students. In towns where weekends are spent carting children to athletic events and the names of top-tier colleges are stenciled on car windows, families see lacrosse as an opportunity for their sons and daughters to shine in the equally competitive arenas of college admissions and athletic scholarships. How big is the lacrosse advantage in college admissions? "In a few cases, it might make a difference," says Wylie Mitchell, Bates dean of admissions. "But it's not nearly as dramatic or different as the average family might think."

After 29 years with the Middlebury College athletic program, Russ Reilly '66 is ready to move on to new challenges. Like his grandchildren. Reilly announced that he will retire as the Panthers' athletic director, a position he has held for nine years. "It's a great opportunity for me to become more involved in my family," Reilly said. Reilly also served as head coach for men's basketball, women's soccer and golf. He oversaw the expansion of the college's athletic facilities with the addition of the Kenyon hockey arena, the Kohn all-weather field and a softball diamond, as well as the renovation and expansion of the fitness center, Pepin Gym, the Duke Nelson Recreational Center and The Bubble, which housed an indoor track and five squash courts.

The water rights of a dairy in Gooding County will be scrutinized by the Idaho Supreme Court. Since 1999, the dispute between dairyman Adrian Boer and environmentalists Lee Halper '70 and Bill Chisholm has bounced between the courts and the state water resources department. After the county approved Boer's permit for a dairy in 1999, Chisholm and Halper protested Boer's water rights transfer, saying it violated the "local public interest" aspect of Idaho water law. Halper and Chisholm argued so effectively that odors from the dairy would not be in the "local public interest" that the Legislature rewrote the law in 2003. Subsequently Boer changed his operation such that now, the environmentalists claim, the dairy no longer conforms to the plan under which it won its water rights.

"[H]er demeanor, which was a demeanor that many times reflected caution, was something that many people thought was a matter of cowardice. She had a demeanor of humility that many people would conflate with passivity. But she was far from being passive. Her humility was grounded in a real sense of human dignity. And her decision not to give up her seat on Dec. 1, 1955, was not the first time she had resisted segregation on the bus system in Montgomery, Alabama." -- John McClendon, associate professor of African American studies and American cultural studies, on civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks, whose memory was honored at Bates in a gathering on Dec. 2

"I came to ski for a year. I'm still here" is the classic story of downhill mecca Jackson Hole, Wyo. The professional skiers nicknamed "skids" ("ski kids") based here have all the ambition and acuity of the sharkiest Wall Streeter. An example is freeskier Kina Pickett '97, a core skier for two film companies, Warren Miller and Teton Gravity Research. Raised in austere circumstances, Pickett learned to ski with support from a foundation called the National Brotherhood of Skiers. He ended up racing at Bates and moved to Jackson in 1997 to take a coaching job. "You have so many world class athletes in this town," he says. "But I've never felt like there was some type of competition. It's more camaraderie and respect for the mountain."

Nora Demleitner '89, who clerked for U.S. Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito from 1992 to 1993 and is now a law professor at Hofstra, recalls an "incredibly tolerant" judge. "He doesn't have this narrow, set view of the law," she says. The only time she ever saw Alito upset or angry, she says, was when he thought a lawyer was misrepresenting the facts of a case. "He has no patience with lawyers when the record doesn't reflect the argument they make. He has no patience for people trying to pull a fast one."

Ben Cline '94 learned the skills he would need to serve in the House of Delegates at an early age. “As the son of an economics professor, you tend to look at everything in dollars and cents,” Cline said. Cline, who graduated from Bates with a double major in political science and Russian, spent the next eight years working for U.S. Rep. Bob Goodlatte '75, working his way up to chief of staff. "He’s kind of a political mentor,” Cline said. “We’re both solid conservatives." In 2002, Cline ran for the 24th District seat in the House of Delegates. Cline defeated Democratic contender Mimi Elrod to win the special election. Cline said that in the long run, he would like to “inject more efficiency” into the state government.

What began as a doctoral dissertation 12 years ago has evolved into a full-length history of the summer community of Poland Spring -- its people, buildings and landscape -- and later the famous mineral spring water that has become a household name. David Richards '84, assistant director of the Margaret Chase Smith Library, has blended memories of the bygone era of resorts, tourists and Victorian summer hotel culture with the beginnings of the mineral water marketplace in Poland Spring: A Tale of the Gilded Age, 1860-1900. The book chronicles the rise of the 19th-century tourist Mecca and the emergence of the "springs" phenomenon. Richards' interest in Poland Spring began 21 years ago, when he graduated from Bates, spent time in the world-renowned summer community and became fascinated with its history.

This fall, Bates reluctantly joined a small but growing group of institutions reaching a significant milestone: Its annual price tag passed the $40,000 mark -- $42,100, to be exact. As operating costs continue to climb, four-year colleges, as nonprofit learning enterprises -- many with modest endowments and fund-raising capacity -- have little choice but to raise tuition. "We hear all the time, You should copy the operating efficiencies of this company or that company," says James Callahan '65, a member of Bates' Board of Trustees. "Well, those techniques are relatively unavailable if you're trying to maintain a prestigious liberal-arts college. Our primary cost driver is having a quality faculty. You can't get a whole lot of improvement out of that. You can't outsource that."

Patricia R. Johnson was the first paid executive director of Washington, D.C.-based Rebuilding Together, a nonprofit organization that provides housing rehabilitation assistance to the disadvantaged. "I made $6,000 my first year," she says. "I worked out of my home, but of course it wasn't part time at all. The oldest of my four children was 10 at the time, and the youngest was less than a year. Our bookkeeper used to call me 'Patty with the kid on her hip' because that's how I greeted her at the door. I took my youngest son to board meetings with me." As a Bates student, that son -- John Scott Johnson '04 -- founded the Lewiston-Auburn chapter of the organization.

Maine Won’t Discriminate has hired Jesse Connolly '01 to lead the charge to protect state legislation that protects civil rights regardless of sexual orientation. Son of the late state Rep. Larry Connolly, who introduced Maine's first equal-rights legislation in 1977, Jesse worked for the State Senate Democratic Campaign Committee, a group charged with insuring a Democratic majority in the State House, after graduating from Bates. Last year he headed Sen. John Kerry's presidential campaign in Maine. He is affable, connected and working well with his cohorts, a departure from the heads of the 2000 Maine Won’t Discriminate campaign. “I think he knows how to run a campaign in Maine," says Maine Won't Discriminate founder Pat Peard. "He is intimately familiar with politics in Maine, and that's just what we needed."

In honor of Eric Chasalow's 50th birthday, the acclaimed Auros Group for New Music will celebrate the world-renowned composer and Brandeis University faculty member with a concert at 8 p.m. on Nov. 19 at the Slosberg Music Center. The concert will feature music from different periods in Chasalow's career, and will mark the world premiere of a new flute chamber concerto commissioned by The Serge Koussevitzky Foundation in the Library of Congress and the Koussevitzky Music Foundation. Chasalow '77, a professor of composition at Brandeis and director of the Brandeis Electro-Acoustic Music Studio (BEAMS), is a recognized leader in the field of electro-acoustic music, known best for his works that combine live soloist with electronic sounds.

Kim Alexander was a three-sport star at Greely High School. Now a Bates junior, she concentrates on soccer -- unless, that is, you consider her contributions to the women's basketball team. "She does come to a lot of basketball games," said Jim Murphy, who coaches women's soccer and basketball. "And she really gets the crowd going for us." But Murphy is glad she's on the soccer team, since Alexander leads Bates in scoring, with seven goals and one assist, and is one reason the Bobcats are so highly regarded in the NESCAC. "There aren't too many things, athletically, that she cannot do," said Murphy. "But she's also someone who practices just the way she plays in the game. . . . She's become an excellent role model for the younger players."

Subira Gordon, now a Bates senior, formed her own all-female drumming group in 1999. Drumming since she was 5, Subira was featured on the American children's series Sesame Street in a segment titled "A day in the life of Subira" and in the magazine National Geographic Kids. She has also represented Jamaica on the international stage, performing in West Africa, New York, Philadelphia and in the Caribbean. In 2000 she was the recipient of the Prime Minister's Youth Award for the performing arts. Although no longer an all-girls group, her group, the Nayamka Drummers, won the World Champion trophy at the World Championships of the Performing Arts held in Los Angeles in 2001. -- (signed) Sista P

Frank M. Coffin '40, who ran in Maine’s 1960 gubernatorial race, plans to retire next year after serving on the U.S. First Court of Appeals for more than 40 years, 11 of them as chief judge. Coffin is one of the few people to make his mark in all three branches of government. A Democrat, he served in Congress, went on to become deputy administrator for USAID, and went to the federal bench in 1965. But Coffin started out as a political operative. As chairman of the Maine State Democratic Committee in the 1950s, he was largely responsible for making Maine a genuine two-party state. Coffin was recruited for the job by Edmund S. Muskie '36, whose 1954 election to the Blaine House broke the Republican Party's decades-long dominance of Maine politics.

The Androscoggin Fund provides for a powerful payoff for students from our communities and for our communities. Now in its sesquicentennial year, Bates has served Maine students from its founding. . . . Twenty-three years ago, L.L. Bean gave Bates $250,000 to endow a scholarship fund to support students from Maine at Bates. With skilled investing, the original $250,000 has quadrupled to approximately $1 million. In the program's first year nine Maine students received awards. Of those, seven currently live in Maine: a state senator; a legal counsel to the University of Maine system; a teacher and coach; a bank commercial lending vice president; a district attorney; a homemaker; and the executive director of a scholarship foundation. -- Bates Vice President William Hiss '66, writing in the Sun Journal

The Princeton Review named Bates the "No. 1 Best Value" among American colleges and universities, a ranking that reflects high academic quality, high graduation rates and a generous financial aid program, including additional funds for study abroad, student research and other student initiatives. While we take great pride in being labeled American's "No. 1 Best Value" as an educational institution, we are more concerned about sustaining our "values" -- the beliefs and ideals that inspire what we do -- than about the rankings. And as we also begin celebrating the sesquicentennial of the college this year, we are particularly proud of how long these values have lasted and served, and how much they owe to our distinctive locale and heritage. -- Bates President Elaine Tuttle Hansen, writing in the Sun Journal

Winfield S. Brown '89 of Westford has been named vice president of administration at Lowell General Hospital. His responsibilities include overseeing the strategic planning, marketing, development and volunteers programs at the hospital. Brown holds master's degrees in business from Husson College and in health care administration from the University of Minnesota, Carlson School of Management. He holds a bachelor's degree in economics from Bates College.

For retirement, Dan Dustin '68 is saving a box of his handmade wooden spoons. He knows he'll be too old to carve them one day and figures it's better to scrimp a little on sales now and save some for the future. "When I'm 90, the stuff'll be worth plenty," said Dustin, a Contoocook resident. Dustin may always retain his Yankee frugality, but a new novel by Ernest Hebert is likely to boost his sales. The book, Spoonwood, tells a story of a man who retreats into the woods and makes a living carving wooden spoons. The book is dedicated to Dustin, who Hebert met about 15 years ago. Hebert, an English professor at New England College, called Dustin's spoons the perfect metaphor for the New England woods. Dustin agreed.

"I was glued to the coverage, like everyone else, and was frustrated to see that those of us who had so much could do so little. We were joyfully starting up the academic year up in Lewiston -- and it seemed like a crazy idea -- but it did occur to me that if there were any Maine students who needed a place to study, we might be able to squeeze them in . . . Within 24 hours we received 24 calls, and we've enrolled 17 [full-time] students."-- President Elaine Tuttle Hansen, explaining Bates' response to Hurricane Katrina. Appearing with her was one of the displaced students, Brett Chalke of Auburn.

The Memphis-based Fred's, Inc. which runs more than 600 retail discount stores and pharmacies, has named its first-ever COO. Douglas J. Tate '78 joined the company this week as executive vice president and COO. He comes to Memphis from Boston, where he has served as COO of Bell Allied Group, a national distribution and transportation services company. He has a master's in business administration from Babson College and a bachelor's of science from Bates. Fred's CEO Michael Hayes says that Tate's more than 20 years of experience makes him a strong addition to the corporate team that will help the company grow and remain competitive. Throughout his career, Tate has helped companies build revenues, improve cost efficiencies, fine-tune operations and strengthen performance. "He is a proven leader," Hayes said.

Possibly the most talented and controversial school superintendent Boise, Idaho, has ever had was John W. Daniels, Bates Class of 1876. From 1881, when he was hired as principal of the Boise school, until 1903, when he was dismissed once and for all by the school board, Daniels experienced a roller-coaster ride of near-firings, firings and rehirings. (During one of these periods out of office Daniels got a doctorate from Bates.) While the school board periodically worked to oust Daniels, he was generally favored by parents and the newspapers. Author J.D. Flenner wrote in a 1912 book of biographies that Daniels was "the ablest disciplinarian of the West and what is remarkable about his discipline is that he rules by love and not by force."

College and university administrators say the baby boom generation of parents are so involved in their children's college lives that they risk preventing their children from growing up. Today's students e-mail their papers home for their parents' inspection before turning them in, and parents in turn are stepping in to solve roommate problems and helping students pick out courses. "We tried to keep some distance between us and our parents at college. Now they are connected," said Tedd Goundie, dean of students at Bates. At Bates, parents are told the college considers the student their client, not the parent. "We say, feel free to call us but don't expect to hear a lot of information back about your student," said Goundie.

Maine undergraduates studying at colleges and universities in the Gulf Coast area devastated by Hurricane Katrina will be able to continue their education tuition-free at Bates College his fall. The liberal arts college said Thursday that students from Maine who planned to go to schools in the affected areas of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama can apply for emergency admission at Bates. They will be welcome to take classes for credit without charge, but room and board will be the student's responsibility, the college said. "We don't know how many Maine students this may apply to, but we are confident that we can make room in classes for them," said Elaine Tuttle Hansen, Bates president.

Each May in some Greek villages revelers walk barefoot across a bed of burning coals as part of a celebration honoring Saints Constantine and Helen. "They believe that the power of Saint Constantine -- the religious power -- allows them to do it and that that is a miracle," said Loring Danforth, an anthropologist at Bates. Danforth has extensively studied fire-walking rituals, including the event in Greece and the fire-walking movement in the United States. As interest in fire walking has grown, he said, scientists have attempted to demystify the phenomenon. But no amount of debunking can take away from the empowerment a fire walker can feel, Danforth said. "[Fire walking] can have the power to affirm one's life. It can change lives, give confidence, all kinds of things."

Dr. Matthew S. Jones '89, a board-certified general surgeon, has joined the medical staff of Huggins Hospital in Wolfeboro. Jones is a graduate of Bates College and the Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, Va. He completed his general surgery residency at Berkshire Medical Center in Pittsfield, Mass. Prior to joining Huggins, he was in private practice at York Surgical Specialists, York, Maine, and was a member of the York Hospital medical staff. He will practice at Wolfeboro General Surgery, Medical Arts Center.

"We try to make it a really meaningful volunteer experience, not just putting them to work. . . . Rather than two years into their experience [having them find] out that Lewiston exists, we give them an opening view of what Lewiston is." -- Kirsten Walter '00, founder of Lots to Gardens, on working with Bates first-years on a community gardening project during the AESOP orientation program

They skulk in, alone or dragged by their wives or girlfriends -- follicularly endowed fellows seeking a drastic solution to their body hair hang-ups: waxing. Spas have seen a surge over the past two years in the number of male clients willing to subject their skin to those strips of white muslin all in the name of confidence. Customers range from twenty-somethings to fifty-somethings, Wall Street types to truckers. Not all men are convinced. "Chest hair is back," says a Northwestern University student. "I want it to grow." Body hair "makes you a man. It's a maturity thing," says Bates junior Chris Robinson. "I bet it would be ridiculously painful" to take off. But he could be persuaded: "If a girl asked me, yeah, I would do it."

At Montello Heights retirement community, fiddlers ranging in age from 14 to 81 warm up their strings. Residents tap their feet and call out to one another. Young children huddle together, and a group of Bates friends chat. Cindy Larock '75 beckons dancers to the floor. If it weren't for Larock's love of contradancing, she never would have discovered this lively part of her French heritage. "Cindy builds bridges between different generations," Benoit Bourque, master Quebecois step dancer, said. "It's like a family approach, which is very, very important…" As the party drew to a close, a group of older women skipped and smiled, twirled and laughed, and when they sat down, clapped out a rhythm with the fiddlers. Now that's joie de vivre.

Bates College has been a national leader in the area of service-learning for years. That commitment stands to grow with the new Harward Center for Community Partnerships. The center brings together several of the school's existing outreach efforts, including its student volunteer program. The goals are simple to state, but more difficult to implement: Put the resources, expertise and manpower of the school into solving problems within the community. A social contract exists between a college and its host community. As Bates President Elaine Tuttle Hansen told the Sun Journal last week, in a knowledge-based economy, the kinds of skills that Bates students have to offer can be a great asset. Service-learning recognizes that connection and the potential for great accomplishments.

Evan Jarashow '01 sat staring at his computer, waiting for a class at Columbia, when he noticed a link on Yahoo's Web site for a baseball trivia contest. For him, a dream contest: answer 10 trivia questions and make a 150-word case for which big-league team made the best offseason moves.More than 20,000 people entered, but only 12 progressed into a fantasy league that commenced in July. The victor would win a job in the San Francisco Giants' front office. "This is the opportunity of a lifetime for every baseball fan," said Jarashow. But even if he wins this league, he doesn't plan to stay out West long. "I'm a lifelong New Yorker," said Jarashow, whose dream is to become Mets general manager. "Hopefully San Francisco would just be temporary."

At Bates' 1948 Sadie Hawkins Dance, Hugh Penney was minding his own business, he recalls, "until I got a sharp jab, an elbow in my side. . . . [T]here beside me was this very attractive young lady insisting I should dance with her." Lois Keniston and Penney graduated and got married in 1950. Since then, these world travelers have promoted peace, justice and sustainability. In June, on the 55th anniversary of their graduation, they received Bates' Distinguished Alumni Service Award. "What the two of us have, that many couples don't have, is the ability to talk," says Lois. "There's just a sense that we are a unit." Hugh agrees. "I couldn't think of possibly living out the rest of my life without her."

"One of the best ways to keep inspired during a job search is to use your down time profitably. Sure, the heat and exhaustion of the 'employment hunt' can drain your emotional and creative batteries. [But a] good book can spark your imagination, fire your energy and give you a boost. . . . See if you can become refreshed [by] discovering some recent books that may offer some provocative techniques, ideas or insights that have not been covered in the literature for a while. Some of these books may help keep you centered and focused during your search, inspire you a bit or offer a new perspective on the situation." -- A. Charles Kovacs, director of Bates' Office of Career Services, introducing a list of recommended books

Pacific Dream: A Pacific Crest Trail Through-Hike is a first-person account of walking the 2,657-mile Pacific Crest Trail from Mexico to Canada. It is a fascinating, thought-provoking book that ranks with the best literature on long-distance hiking. The author, John Illig, is head squash coach at Bates. For 800 miles, he recounts, his wife, Cristina, hiked with him until a fracture forced her to leave, and the book succeeds because it is much more than a description of a difficult hike: Instead, Pacific Dreams is a bittersweet account of love, mountains, high achievement and an unforgettable woman. Cristina, Illig writes, came into his life "and was engaged in the painstaking process of teaching me that life is too short to get troubled and saddened by every single conceivable thing."

Phil Barr '05, who overcame lung damage from 2003's deadly Station nightclub fire in Rhode Island, is the men's 2005 NCAA Sportsmanship Award winner. The Bates swimmer was placed in a drug-induced coma for 21 days and had only 45 percent lung capacity when he left the hospital in 2003. He returned to Bates in September 2004 after a year of intense rehabilitation. Barr was "a teammate, confidant, leader and role model," his coach, Dana Mulholland, said Friday. "I have seen courage, compassion, selflessness and determination displayed in many ways over the years, but never more than what Phil Barr displayed at Bates." The Sportsmanship Award honors student-athletes who have demonstrated one or more of the ideals of sportsmanship, including fairness, civility, honesty, unselfishness, respect and responsibility.

Andrew Byrnes '05 spent his summer in British Columbia training with the men's Under 23 Canadian Rowing team, which won a bronze medal at the World Rowing Under 23 Championships in Amsterdam last month. "It's the best crew I've ever rowed with, and definitely the fastest," said Byrnes. A member of the Bates varsity rowing team, he was named to the NESCAC All-Academic selection this year. In the fall, Byrnes will attend the University of Pennsylvania, where he will row and study mechanical engineering. Next summer, he plans to try out for Canada's top international team. "It was a great experience to row with the some of the best rowers," he said. "In the long run, I hope to compete in the 2012 Olympic Games."

Can you love the dawn and hate the day? I do./ "Addicted to the beginnings of relationships,"/ as I've been told. And told. And told. The new/ light looks as something else when it first hits,/ something more like Catherine standing up/ across a strangered room, that promising look/ she had before the promises, still stuck/ with sweetness to her face in my notebook/ of pre-day ecstasies . . . -- "Can You" by Christian Barter '90, from The Singers I Prefer, copyright CavanKerry Press, Ltd.

Despite its exploding economy, China is commonly considered a mausoleum for the broken dreams of foreign entrepreneurs. The Chinese business education of Chris Barclay '89 took 11 years. "Longevity is key," he says. "You've got to survive your failures." He endured several before having an insight that has proven valuable for many American entrepreneurs: The easiest way to prosper in China today, Barclay says, is to serve the thousands of large multinational corporations flooding into the country. In 1995, Barclay started a company offering management training for local Chinese employees of such giants as Adidas and Coca-Cola. To enhance that business, he opened a mountainside hotel near Guangzhou. Together, the ventures employ 30 full time, bring in about $2 million a year and earned about $400,000 in profit in 2004.

"Some cultural institutions are abdicating responsibility, integrity and standards for short-term goals. As a corporate culture based on growth for growth's sake has permeated large institutions, the authority of the curator has diminished exponentially. On a more positive note … look at the solid work being done in mid-size museums . . . [and] the once-stodgy museums at universities and colleges across the country. Conducting scholarship, displaying challenging work and commissioning new artworks, and with a dedication to educational programming, these museums are curatorially driven and dedicated to artists and audiences. The 'bottom line' is as paramount for them as for larger museums, yet they continually prove their capacities to manage growth in creative ways." -- Mark Bessire, Bates College Museum of Art director

Peter Cianchette announced Thursday that he will enter the Republican primary for the office that eluded him in 2002, when he lost to Democratic Gov. John Baldacci, who is seeking re-election. Cianchette was state chairman of the Bush campaign last year and was a Maine representative on the Republican National Committee. Cianchette ran well in the 2002 campaign and established a high name recognition that will help him this time around against Baldacci, said Douglas Hodgkin, professor emeritus of political science at Bates. Cianchette is in a stronger position to win the GOP nomination than two other possible candidates, state Sen. Peter Mills and former state Senate President Rick Bennett, because he is better-known and enjoys the support of the Republican mainstream in Maine, Hodgkin said.

The start of school is more than a month away, and many are still looking forward to family vacations. Why on earth would we want to think about the start of school now? "Parents may not be tuning in, but some kids are," says Michael A. Goldberg '86, a child and family psychologist in Norwood, Mass., and president of the Massachusetts Psychological Association. Thoughts of school may be triggered by class assignments arriving in the mail, by the early onset of back-to-school sales or by a child's vulnerabilities. Children don't like change, so the start of any grade can be cause for worry. Because children don't express their worry in straightforward ways, parents often don't connect it to the start of school and don't provide the support a child needs.

Plague bacteria are thought to inject so-called effector Yops into host cells. The identity of host cells targeted for injection during plague infection is unknown. We found, however, that Y. pestis selected immune cells for injection. It appears that Y. pestis disable these cell populations to annihilate host immune responses during plague. -- Cited from one of two studies by researchers at the University of Chicago, including R. William DePaolo '99, that show how plague bacteria outsmart the immune system and how the researchers produced what may be the first safe and effective plague vaccine. The other study appeared in the August issue of Infection and Immunity.

Running away and joining the circus has been a youthful American wish for more than a century. And one Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus clown is living that dream. Dan Berkley '03 is a 24-year-old trained physicist who left the scientific world behind to join the circus and make people happy. Berkley spent part of his Bates career performing in juggling acts and part of it in the laboratory. After, he says, "I did an internship at MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center, and I realized then that I didn't want to do research," says Berkley, whose costume includes a lab coat. "It's just not for me." So instead of graduate school, he headed to the Clown Conservatory at the Circus Center in San Francisco.

Math and science are a scream for the students in the Short Term course "Roller Coasters: Theory, Design, and Properties." The students study roller-coaster design to learn practical applications of physics, and tested key concepts firsthand on a field trip to Cedar Point, in Ohio, the self-styled "roller-coaster capital of the world." Meredith Greer, an assistant professor of mathematics, Chip Ross, an associate professor of mathematics, and two students designed the course to appeal to people who might normally shy away from math courses. Still, many math and science majors also jumped at the chance to analyze coasters -- and ride them. "When the students figured out how finely tuned the rides had to be, it made it a lot more exciting to go on them," Greer says.

The Vietnamese newspaper Tuoi Tre ("Young Age") highlighted efforts by a pair of Bates juniors, Khoa Pham and Trang Nguyen, to establish a forum called VietAbroader. The forum supports Vietnamese students studying in the United States and helps other Vietnamese students who want to study there. VietAbroader also functions as a bridge linking students at home and abroad. Recently it successfully organized seminars in Hanoi and Ho Chi Min City on studying abroad. In the future, the forum's members intend to release books featuring outstanding students. Most importantly, VietAbroader will cooperate with organizations and agencies in Vietnam to design probation programs for outstanding students.

New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch is expected to nominate Mark Weaver '80 of Greenland to serve as a special justice of the Hampton District Court today. Weaver, a private attorney, has served as a mediator in the New Hampshire Superior Court system for the past 10 years. He formed his own law firm, Ford, Weaver and McDonald, in Portsmouth in 1991. He focuses primarily on commercial issues. In recommending Weaver, Jill Blackmer and Philip Waystack, co-chairmen of the Judicial Selection Commission, wrote: "The commission finds Mr. Weaver to possess a good judicial temperament in that he is patient, courteous, reflective and a good listener. He is unbiased and enjoys an excellent reputation as a highly competent commercial lawyer among his peers and judges before whom he has appeared."

Money Magazine and CNN recently named Moorestown, N.J., as their Best Place to Live for 2005. The family of Naoji Moriuchi '99 has farmed there for three generations, and Naoji himself returned a few years ago, leaving a marketing career in Wilmington, Del. Now, at 29, he's a real estate agent and a volunteer fire fighter. Who can blame people for wanting to return to Moorestown: top schools, good jobs, nice homes at reasonable prices. Because no major road runs through Moorestown, sprawl stops at the town line -- which isn't to say that growth doesn't present challenges, as much of Moorestown's farmland has been lost to subdivisions.

A shifting diet of two flightless birds inhabiting Australia tens of thousands of years ago is the best evidence yet that early humans may have altered the continent's interior with fire, changing it from a mosaic of plant life to the desert scrub evident today, according to a University of Colorado at Boulder-led team that includes Beverly Johnson, assistant professor of geology at Bates. The unprecedented ecosystem disruption is thought to have led to the extinction of Australia's large terrestrial mammals, which disappeared shortly after humans colonized the continent about 50,000 years ago. Using isotopic studies of fossil eggshells from both indigenous emus and the extinct, ostrich-sized Genyornis, the study published in the July 8 issue of Science magazine shows that the ecosystem's flora changed swiftly and dramatically after humans arrived.

Knox College in Illinois is one of the latest schools to question the usefulness and fairness of the SAT and ACT. Last month, the 1,200-student Galesburg college announced it would no longer require applicants to submit scores from either test. Knox was influenced by a 20-year study at Bates, which started phasing out standardized tests in the 1980s and made all of them optional in 1992. About two-thirds of students applying to Bates submit scores anyway, said admissions director Wylie Mitchell. The optional policy has "definitely helped us identify students who might have otherwise been overlooked," Mitchell said. And students who might not have considered Bates before now are giving the school a closer look because they like the statement the school is making.

If you're considering playing college basketball, Brian Gerrity '05 can probably help you. Scoring more than 1,000 points in his Bates career at the Lewiston school and described by coach Joe Reilly as one of the smartest players he ever coached, in August Gerrity will hold the Northern Elite Basketball Camp at Kents Hill School. The camp is designed for recent high school graduates or those entering their junior or senior years. "It's really a camp preparing guys to play college basketball," Gerrity said. Gerrity's staff includes assistant coaches from Bates and Stonehill as well as several former college players. Bates Colleges admission officer Billy Hart '02 will also be on hand to direct players on getting into the right school. "I just want to help Maine basketball," Gerrity said.

Youth sports experts are well-aware of a trend toward a new category of confrontations in athletics, clashes between parents and coaches, and they point to one overriding factor as the cause. With college costs swelling and the competition for admission to the most select institutions escalating, parents have zealously invested time and money to winning athletic scholarships or the perceived edge that a top athletic resume can bring. Such high emotional stakes feed a new irrationality in youth athletics. "There's no hard data on the level of violence, but confrontations in general are way up," said Dan Doyle '72, founder of the Institute for International Sport at the University of Rhode Island. "Parents think it is in their purview to have regular, sometimes inappropriate, contact with coaches."

For the Love of Small Scale, created by four Bates students, was a winner in the 2005 Maine Documentary Film Competition, the Maine Film Office announced. The 10 winners, chosen from more than 40 works, include documentaries on everything from the secrets of the Vietnam War to the invention of artificial testicles for dogs. The Bates filmmakers are Christina Maki '05, Craig Saddlemire '05, Ryan Sparks '06 and Joshua Stoll '05. A product of a course on environmental filmmaking, the film offers an inside look at the effects of free-trade agreements on farmers in Androscoggin County and offers ways in which communities can be actively involved in supporting local agriculture. The competition is part of the annual Celebration of Maine Filmmakers at the Maine International Film Festival, in Waterville.

R&D is the lifeblood of the pharmaceutical industry, but in the past few years many of the world's large pharmaceutical firms have been looking a little anemic. Recently the number of new drugs launched has fallen dramatically. There are several reasons for the drop. For instance, the cost of drugmaking is going up. One Eli Lilly official estimates the cost of bringing a new drug to market at $1.5 billion; others put it even higher. A recent analysis by Christopher Adams and Van Brantner '02 at the Federal Trade Commission found wide variations across companies and products: for example, the average HIV drug cost $479 million to bring to market, but the average figure for rheumatoid arthritis was $936 million.

A battle is brewing at Bates. Conservative Republican and liberal Democratic students are at odds over the student government's passage of a resolution supporting an academic bill of rights for the college. The unanimous vote on May 23 -- a few days before the end of the school year -- involved just 12 of the college's 60 student representatives. The vote thrusts Maine into the national debate between those who say there is a liberal bias in college classrooms and opponents who say such policies smack of political grandstanding and could stifle speech. Jill Reich, dean of the faculty, said the resolution fits with Bates' policies, procedures and philosophies. "If the students wanted to pass it and think it is important, that is fine," said Reich.

With an economy of words -- "Got sun to light my road/Got love to lift my heavy load/Got a roof over my head/Ever thankful for my daily bread" -- Corey Harris '91 handily synthesizes the pure, easygoing charm of his latest album, Daily Bread. It's an album that takes its sweet time, savoring each story along the way. Blues fans might remember Harris from his prominent role in Martin Scorsese's PBS series The Blues in 2003. But there's no need to relegate Harris to a single genre; he certainly doesn't. From the Malian bounce of "Mami Wata" to the reggae undertones of Sylford Walker's "Lamb's Bread," this is an eclectic affair. Fans will notice more pop flourishes than on previous recordings, but they don't diminish from the album's home-spun soul.

Jeff Lamont, in his final year at the United States Coast Guard Academy, is an experienced big-boat racer. Last October, to find out where he stood against his peers, he and two dozen teammates competed in the 2004 Intercollegiate Offshore Regatta, where student sailors race big boats while their owners come along to assist. While the team finished third, he was thankful for the opportunity to test its mettle. But thank us, say some of the owners, by coming to race with us. "Getting good big-boat crews is tricky," says Express 37 owner Bob Behringer '81, who sailed in the Corinthians regatta when he was a student at Bates. "It's hard to find people. Dinghy experience is good, but you need to learn to handle a big boat."

The blog Music for Robots began as a way for eight friends, most of whom met at Bates, to tell each other about music they liked. As readership increased, more bands started sending music to post on the site. "It's this great way for bands who aren't going to get on the radio to get exposure," said co-founder Blair Carswell '00. And how: MTV put a band called the Hysterics on the air after reading a posting by another Music for Robots co-founder, J.P. Connolly '00. Music for Robots recently released a CD, Music for Robots Vol. 1, featuring 19 unsigned and independent-label bands, including the Hysterics. This marks a departure from typical music blogs, which feature testimonials about bands and free song downloads, but no songs for sale.

Just as other generations before them were shaped by catastrophic events, the high school Class of 2005 was changed by the terrorist attack on American soil they witnessed just days into their first year. Graduates will carry with them the memories of 9-11 and how it affected them personally and as a class. Devin Callinan of Holbrook, Mass., a 2005 graduate of Cardinal Spellman High School, recalled how his class came together in the days following the attacks. "It created a bond among us," said Callinan, who will enroll in Bates College in the fall. "As the years went on, we all became closer. It lingered throughout freshman and sophomore year and when junior year came along, we came to realize we're going to be stronger."

"You are the products of greatness. Things will be asked of you, and lives may depend on you. And you are ready. We are ready to watch you lead." -- In a montage of graduation ceremonies across the nation, "NBC Nightly News" ran this excerpt from a speech by anchor and managing editor Brian Williams, who addressed Bates graduates at Commencement 2005. The Christian Science Monitor also excerpted Williams' address in a similar summary on June 14, and CSPAN showed footage from the event on June 18.

Ari de Wilde '05 arrived for the NCAA collegiate road cycling national championships with a large black bike case and a bag of gear. But de Wilde also brought a recently earned undergraduate degree and copies of the senior thesis that helped earn him that diploma. His proposal to write a history of collegiate cycling had raised eyebrows among Bates history faculty. "They kind of smiled at me and warned me the paper had to be at least 45 pages to be accepted," says de Wilde. "No one thought there would be enough material on the subject." But he found enough primary documentation chronicling the sport in America to produce 126 pages that may constitute the most thorough written history of college cycling in this country.

It’s hard to quantify the things that matter. The predictors and indicators of good education are easy to know, are greatly knowable, but they’re nearly impossible to measure. Does the SAT have no value? I won’t go that far. But statistics say -- and people who really study this say -- that it’s abused, it does more educational damage than it does good. And a very recent study by [Bates Vice President Bill Hiss '66], a 20-year study -- his comment is that . . . the SAT does more to limit opportunity than it does to predict academic success. -- Lloyd Thacker, editor of College Unranked and executive director of The Education Conservancy, discussing his concerns about the college admissions process and the SATs with Forum host Michael Krasny

While we take great pride in being labeled America's "No. 1 Best Value" as an educational institution, we are more concerned about sustaining our "values" -- the beliefs and ideals that inspire what we do -- than about the rankings. And so as we also begin celebrating the sesquicentennial of the college this year, we are particularly proud of how long these values have lasted and served, and how much they owe to our distinctive locale and heritage. -- President Elaine Tuttle Hansen, as author of one of several articles noting Bates' 150th anniversary

Serials Solutions recently announced the release of Google Scholar as an OpenURL-enabled source for Article Linker. Working in collaboration with the Google Scholar team, Article Linker has enabled more than 100 libraries to link from Google Scholar to full-text content within their collection. "Article Linker is the bridge that leads patrons from citations in Google Scholar to full text within the library's collection," said J.R. Jenkins, product manager for Article Linker at Serials Solutions. Susan McArthur, electronic resources librarian at Bates, one of the participants in the original pilot project, said that Article Linker's new enhancement "definitely adds value to Google Scholar. Using the links can certainly help students discover and make use of the quality resources we have already chosen for our collection."

The July 1863 Battle of Gettysburg is the topic of tonight's installment of "PA Books" on the Pennsylvania Cable Network. Margaret Creighton of Yarmouth, Maine, an associate professor of history at Bates College, discusses her book, The Colors of Courage. The 320-page book presents often overlooked characters in the conflict, such as Mag Palm, a free black woman who fears her freedom might be jeopardized by the arrival of the Confederates, and German immigrant Elizabeth Thorn, who although pregnant takes over the care of Evergreen Cemetery after her husband, Peter, joins the Union army. The program airs at 9 p.m. on the Pennsylvania Cable Network.

Forty years ago this week, Bates students and brothers Allen Harvie and Keith Harvie were at ringside for the Liston-Ali world heavyweight championship fight. Allen, a senior, was asked to muster other nine students to assist news photographers. Keith, a freshman, was among the enlistees. Payment was admission to the fight and $20 per student. But Allen told each they would get $10, and he pocketed the rest. "I was on scholarship," he said. "I'd have to work a month in the dining hall to earn that kind of money. I figured I was the one deciding who got into the fight. Nobody complained." But in the event none of the 10 actually worked, thanks to Ali's conclusive "phantom punch" in the first round. "We got our $10, though," said Keith.

Pitcher Mike Kinsman '05 was among Maine students named to the First Team of the NESCAC All-Conference Baseball Team. Meanwhile, Charlie Engasser '06 was picked for the Third Team of the NEIBA All-New England Division III Baseball Teams. In other Bobcat honors: Bates outfielder Katie Franklin '07 was named to the All-NESCAC softball First Team this spring; and in lacrosse, tri-captain Erica Nason '05 and Molly Wagner '08 have been named to the All-NESCAC Second Team. Finally, men's lacrosse coach Peter Lasagna was named New England Small College Athletic Conference coach of the year. Lasagna led the Bobcats to a 9-6 overall record and a berth in the NESCAC semifinals, the farthest the Bobcats had ever advanced in postseason play.

Debra Barbezat started taking her son to the Waterville Area Boys and Girls Club almost immediately after she and her husband, James Hughes, moved to the city more than a decade ago. She and Hughes, an economics professor at Bates, got intimately involved with the club from the start, serving as surrogate parents for a couple of youth members and helping in other ways. In honor of that dedication, Barbezat and Hughes are two of four people to be recognized by the Boys & Girls Club as Inspirational Hall of Fame honorees at Thursday's annual awards dinner. Maine Superior Court Justice Donald H. Marden and Waterville Police Department detective William Bonney are the others being honored.

Whether it's best for parents and college-bound students to tour campuses together is a matter of debate. One school of thought says that most parents couldn't send their children off to a school they had never seen. But others say that parents tend to dominate during the tours, asking most of the questions and discouraging students from asking about things they really care about. Some schools, such as Bates, separate parents and students when enough tour guides are available to do so. ''It's a good experience for students to have their antennae up when they're touring the campus," said Wylie L. Mitchell, dean of admissions. "If they're in the shadow of their parents, they may not feel the full range of emotions that they might in a solo visit."

The College of the Holy Cross announced yesterday that it will not require applicants to submit SAT or ACT scores, a policy taking effect with the class entering in fall 2006. Holy Cross may be the first college in Worcester to switch, but it is hardly the only school to do so. Mount Holyoke College joined that list in 2001. "We felt that the SAT was taking up an exaggerated role in the admission process in the minds of students, if not in the admission practice at the college," said Jane Bode Brown '69, vice president for enrollment and college relations at Mount Holyoke. Other well-known colleges that do not require SAT or ACT scores for admission include Bates, although students who take the tests must submit the results upon enrolling.

It has been a year since members of the class of 2004 donned caps and gowns, hugged friends goodbye and left the campuses where they had been for four years. "The worst-case scenario for newly minted college grads is to spend their first year of real adulthood pent up in their childhood house, doing nothing, missing the college social life and regretting not being on top of things last year," says David Anixter '04, now doing graduate work at the University of Chicago. "I know many people who have fallen into a depressive malaise this year. One of the most important things is to be productive. This doesn't necessarily mean getting a job, but just having a purpose. Grad school is good at providing a sense of purpose."

It will be months before colleges know exactly how many of their graduating seniors are hired. But anecdotal evidence abounds that job prospects for seniors are the brightest in years. For example, 40 Bates College seniors, more than 8 percent of this year's graduating class, were hired by IBM's consulting division, with starting salaries in the $40,000 range. Job offerings for the country's roughly 1.2 million graduating college seniors were expected to rise 13 percent nationwide, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers. "We have seen some great activity," said A. Charles Kovacs, director of career services at Bates. Being able to offer so many opportunities to graduating seniors is a welcome relief from the past few years, he said.

With college costs rising each year, students and parents who are fretting about financing higher education may have more options than they think. According to a national study released last week by the Institute for Higher Education Policy, $100 million in private aid went unawarded in the 2003-2004 school year -- money that could send roughly 5,000 students through four years at public universities. The trick to finding these scholarships is to be proactive, said IHEP president Jamie Merisotis '86, adding, "there's an enormous number of free resources out there." Merisotis recommended the FastWeb and College Board Web sites as helpful Internet scholarship search engines. He added that students also should look for available money on the local level, starting with their chambers of commerce.

It is 5:40 a.m. when Beth Travers and Chelsea Lucas meet up with the rest of their women's masters team at the Marin Rowing Association boathouse on the Corte Madera creek. Travers, 70, is the grandmother of the 13-year-old Lucas. They, and the nearly two dozen other women on the team, practice four days a week. Through their pre-dawn drills and rowing exercises, the women forge a bond based on trust, sport and friendship. Their coach, Rick Brown '00, has coached college teams but says this group outshines them all. "You hear a lot of criticism about masters groups, that they are stuck in their ways and closed to change. But this is the best group I've ever had," he says.

President of the North Florida PGA Section and Golf News' 2004 Man of the Year, Russ Libby '89 and his wife, Tracy, purchased Hidden Hills Country Club in Jacksonville, Fla., when the previous owner defaulted on the property. The Libbys sought to realize the full potential of the club, which features a large clubhouse and an impressive Arnold Palmer Signature design golf course. Immediately, Russ Libby returned the facility from semi-private to private and focused on two areas of development: facility improvements and new-member programs. Initially, management reduced initiation fees and welcomed those who had recently left the club back with no initial fees. As new members join, management is slowly raising initiation fees. Membership has gone from 650 to 832 in two years.

As I followed my dogs off the path, I tripped over a tree root. During this Three Stooges moment, I realized that I should either give up hiking or get better equipped. An hour later, I tackled the Internet from the safety of a desk and realized how much equipment would have gone up Everest if Sir Edmund and Mr. Norgay could have shopped online. Chris Gailey '97, a product developer for L.L. Bean, said customers either phoned the site's product support staff or engaged in a live chat session to sort through the complexities of fabrics that offer micropore technology and hydration bladder sleeve packs. "Where you live in Northern California, you probably take walks on the Marin Headlands?" Gailey asked. I replied, "Yes, I mainly need puppy retrieval gear."

The Bates athletic program was ranked 19th out of 420 NCAA Division III programs for the winter sports season. Colby was ranked 24th and Bowdoin 36th in the Sports Academy Directors' Cup rankings instituted by the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics. The winter standings include fencing, skiing, men's and women's basketball, hockey, swimming, track and field and men's wrestling. Bates is one of four schools in the top 20 that come from the New England Small College Athletic Conference. In a press release, Bates Athletic Director Suzanne Coffey said: "We compete in the strongest conference in Division III and our ranking is evidence of our ability to win at both the NESCAC and national levels."

Lacrosse is the fastest-growing game in the United States. Twenty years ago lacrosse existed as a niche sport. Now the number of youth-league players in the U.S. aged 15 and under is estimated to be 186,000, more than twice what it was in 2001. The explosion is similar at the high school level. But with this growth has come a wild diversification in the game's style, philosophy and economics. "For a long time we all drank from the same fountain," says Peter Lasagna, lacrosse coach at Bates. "Now people are drinking from different cups. How will the traditions be passed down? Not just the right way to shoot or pass, but the deeper philosophical traditions?"

Bates has been ranked by The Princeton Review as the nation's "best value" college. Fifth in last year's rankings, Bates topped the 81 schools profiled in the 2006 edition of America's Best Value Colleges. The Princeton Review said all 81 offer outstanding academics, generous financial aid and relatively low costs. The financial aid offered by Bates was a major factor in why it led the rankings, said Robert Franek, Princeton Review's vice president for publishing. Bates Dean of Admissions Wylie Mitchell said, "It is always gratifying to be placed at the top of anyone's top 10 list, especially when it is recognition of the value of a Bates education." The No. 1 spot last year went to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The largest manufacturer of slide projectors, Kodak, stopped making the devices last fall. But if slides are passing out of common use, their artistic side is celebrated in a new exhibit at the Baltimore Museum of Art. "Slide Show" takes up 12 darkened rooms at the museum. Curator Darsie Alexander '88 has assembled what's believed to be the first major exhibition of slide art, presenting works from the 1960s to the present -- more than 2,500 slides in all. "You see as you walk through the galleries a kind of play on the family slideshow or the trade show display, or the art history lecture or illustrated science class," Alexander says. "The artists are making references to those familiar uses of slides, which are no longer so familiar."

Elke Morris, a lecturer in the arts and visual culture department at Bates, received a Purchase Prize in the 2005 Portland Museum of Art Biennial for her photograph Domicile I. She was one of three photographers and five artists in all to receive an award for work shown in the exhibition. Her image will become part of the museum's permanent collection. The Biennial exhibitions highlight work by artists associated with Maine. For this year's Biennial, jurors chose 94 works from more than 3,696 slides and 24 videos submitted by a record number of applicants, 948.

Tapas, a cultural culinary treat from Spain, were first introduced in the United States in the 1980s. In 1998, wanting to re-create the tapas experience they had known living in Spain, Julio and Deborah Hansen de Haro '86 opened Taberna de Haro, a restaurant in Brookline specializing in traditional tapas. "The food we do here is what I grew up with. It's familiar to me," says Madrid native Julio de Haro. The menu includes tortilla, the Spanish omelet often made with potato; braised chorizo in sparkling cider; and spinach cooked with pine nuts and golden raisins. The de Haros met in Madrid when Deborah, who was raised here, was a Bates student on a semester abroad.

In NCAA Division III, the caliber of athletics is now beginning to match the academic caliber of students at schools like Bates. "We compete for a student who has a scholarship offer (Division I or II) in one hand, an Ivy offer in the other," said Suzanne Coffey, Bates athletic director. In February, the women's basketball team finished the regular season 22-1 and 8-1 in NESCAC, ranked No. 1 in the D3hoops.com national poll and No. 2 in the USA Today/ESPN Top 25 Coaches' Poll. "I think the level of athleticism is the real difference," Coffey said. "The students who are choosing D-3 to continue their athletic and academic education are an even better athlete than five or 10 years ago. The sheer athleticism has improved over time."

MaineGeneral medical staff and ethics experts wrestling with moral questions raised by the Terri Schiavo case said Friday they hope never to be stuck with the decision about whether to remove a patient's feeding tube. "The first principle is always to honor the wishes of the patient," said Tom Tracy, a philosophy professor at Bates College and member of the MaineGeneral Ethics Committee. "If this patient were to wake up for 10 minutes, assess their situation and tell us what they want, the decision would be relatively easy." But that rarely happens to patients who have been in such a state for any length of time. Filling out an advance directive, a combination of a living will and a medical power of attorney, is strongly recommended.

On March 9, at the start of his watch aboard the sailing ship the Corwith Cramer, Gaylord Noblitt IV '07 spotted a boat heading toward the Cramer, operated by the Sea Education Association. The 25-foot boat was disabled, stranding at sea 49 Haitian men, women and children who had left their island for Jamaica, fleeing the political turmoil and poor economic prospects at home. With no other ships close enough to make the rescue, the Cramer took the Haitians aboard and brought them to Jamaica -- with Noblitt at the helm for the entry into Port Antonio. "It was a totally amazing experience," said Noblitt, a native of Boxford, Mass. "We felt like there was a purpose for us being there."

Growing up in Winchester, there were two things author and illustrator Matt Tavares '97 had a passion for: art and baseball. So for his senior thesis at Bates, he wrote Zachary's Ball, the story of a child who dreams he throws the final pitch when the Boston Red Sox win the World Series. Tavares recently completed his third illustrated children's book about baseball, this one titled Mudball, about Andy Oyler, the smallest player who hit a weak but winning home run for his team. It's a legend many came to believe as a true story over the years. "Even though this story may not be true, it endures because it give us heroes we can emulate and Everymen with whom we can identify," Tavares wrote in the book's author notes.

James Ross '73 once handcrafted a canoe and paddled alone from the Hudson River to Alaska, a 7,000-mile trek that crossed the Arctic Circle and ended in a tiny Eskimo village. Today Ross, 53, is an outspoken advocate for the environment, starting in his hometown of Raynham. From working with the local recycling committee and Conservation Commission to spearheading the Taunton River Wild & Scenic River Study Committee, Ross has fought for the environment for nearly 30 years. This month a Narragansett Bay environmental group presented him with the first annual Alison J. Walsh Award for Outstanding Environmental Advocacy. John Torgan, spokesman for Save The Bay, said Ross received the award for his work with the Taunton River committee and other activism. "Jim is all about the river," said Torgan.

Several years ago, when almost 1,400 Somali refugees poured into Lewiston, the town's natives weren't quite sure what to make of them. But these Muslims from Africa, it turned out, shared many of Lewiston's small-town values: They wanted to raise their kids in a safe, quiet community where faith was important. Many had encountered racial prejudice in the South, where they originally had settled, even though they felt they had little in common with African-Americans. "Because of their kinship to the tribe of Mohammed, Somalis don't see themselves as Africans, but more closely aligned to Mideasterners and Arabs," says Heather Lindkvist, an anthropologist at Bates and an expert on Somali culture. "One of the elders told me, "We don't think about race as you do.' "

While some colleges are considering the new essay portion of the SAT in different ways, it has not changed minds at Mount Holyoke College, where administrators switched to an SAT-optional policy five years ago. Jane Brown '69, the college's vice president of enrollment, said that applicants are required to submit a graded high school paper, which offers information about the quality of their high school instruction, as well as their writing skills. "We're often asked if we're inclined to rethink our decision, and the answer is no, because our basic concern about the SAT has not changed," she said. "We want to place the emphasis on the entire academic record, and we're finding the kind of writing we ask for is a better indicator of students' real writing skills."

Bush and his French counterpart Jacques Chirac could not agree over the European Union's plan to lift its embargo on supplying defense technology to China. Bush wants the embargo to stay, lest European goods one day be used against U.S. forces, who are pledged to defend Taiwan from an unprovoked attack by China. "The Chinese are not as likely to purchase off-the-shelf weapons systems as they are military-related technologies," says Evan Medeiros '93 of the Rand Corporation in Washington. "Possible examples include submarine engines, fire control systems for air defense missile batteries, or over-the-horizon targeting." The Chinese want such technology to support its military modernization drive, with the short-term objective of making credible a threat of invasion should Taiwan think of declaring formal independence.

Why do the SATs loom so large in the minds of most high school juniors and seniors? Because many selective colleges, although they won't admit it publicly, won't look at an application that falls below a certain combined score. But Portsmouth (Rhode Island) High School Principal Robert Littlefield '75 is one who thinks the obsession with standardized tests has gone overboard. "Twenty years ago, Bates did away with the SAT as an entrance requirement," he said. "Bates felt it wasn't an accurate predictor of how students do in college." Portsmouth decided to drop class rank a couple of years ago because, Littlefield said, it didn't want to reduce 12 years of a child's education to a single number. "I feel the same way about the SAT," he said.

Gov. Mitt Romney, hoping to trade on his new prominence in the Republican Party, released a personal letter yesterday he sent to President Bush urging that New England have a say in what military bases will close. Romney's reaching out to the president comes as he enjoys a high-profile position within the GOP, largely because of speculation that he will seek the presidential nomination in 2008. Darrell Crate '89, chairman of the state Republican Party, predicted Romney's visibility nationally will help Massachusetts in its fight to keep the two military installations open. ''Governor Romney, because of all he has done for the Republican Party, and stumping for the president, is why we have any speck of chance of receiving good treatment from the government on this," Crate said.

On Saturday some 300,000 high school students will take the revamped SAT. For them the test may seem all-important, but it doesn't matter everywhere -- and Bates is a prime example. In 1984, the college stopped requiring standardized test scores, convinced they did little to identify who will contribute and thrive. Today the data have verified that hunch. "When I'm stuck, I go back to the recommendations, to the student's writing, to the interview," said Wylie Mitchell, admissions dean. "Who do you want? A highly motivated student, or a good tester?" Bates studies have found SAT-submitting applicants and non-submitters are virtually indistinguishable once on campus. "On this we hang the national sluice gates about where people go to college?" said Vice President Bill Hiss, former Bates admissions dean.

After nine seasons at Swarthmore, women's basketball coach Adrienne Shibles '91 will not return to the court next year. She said she wants to spend more time with her children, but the choice to leave Swarthmore was not easy for Shibles, whose career record of 138-96 makes her the winningest coach in Garnet women's basketball history. "I absolutely love Swarthmore and this job that I have," Shibles said. "It's just not achieving a balance in my life with my young children." Shibles and her family are moving to Maine where she and her husband will work at a boarding school. During her own playing career, Shibles tallied 1,005 points for the Bobcats and ranks 12th on the school's all-time scoring list and third in career rebounds with 771.

Hans Dekker '88, president of the Community Foundation of New Jersey since June 2003, is still recovering from the shock of moving here from Louisiana, where he was executive vice president of the Baton Rouge Area Foundation. Dekker sold his house down South for $265,000. He thought he could buy a moderately priced house here after searching for Morris County houses online and seeing $380,000 houses available. He wound up paying $530,000 for a similar place in Chatham. Not that he has second thoughts. "This is the best job in New Jersey," he says. "Working to improve communities. Trying to find solutions to widespread problems, like homelessness." Engaging and unpretentious, Dekker says one difference between this area and Louisiana is the strength of the public institutions here.

For two Bates students, community service is part of the curriculum. Amanda Harrow '06 of Hopkinton, Mass., has been helping to prevent domestic violence and provide support for victims of such violence by working with the Abused Women's Advocacy Project in Auburn. A psychology major, she is a member of the school's Emergency Medical Services, has received multiple community work-study awards and is a 2001 graduate of Boston University Academy. Through Bates' work-study program, Benjamin Umiker '07 of Southborough, Mass., has been volunteering in an after-school program run by the Lewiston Multi-Service Center. Umiker, a member of Bates' track team, is a 2002 graduate of St. Mark's School.

Darsie Alexander '88, the Baltimore Museum of Art's curator of prints, drawings and photographs, organized SlideShow, the first major exhibition featuring slide works from the 1960s to the present. The exhibition undoubtedly opens up a whole new era of inquiry in photographic studies. Many of the works on display are now more than 30 years old, and it says something for the originality of Alexander's vision that she has been able to recognize and mine this important body of hitherto largely unexamined work. SlideShow is an excellent start toward repairing that neglect, and it is also a visually rewarding -- and at times thrilling -- essay on the many forms photography has taken as a quintessential art of the 20th century.

There has been a lot of buzz about the upcoming SC Tourism National Ad Campaign, and two island residents were selected as actors to take part in the television campaign and are proud to represent Daniel Island. Doug Coupe '92 and his daughter Kennedy auditioned with actors from all over the Southeast. These two islanders braved a 16-degree morning on Edisto Beach for the shoot. Doug is an experienced actor who has had roles in The Young and the Restless, Step By Step, Baywatch Nights and the Power Rangers.

"We wanted to know every perspective there was out there, to have a full mosaic of who he was, his life and his career, both professionally and personally." -- Bates oral historian Andrea L'Hommedieu, on the recently completed oral history project about Sen. Edmund S. Muskie '36

Bill Wyman '53 is the first to admit it: You just can't get the love of basketball out of his system. "The game really grows on you," said Wyman at a recent Oakmont boys' practice. The former Oakmont Regional coach, 73, looks as if he could still comfortably step courtside wearing his familiar turtleneck sweater and dark green sports jacket, ready to direct the action the way he did so successfully for 26 seasons with the Spartans. Officially retired as an Oakmont history teacher and head basketball coach for 11 years, Wyman stays active in sports by assisting the current boys' basketball team. Often, on weekday nights while the Spartans are playing, Wyman will be in another team's gymnasium, taking notes and scouting.

As Russian President Putin and U.S. President Bush prepare to meet in Bratislava, analysts are weighing the chances that their personal friendship will help smooth over recent disagreements. James Richter, professor of political science at Bates, has analyzed the two presidents' self-descriptions and found they agree on many of the qualities needed for effective leadership. "One thing stands out in both cases, and that is they [both] look back at some turning point in their lives," Richter said. "There is that one point where they found some self-discipline which turned their lives around." For Putin, Richter says, the discipline of learning judo helped focus his determination. "With Bush, of course, it was a conversion experience, which led him away from alcohol and toward the presidency."

Lou Milardo '66, girls' softball coach at Nathan Hale-Ray High School, was selected by the Connecticut Sports Writers Alliance to receive one of two Doc McInerney Awards as a state high school coach of the year. (North Branford boys' soccer coach Rick Geremia received the other.) Milardo's teams have won four state Class S and eight conference championships, and have appeared in eight state title games and the last five consecutive championship games. His 2004 team won the Class S title and finished 26-0. Milardo was the Connecticut High School Coaches Association Softball Coach of the Year in 1999 and a National High School Coach of the Year finalist in 2002. His career record is 510-143. Retired from teaching math at Hale-Ray, Milardo lives in Cromwell with his wife, Joane.

Asad Mahmood Butt '01 is the news anchor/producer at Bridges TV, the first American Muslim television network in English. "When I was growing up, you didn't see many South Asians in the media," he says. "Bridges TV will provide for American Muslims a chance to see role models who aren't doctors, or professors or engineers," he says. "It also aims to build lines of communication between different communities." Butt studied math and computer science at Bates, but his career lay elsewhere. "In my sophomore year, I was upset by the quality of photographs in the college newspaper," he says. "So I applied for the job and got my first taste of journalism. I made editor-in-chief during my senior year. And I was well and truly hooked."

As money for federal loan and grants programs lags behind increasing enrollments and rising college costs, the number of minority students able to afford college in the next five years may be determined by how Congress votes on the Higher Education Act. It's an issue of concern to Hispanic students and families, since, as Bates Vice President William Hiss '66 points out, "the proportion of the American population represented by Hispanic families is increasing dramatically" while Hispanic students are disproportionately stuck at the bottom of the income ladder. Declining federal funding "has a disproportionate effect on the poorest students, in the sense that any reduction in funds could spell the difference between going and not going to college," adds Jamie Merisotis '86, president of the Institute of Higher Education Policy.

Histories of the Battle of Gettysburg still tend to focus on the experiences of white male leaders and soldiers. Enter Margaret Creighton, a Bates history professor, with "The Colors of Courage," a new popular history of Gettysburg that emphasizes immigrants, women and blacks. Although it's a huge task, in 10 chapters she manages to examine three groups: German-American soldiers in the Union Army, white women living in Gettysburg and Gettysburg's African-American community. Creighton wants to overturn "the compartmentalization of the past" in the study of Gettysburg, whereby "here is the story of white fighting; over there is the story of Lincoln and 'freedom'; and downtown, if you look hard enough, you can find some women." The book wears its research lightly and its narrative is lively: The results are exciting, intelligent and provocative.

In research that literally offers food for thought, scientists have found that omega-3 fatty acids and uridine work as well as antidepressants in preventing signs of depression. Combined doses of those compounds were as effective as three different antidepressants in experiments involving rats, said study author William Carlezon '86, director of McLean's Behavioral Genetics Laboratory. The drugs and the dietary components used in the study probably act on mitochondria in brain cells, he said. "Mitochondria produce energy for brain cells," Carlezon explained. "Imagine what happens if your brain does not have enough energy. Basically, we were giving the brain more fuel." Omega-3 fatty acids are well-known ingredients in many fish, and are most abundant in oily species such as salmon and tuna.

The simple boyhood home of noted black educator Benjamin Mays '20 now stands proudly as the centerpiece of a burgeoning heritage complex in downtown Greenwood, S.C. The Palmetto Conservation Foundation acquired the house in 2002 and had it moved behind Brewer Hospital, a former nurse-training facility for blacks. A one-room black school used in the early 1900s was also moved to the site. The hospital building serves as headquarters for the GLEAMNS Human Resources Commission, a nonprofit organization that provides assistance to low-income residents. The Palmetto foundation, GLEAMNS and the S.C. Heritage Corridor are working to raise money for a visitors center where the story of Mays' life and black education in general can be told.

Fritz Pollard, one of two African-American players in the NFL's infancy, joined Bennie Friedman, Dan Marino and Steve Young as players selected for induction to the Pro Football Hall of Fame yesterday. Pollard was represented at the news conference by his grandson, Dr. Stephen Towns of Indianapolis, who said, "before he passed away [in 1986] he told me one of his biggest regrets was not making the Hall of Fame. He was a pillar of strength in this league. He finally will have his plaque in Canton." Pollard, an exciting, elusive running back, spent time at Bates, graduated from Brown University and played the 1925 season for the Providence Steam Rollers.

When Story Reed '00 was studying environmental policy at Bates, the final paragraph of his senior thesis on cod regulations called for more cooperation between fishermen and scientists. Four years later, the 26-year-old Rockport native is helping to make that happen. A pilot project he is working on for the National Marine Fisheries Service aims to use computer software to gather more information about fishermen's work to help craft better regulations. Before Reed started the Study Fleet project, he was working for the state Committee on Natural Resources and Agriculture. "I wanted to get out into the field and do something more hands-on that combines my educational experience with my interests," Reed said. "It's been a great experience to get out on the water and learn from the fishermen."

Dining halls from Bates to the University of California at Santa Cruz are improving their food and helping local agricultural economies by going straight to the farm. About 200 colleges nationwide purchase at least one product from a small farm in their community or state, according to Kristen Markley, National Farm to College program manager of the Community Food Security Coalition. Christine Schwartz, dining services director at Bates, said buying from Maine farmers costs about the same as buying exclusively through a major food supplier. Twenty to 30 percent of Bates' food budget goes to products produced in Maine, and Dining Services staffers are accustomed to chopping lettuce and peeling potatoes, rather than ripping open prepackaged salads and boxes of dehydrated spud flakes.

Attorney Michael R. Bosse '93 has been named a shareholder of Bernstein, Shur, Sawyer & Nelson, one of northern New England's largest law firms. He is a member of the firm’s Construction Law; Health Law, Agency and Health Licensure; and Litigation practice groups. Bosse received his J.D. from the University of Maine School of Law in 1996, where he was a member of the Maine Law Review. Before joining Bernstein Shur, he served as a law clerk to the Robert W. Clifford, associate justice of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court. Bosse is a past president of the Bates College Alumni Association and is a class agent for Bates and the University of Maine School of Law.

Academics and playing time trumped scholarship money when it came time for Sarah Barton to choose a college, and she's already reaping the benefits. Barton '08, a former Portsmouth High standout, is the starting point guard for a team that entered the week ranked No. 8 in Division III. The Bobcats (15-1) have won three straight and are poised to make the program's first trip to the NCAA tournament in five years. The 5-foot-8 Barton didn't figure to play such a large role so soon. She's made 43 percent of her shots from the floor and rarely leaves it. "I honestly didn't know what to expect," she said. "I just came here and fit into the style the coach was looking for."

Like a miner sifting through the tailings of a played-out mine, Bates Professor of History Margaret Creighton has assembled a trove of facts to present absorbing pictures of three groups of underappreciated Civil War participants in The Colors of History: Gettysburg's Forgotten History (Basic Books, $26). In revisiting the well-trodden ground of Gettysburg history, Creighton illuminates the roles of German immigrant troops in the Union Army; the women left behind in Gettysburg to face the Confederate onslaught; and the borough's ill-fated African Americans. This thoroughly researched and well-told story will appeal not only to Civil War buffs but also to readers interested in social history.

In the recent debate over tax reform, Maine and New Hampshire -- respectively among the highest and lowest taxed states in the nation -- have made for plentiful comparisons. But many say that the two states are defined as much by their contrasting philosophies of government as their tax systems. In fact, New Hampshire's libertarian legacy has attracted the Free State Project, whose members promise to move to the Granite State and become politically active within five years of 20,000 people joining the movement. Dan Dargon '04, who signed up with the group while attending Bates, made the move in June. "It doesn't feel as desperate," said Dargon, who lives in Concord, where he is planning to go to law school. "It feels more like home."

Kaitie McElroy, a Bates sophomore from Bethel, Maine, was one of six college women and six men named to the 2005 Junior World Championships Team. The team will compete in Rowaniemi, Finland, in March. The announcement was made after the U.S. Cross Country Championships, held at Soldier Hollow, Utah. The points criteria for the competition are set such that athletes selected are able to ski to a level required to compete at the World Junior Championships, which generally equates to a top-100 Junior Ranking for automatic selection and top-250 World Junior Ranking for consideration and as per the first FIS list for 2005.

Andrew Goldstein isn't a typical high school athlete. Typical high school athletes don't have ergs -- training machines for rowers -- in the basement. "Rowing on a machine is different from rowing outside," says Goldstein, co-captain of the St. Louis Rowing Club's varsity men's team. "It takes a lot out of you." School like Dartmouth and Cornell, Brown and Columbia recruited Goldstein, but he passed up the Ivy League in favor of Bates, a Division III school hidden away in the leafy seclusion of Maine. "I want a balance between athletics and academics. I don't want my athletics to completely overtake my college experience." Goldstein begins his college rowing career next fall.

The Massachusetts Republican Party unanimously re-elected party chairman Darrell Crate '89 to a second term on Wednesday. Crate ran unopposed in the election that extended his chairmanship through 2006. Last year, the party supported 130 legislative candidates, the most in more than a decade. Still, almost every incumbent Democrats in the Legislature who ran for re-election won, except three who lost in the September primaries. State GOP leaders said they also raised a record $4 million last year, and $7 million since the beginning of 2003.

David Jacobs-Strain and Corey Harris '91 recently came to Anchorage to show us why two young, middle-class guys perform the blues, music that is not popular in the popular sense. Harris' highest-profile gig has turned out to be as narrator-student-tour guide in an episode of the PBS television series The Blues. His seventh CD, Mississippi to Mali, reflects connections made during that project as he performs with the granddaughter of legendary fife and drum maker Otha Turner (12-year-old Sharde Thomas) and Malian singer Ali Farka Toure. No longer pigeonholed as a bluesman, Harris considers himself "a songwriter, guitarist, producer ... singer," in that order. And his mission is not to educate listeners about blues history. "There's no mission other than to educate myself and make good music," he said.

From chairing a prestigious national law firm to serving as chairman of the Bates College Trustees, Burton M. Harris '59 of Swampscott knows about being in a seat of authority. But it was building chairs that best prepared him for his newest role: Board president of Boston's North Bennet Street School, the acclaimed educational institution for fine craftsmanship. Formerly chairman of Bingham, Dana, LLP, and later director of the Massachusetts Industrial Finance Agency, Harris was a woodworking hobbyist who at age 57 entered the school's cabinet and furniture-making program. "I'm going to be a freshman, starting all over again," Harris told The Boston Globe, but the experience helped him fully realize his potential as a craftsperson. Harris assumes leadership of the board at a period of rapid growth for the school.

Great Falls not only has a tsunami survivor, but an author, Andrew Kling '83, who has written a book about this phenomenon. Georges DeGiorgio survived the massive tsunami that hit Valdivia, Chile, in 1960. His story appeared in Kling's book Tsunamis, published by Lucent Books in 2002. Kling, who has had four other books for a young readership published by Lucent and is working on another, has lived in Great Falls since 1999. His other books are on tornadoes, his home state of Rhode Island, astronaut Neil Armstrong and life on a New World voyage. Kling hopes the Indian Ocean tsunami will spur the creation of better early-warning systems. What systems we now have resulted from the tsunami in Chile that DeGiorgio survived and the 1964 Alaskan event, Kling said.

Peter Carlisle '91, director of Olympics and action sports for the sports marketing firm Octagon, has been selected to The Sporting News Power 100 poll for 2004. The annual poll ranked Carlisle as one of the four most powerful agents in all of sports, making him the first Olympic agent to receive the honor. While such distinctions typically go to representatives for the major sports, this is Carlisle's second such honor in recent months. He was previously tabbed one of the "20 Most Influential People: Sports Agents" by the Sports Business Journal in 2004. Carlisle is the only Olympic agent to be recognized by either publication. Part of The Interpublic Group, a purveyor of advertising and marketing services, Octagon has more than 1,000 employees in 60 offices worldwide.

During his visits to a school in Afghanistan, the children would crowd around Marine Corps Maj. Rush Filson '92 with requests: "They wanted notebooks and pencils, crayons, books," Filson told students at the Pine Cobble School in Williamstown. Filson has just returned from Afghanistan, where his connection to that Afghan school sparked a fund-drive that has raised more than $45,000 under the direction of Sally and Donald Goodrich, parents of Peter Goodrich '89, who died in the Sept. 11 attacks. "My hat's off to you," Filson told students at Pine Cobble, which participated in the fund drive. Filson attended Pine Cobble, and returned after Bates to help coach lacrosse there. "The people of Afghanistan are sick and tired of war, and want to raise their families in peace," Filson said.

Ruveni Freeman '94 worries that the Dec. 26 tsunami will fade from attention before the work of recovery is complete. Freeman grew up in Sri Lanka, where estimates of tsunami deaths have reached 30,615, out of a total 150,000 or so around the region. Her brother, his girlfriend and the girlfriend's daughter narrowly escaped death in the disaster. "My concern is, what if you get a new headline?" asked Freeman, a resident of Waterville, Maine. "You still have entire economies destroyed." Agriculture and tourism are the mainstays of Sri Lanka's economy, and the tsunami destroyed both. Freeman has founded the Sahana Project, a relief effort designed to help lay the foundation for long-term social and economic recovery in the island nation.

The Department of Defense has awarded Bangor, Maine-based Telford Aviation Services a contract for aircraft maintenance worth more than $110 million over five years. Bob Ziegelaar '70, president of The Telford Group, said the work would be done on Army turboprop transport planes, mostly in locations outside of Maine. When the planes need heavy maintenance, they will be brought into Bangor or the company's facilities at the former Loring Air Force Base, Ziegelaar said. The company has hired more employees for locations nationwide, and plans on hiring more people in Maine as well, he said. Telford employs 125 people in Maine now. The company is also involved in a government research and development project involving airships at Loring.

The Hagerstown Suns, the Single-A affiliate of the New York Mets, are excited to announce new additions to the front office staff for 2005. Drew Himsworth '03, who used his 2004 internship with the Suns to prove his worth to the club, returns in 2005 as group sales director. A native of Long Island, N.Y., Himsworth brings a unique background to the Suns' front office as a physics major at Bates. The Suns begin the 2005 season on April 7 vs. the West Virginia Power, single A affiliate of the Milwaukee Brewers.

One of my favorite abnormal behaviors listed in The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is "dissociative fugue," which has as its essential feature "sudden unexpected travel away from one's customary place of daily activities." I'm going to suggest an admittedly frivolous new subcategory with dissociative fugue: "mileage-run-induced frequent-flier fugue." The ability to get first-class upgrades is the chief incentive motivating many year-end mileage runners. "I've made year-end mileage runs," said Michael Lieber '92, a Chicago lawyer. "The reason people do it is, people are nuts to get those upgrades." Lieber said his mileage runs "came to an abrupt end" this year when he and his wife had twins and his work schedule was adjusted. -- business travel columnist Joe Sharkey

We are heavily reliant on standardized testing at all levels -- K-12, college and graduate school. But what we have seen at Bates indicates that this may be a monumental trip up a blind alley for America. It is based on a largely unexamined assumption: that these myriad tests, many of them quite new, will accurately and uniformly measure achievement or potential. But they won't, at least based on Bates' 20-year experience. Human intelligence may be so fluid, so multifaceted, that no standardized test can "capture" it. -- Bates Vice President William Hiss '66, in a commentary on Bates' study of the academic success of students admitted without submitting standardized test scores.

The annual Millennium Mile is a race where average runners can rub elbows with big names, even if that elbow-rubbing occurs during the pre- and post-race festivities. In fact, what makes the race interesting is the mixture of world-class athletes and average Joes and Janes who help cover the pavement. Julie Dutton '04, a former Londonderry track star who went on to run at Bates and is now an assistant coach and English teacher at Timberlane Regional High School, entered the sixth annual race 21st on the all-time list, having run 5:05 last year. In a field of 704 participants, Dutton ran with her former college roommate and teammate, Beth Pagnotta from Hooksett, and friend George Devine of Newmarket.

Asad Mahmood Butt '01 is the anchor/producer at Bridges TV, the first American Muslim television network in English. The middle child in a Pakistani-American family, Butt grew up under some pressure to follow in the footsteps of his father, a doctor. He even studied math and computer science at Bates College. But his career lay elsewhere, and he followed Bates with an entry-level position at WHGH-TV, simultaneously earning his graduate degree in broadcast journalism from Boston University. That led to a job as a reporter at WBII-TV in Bangor, Maine -- but after a week and a half there, he received a call from Bridges TV CEO Muzzammil Hassan, offering him a job. "Asad was perfect for the job," says Hassan.

Jane Muskie, wife of the late Maine governor, senator, U.S. secretary of state and presidential candidate Edmund Muskie '36, died on Christmas Day in Washington, D.C. She was 77. Jane Muskie stood by her husband through a long political career that included a 1968 campaign as running mate to Democratic presidential candidate Hubert Humphrey, and Muskie's own 1972 White House attempt. Chris Beam, archivist for the Edmund S. Muskie Archives at Bates, said that Jane Muskie was perhaps the first wife of a national candidate to take an active public role in her husband's campaigns. Beam cited a remark by Jane Muskie that illustrated how things had changed for her in four short years: "In 1968, reporters asked me about recipes. In 1972, they asked me about issues."

The recent publication of Marilynne Robinson's Gilead has drawn attention to that unusual but not unprecedented phenomenon: the great first novel that becomes an instant classic and awakens our appetite for more, only to be followed by years of silence. We who loved the miraculous first book, Housekeeping (1980), have been left in a state of suspended longing and need, just like the characters in the novel. . . . Although often compared to 19th-century greats like Dickinson or Wordsworth, Robinson's voice can now more easily be understood as part of a continuing conversation among contemporary women writers. Among Housekeeping's central concerns, perhaps none seems more urgent today than Robinson's complex understanding of motherhood. -- Elaine Tuttle Hansen, Bates President and author of Mother Without Child: Contemporary Fiction and the Crisis of Motherhood

College kids clearly have more money than they used to. Take Trent Lierman '04, who while at Bates gave $2,000 to presidential hopeful Howard Dean -- whose national finance chairman was the student's father, Terry Lierman. The elder Lierman said he did not prod his son to donate to Dean. Rather, Trent was Dean's campus coordinator at Bates, and even traveled to Wisconsin to work on the campaign. "Trent doesn't do anything he doesn't want to," said Terry. "It's not my money, it's his." But Trent was not the only child of political operatives to make hefty campaign contributions in the last election, and some campaign finance watchdogs said that contributions from children could let donors exceed limits on the amount that one person can give to a campaign.

It's generally assumed that infants and small children on passenger airplanes are seen as annoyances by other travelers. Michael Lieber '92, a lawyer from Chicago, has the highest frequent-flier elite status on United. But he was actually reluctant to take those first-class upgrades when traveling with his wife, Rebecca, and their year-old twins, because he worried that fellow first-class passengers might be annoyed. "I think anybody who has a baby should think about those things before they go to the airport, because it relieves stress, and one of the things that helps the kids do better on a flight is if they realize their parents are less stressed-out, they'll react more positively," said Lieber. Most fellow travelers are actually friendly toward parents with babies, he said.

Brigid Beech '05 of West Newbury was one of the 17 women's hockey players representing the United States at the Baltic Blast and Thanksgiving Day Tournament Nov. 27-28 in Talinn, Estonia. Bates compiled a 3-1 record on the trip, finishing second of five teams including contingents from Great Britain, Latvia, Estonia, Germany, Japan, Finland and Sweden. Michelle Kramer of All World Sporting Matches, the group that facilitated the trip for the Estonian Hockey Federation, chose the Bobcats as ideal ambassadors to promote U.S. women's hockey. Bates, with a 7-3 overall record, defeated two teams from Estonia and one from Great Britain. Beech, an interdisciplinary studies major, is a 2000 graduate of St. Mark's School and has three goals and seven points for the Bobcats this winter.

If the character of Lynette on television's Desperate Housewives has thrown a spotlight on a new and surprising drug problem in America, overwrought homemakers aren't the only ones abusing Adderall and Ritalin. School counselors say motivated students are faking attention deficit hyperactivity disorder to get the pep-giving pills to help with their studies -- while ignoring risks. "I first took it for Advanced Placement tests in high school," says one freshman at Northwestern University. "I wrote 14 pages in one night." Adds Kathryn Graff Low, a professor of psychology and campus therapist at Bates, "Very, very talented students come in wanting a prescription. They blame themselves because they want to be perfect."

For the estimated 6 percent of Americans who suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder, winter brings a depression that makes functioning difficult. Those afflicted with SAD may have the symptoms associated with non-seasonal depression, and are also likely to sleep too much, crave carbohydrates and overeat. Symptoms usually appear in the fall or winter and disappear by summer. Many researchers connect SAD with the lack of sunlight during winter, a theory supported by findings that show the disorder in the United States is more prevalent in northern areas. Ten to 15 percent of New Englanders have SAD, while there are very few cases in Florida, says Kathryn Low, a professor of psychology at Bates College. "As you get closer to the equator, there's very little of it," she said.

Google will digitally scan almost all the books and scholarly materials in the University of Michigan's library system -- some 7 million volumes. For U-M, the project is a boon. The school has put some books online, but estimates it would take 1,000 years to finish the job. Google will give U-M digital copies of all of the works. The project "truly raises the level of materials and the educational opportunities for students, faculty and researchers everywhere," said university librarian William Gosling (Bates '65). The project will allow Internet users to read books with expired copyrights from cover to cover with just a click of the mouse. Google is also digitizing the works in the New York Public Library and libraries at Stanford, Harvard and Oxford (England) universities.

Randy Bumps '95, a former state legislator and aide to U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, was elected Saturday as the new chairman of the Maine Republican Party. Bumps, 32, of Minot, drew no opposition as the party's state committee picked a successor to three-term chairwoman Kathy Watson of Pittsfield and filled other posts. Bumps pledged to expand the party's network of volunteers in order to win control of the Legislature and elect a Republican governor in 2006. "As chair of the Maine Republican Party, I am committed to building a first-rate organization that will take the Democrats to task for the fiscal mess that the majority party has created," Bumps said. Bumps served as executive director of the 2004 Bush-Cheney campaign organization in Maine and now works as a consultant.

Josh Fix '99 (appearing at Portland's Acoustic Coffee Saturday) switched gears from pre-law to music halfway through his program at Bates College, and that started him on an unbelievable path. After Bates, he moved to San Francisco. He cut a demo that made its way into the hands of Eddie Van Halen and Lenny Kravitz. His single "Whiskey & Speed" was selected as the Best Unsigned Demo by the San Francisco chapter of the Grammy committee. The release of his EP, Steinway the Hard Way, found him performing to a sellout crowd at the hot San Francisco night club The Independent. One Bay-area critic called his acoustic pop-rock sound "the stuff of picaresque legend."

An exchange between Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and soldiers during a town-hall meeting in Kuwait about insufficient vehicle armor seemed to highlight growing questions from troops and military families about the conduct of the Iraq war. Some observers believe this level of anger and frustration, especially among the troops themselves, may bridge the gap between military insiders and more typical anti-war activists. But Chris Beam, a member of the Bates history faculty and a Vietnam veteran, believes it will take a wide-scale draft for the majority of Americans to get upset about the war. The question is, he said, "Are the costs of achieving any kinds of progress worth it?" Americans will measure those costs both financially and in terms of human loss, he said.

Mike Horan '05 got the ultimate compliment from opposing teams during his final football season at Bates this fall. After back-to-back impressive years in the Bobcats' secondary, the strong safety from Stoughton found teams avoiding him as much as possible. "He's the one guy who is dominant enough that the other team wanted to stay away from him,'' said Bates coach Mark Harriman of the senior co-captain. "In my opinion, he's probably the most dominant defensive player we've had on the field during my time here.'' Horan was named to the All-New England Small College Athletic Conference first team as a junior and senior and was among the statistical leaders for three seasons. He plans to attend graduate school next year and hopes to land a job as a graduate assistant football coach.

"It's all about trying to make it fun and real for the kids," says Megan Price '04, a teacher at Seoul's new English-language immersion school. Today Price is role-playing as an immigration officer "processing" students, and teachers at the village also pose as policemen, bankers and even waitresses to convince students they are in a foreign country -- where only English is spoken. Korea has placed a priority on its youth mastering English, and most children start learning it in the third grade. But they seldom if ever get the opportunity to speak English in everyday situations, much less with native speakers. At the village, which is funded by Seoul's city government, they do everything from making newspapers to baking to hip hop dancing, all in the name of education.

The sluggish economy of the last four years may be showing signs of recovery, if campus career fairs are any indication. According to a sampling of colleges and universities nationwide, prospective employers are making more inquiries, attending career fairs in larger numbers, and approaching students much sooner during the final year in school. At Bates the trend is "upward and very active," notes A. Charles Kovacs, director of the Office of Career Services. "The number of on-campus recruiters is up, received job listings up, student activity up, and we are seeing more and more juniors returning to campus with full-time job offers in hand from their summer internships. In essence, the chill seems to be off the hiring end of the economy."

A rare coin discovered last summer has been auctioned for $360,000. The coin, one of only three 1793 Strawberry Leaf one-cent pieces known to exist, was sold to an unnamed bidder Tuesday night at the Baltimore Coin and Currency Convention. Reportedly the first Strawberry Leaf specimen ever sold at public auction, in 1877, the coin this year was brought to an Auburn coin dealer by a woman who said her father, Roscoe E. Staples II, purchased it around 1941 (for $2,750) and gave it to his wife, Beulah Staples '35. Upon her death the coin went to her heirs. It was auctioned by American Numismatic Rarities of Wolfeboro, N.H., and with online bidding having begun earlier, the final bid came less then three minutes into the live auction.

Michael Milken was well-known in the 1980s and early 1990s as a high-flying junk-bond wizard brought to earth by a 22-month prison sentence for securities violations. What's less well-known about him is that, in the years since, this prostate cancer survivor has turned the cancer establishment upside down. In the time it normally takes to bring a single new drug to market, Milken has managed to raise significantly the profile of prostate cancer, increase related research funding dramatically, spur innovative research approaches, and, dare we say, speed up science. Pre-Milken, prostate cancer research had virtually stalled. "People were afraid to try anything," says Howard Scher '72, chief of genitourinary oncology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. "There was such nihilism in the field."

The value of the SAT as a predictor for academic performance has been thrown into question by a U.S. college that has ceased to demand that applicants take the test. Bates College was one of the first mainstream American schools to stop requiring applicants to provide SAT test scores. Bates found no difference in graduation rates between students who continued to submit their test scores and those who did not. The college made SATs optional for admission in October 1984. Since then, it has kept track of about 7,000 students to see how well they fared after their acceptance. Bill Hiss, head of admissions when Bates dropped the requirement, called the issue nothing less than "a fundamental question of social ethics and social policy." -- Jon Marcus '82

Ruveni Freeman '94 worries that the Dec. 26 tsunami will fade from attention before the work of recovery is complete. Freeman grew up in Sri Lanka, where estimates of tsunami deaths have reached 30,615, out of a total 150,000 or so around the region. Her brother, his girlfriend and the girlfriend's daughter narrowly escaped death in the disaster. "My concern is, what if you get a new headline?" asked Freeman, a resident of Waterville, Maine. "You still have entire economies destroyed." Agriculture and tourism are the mainstays of Sri Lanka's economy, and the tsunami destroyed both. Freeman has founded the Sahana Project, a relief effort designed to help lay the foundation for long-term social and economic recovery in the island nation.

We are heavily reliant on standardized testing at all levels -- K-12, college and graduate school. But what we have seen at Bates indicates that this may be a monumental trip up a blind alley for America. It is based on a largely unexamined assumption: that these myriad tests, many of them quite new, will accurately and uniformly measure achievement or potential. But they won't, at least based on Bates' 20-year experience. Human intelligence may be so fluid, so multifaceted, that no standardized test can "capture" it. -- Bates Vice President William Hiss '66, in a commentary on Bates' study of the academic success of students admitted without submitting standardized test scores.