A pair of grants funded by the Dean of Faculty and the Harward Center for Community Partnerships supported a summer 2005 internship for Kate Gatti '06 of Chelmsford, Mass., to work with Lewiston District Court Judge John Beliveau. Gatti used audio and video technology to record proceedings in the courtroom, the only one in the state equipped for video. "Video makes it much easier to replay testimony from a witness if the judge needs to clarify facts," she says.

A sociology major focusing on criminology and law, Gatti is at work on a yearlong honors thesis about forensic DNA admissibility. Sociology is a good major for law "because it keeps your eyes open. I've developed a broader view of the landscape by looking at social issues," she says, referring both to her academic work and to her three summers working in the trenches. She spent summer 2003 as a paralegal for a small law firm in her hometown and the last two summers recording hearings and doing research and document preparation for Beliveau.

Two summers in district court broadened Gatti's world view. A frequent observer of child protection cases, she saw parents "who can't take care of kids, who can't get a job, who don't have the necessary resources. I've learned there are so many obstacles in their way."

Her departmental and thesis adviser, Professor of Sociology Sawyer Sylvester, "has been an incredible mentor to me," she says, pointing her in the right direction and providing her with books and articles at every turn. "It's an amazing department," says Gatti, citing Bates sociologists Emily Kane, Heidi Chirayath and Francesco Duina.

Eventually, Gatti would like to attend law school or graduate school and teach. In the meantime, she is juggling thesis demands with another time-consuming passion: co-captaining and competing for the women's varsity swim team.