{"id":9956,"date":"2017-04-10T15:50:42","date_gmt":"2017-04-10T19:50:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/alumni\/?page_id=9956"},"modified":"2026-02-25T09:20:50","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T14:20:50","slug":"college-key-newsletter-spring-2017","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/alumni\/college-key-newsletter-spring-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"College Key Newsletter \u2014 Spring 2017"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Contents<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
    \n
  1. Welcome from the President<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. Volunteer Thank You<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. Distinguished Alumna In Residence: Susan Dumais \u201975<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  4. Winter Coat Fund<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  5. College Key Travel Funds at Work<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  6. The College Key Gets Social<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  7. 2017 Annual Meeting Reminder<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  8. Senior Class Bates Fund Gift<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  9. College Key Dues<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  10. Executive Committee 2016\u201317 Officers<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n
    \n\n\n\n

    <\/a>Welcome from the President<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    Dear Members of the College Key,<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    I hope spring weather is finding you, wherever you are. As the temperature rises, our schedule is heating up, too. We are looking forward to Reunion and the Annual Meeting of the College Key in June.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    More than 1,000 alumni and friends are expected to attend Reunion Weekend, June 9\u201311, 2017. This summer, the annual on-campus event celebrates class years ending in 2 or 7.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

    \n
    \"College<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    If this is your Reunion year, or if you are on campus that weekend for another reason, we hope to see you at the annual meeting on Friday, June 9, at 5 p.m. in the Benjamin E. Mays Center. Come a little early as a short reception will precede. At the meeting you will hear the President\u2019s and Treasurer\u2019s annual reports, confirm the new student and alumni members, witness the presentation of the Distinguished Service Award, elect a new secretary, and hear reports about all the College Key\u2019s programs. We will get you out in time to attend the Reunion lobster bake. We hope to see you there!
    <\/span>
    On behalf of the Executive Committee, I am pleased to once again share with you the latest information about the student programs we support as members of the College Key. I hope you enjoy this issue of the Key newsletter and take pride in all the programs and services we support.
    <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    My best from Maine,
    <\/span>Jeff Sturgis \u201969, President<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n\n\n\n

    <\/a>Volunteer Thank You<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    Thank you to all who contacted us to volunteer your services for the College Key. The response was overwhelming. At this time, we have many more volunteers than we have vacant spots on our committees, so don\u2019t be disappointed if we don\u2019t call on you right away. We will maintain this list for use in the future. In addition, we have shared this list with the college and the Alumni Council, so you may be contacted to assist in other areas of greater need. In the meantime, another avenue for volunteering is as a class agent<\/a> or as a member of your Reunion committee<\/a>. We appreciate those of you who stepped forward to volunteer your time for the betterment of the College Key and Bates.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n\n\n\n

    <\/a>Distinguished Alumna in Residence:
    Susan Dumais \u201975<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    Susan Dumais \u201975 visited the Bates campus Jan. 31\u2014Feb. 2 as the College Key\u2019s Distinguished Alumna in Residence. Susan graduated from Bates with a B.A. in mathematics and psychology, then completed a Ph.D. in cognitive and mathematical psychology from Indiana University. She is presently a distinguished scientist at Microsoft Corp. and the deputy managing director of the Microsoft Research Lab in Redmond, Wash., as well as an adjunct professor at the Information School at the University of Washington. Susan was chosen for this honor because of her leadership in the field of technology, and her visit to Bates was especially timely as Bates is in the early stages of implementing a new Digital and Computational Studies program. Susan enjoyed a tour of the campus expertly guided by Zeke Smith \u201919, followed by lunch with student-members of the Technology and Video Game Clubs on campus. After an interview with Jay Burns, editor of Bates Magazine, Susan had dinner with nine faculty members from various departments who are involved in the startup of the new Digital and Computational Studies program. The highlight of her visit was her presentation, \u201cThinking Outside the (Search) Box,\u201d at  the Olin Arts Center. The following article from Bates Magazine<\/em> includes her interview with Jay in which she discusses the central themes of her talk at Olin.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Microsoft\u2019s Susan Dumais \u201975: New Technology Can Come from Old Ideas<\/h6>\n\n\n\n

    By <\/span>Jay Burns<\/b><\/a> \u2014 Published on February 15, 2017<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    When I ask about the weather, my smartphone chirps back an answer: \u201cIt doesn\u2019t look so nice tomorrow.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    That\u2019s doubly unsurprising. One, it\u2019s February in Maine during a historic stretch of snowy weather. Two, a phone is supposed to answer questions.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    But here\u2019s a surprise. We tend to think that new ideas are the fuel for today\u2019s technology. Yet voice recognition is one of the \u201cmany things that people have tried before that now work,\u201d says Susan Dumais \u201975, a Distinguished Scientist with Microsoft Research in Redmond, Wash.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering, Dumais visited campus in February as the College Key\u2019s Distinguished Alumna in Residence, meeting with students and giving a talk on Feb. 1.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \"College<\/a>
    College Key Distinguished Alumna in Residence Susan Dumais \u201975 gives a talk on Feb. 1 in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall in front of an image showing a bygone way to retrieve information: the card catalog. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

    Back in the 1980s, when Dumais was at Bell Labs, one ongoing project was to get a computer to recognize correctly whether \u201cyes\u201d or \u201cno\u201d was answered to the question, \u201cWill you accept this collect call?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \u201cYears and years and years of work went into that,\u201d Dumais says. The project did succeed in the 1990s (though collect calls are going the way of the typewriter).<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    So, what makes today\u2019s \u201cnew\u201d technology possible? She points to better computational models, more computational horsepower, and access to much richer data.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    In the case of voice recognition, it means access to vast amounts of spoken language with corresponding transcriptions, which makes it \u201ceasier to map various acoustic features to the resulting words,\u201d she says.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n

    \u201cSo when you search for \u2018Who is the best teacher?\u2019 the results include pages that use the word \u2018professor\u2019 even if they don\u2019t use the word \u2018teacher.’\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

    Another old idea whose time has come belongs to Dumais herself. In 1990 \u2014 way before Google or Bing \u2014 she and fellow researchers developed an information retrieval process known as \u201clatent semantic indexing.\u201d In recent years, LSI-related ideas have \u201cbeen a big splash,\u201d she says.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    That\u2019s because LSI enables search engines to retrieve the information that we\u2019re actually looking for. \u201cSo when you search for \u2018Who is the best teacher?\u2019 the results include pages that use the word \u2018professor\u2019 even if they don\u2019t use the word \u2018teacher,\u2019 \u201d Dumais explains.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \"Susan<\/a>
    Susan Dumais \u201975 laughs with Professor Emeritus of Psychology John Kelsey before her talk on Feb. 1. Dumais first met Kelsey in the 1970s when she was a doctoral student at the University of Indiana, where he was starting his faculty career. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

    Simply put, LSI helps a search engine respond to queries by \u201cdiscovering words that are semantically the same even though they aren\u2019t literally the same,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The idea existed 25 years ago but \u201cthe time wasn\u2019t right,\u201d she says. Today, computers can swiftly learn these more nuanced word relationships thanks to the availability of much larger collections of text and more powerful computational resources.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Though advances in computing power are turning yesterday\u2019s ideas into today\u2019s tools, the demands of today\u2019s tools are also keeping those ideas viable.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \u201cHow we use this technology \u2014 such as everyone carrying a smartphone \u2014 makes these ideas even more necessary now,\u201d Dumais says.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \"Students<\/a>
    Students do pre-computer information retrieval, circa 1974, using the library\u2019s card catalog. (Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
    \n\n\n\n

    <\/a>Winter Coat Fund<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    Once again the College Key has provided money for coats for needy Bates students who come from warmer climes, both in this country and abroad. The $2,500 donated by the College Key is administered by Josh McIntosh, vice president for student affairs and dean of students. Josh invited College Key President Jeff Sturgis to his house in February for dinner with students who were recipients of the grants from the Key\u2019s Winter Coat Fund. Without exception, the students who were there had never seen snow or even a frozen pond or lake. They were all grateful for the assistance they received and wrote heartfelt thank-you notes to the College Key for its help. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n

    \u201cI just want to say thank you. Thank you for your generosity. It takes people with great hearts to help out people in need, so it means so much to me that you\u2019re willing to do this for us. Gestures like this are what motivate me to work hard and put effort into what I\u2019m doing to be able to help people out just the way you did with me. God bless you.  \u2014 Bates Student \u201920<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Growing up in a tropical country like Bangladesh, I was always fascinated about snow. Now that I am here at Bates and experienced my first snow, the winter apparel is keeping me warm as I enjoy these days to their fullest. Thank you for the authentic Bates experience. \u2014 Bates Student \u201920<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

    Jeff reports that it was a wonderful evening. Seeing the tangible results of this important program supported by the College Key was gratifying. The students had impressive goals and aspirations for their futures and will be great representatives of the college, both during their student days and later, when they join the alumni body. All of the notes from Winter Coat Fund recipients will be available for members to read at the annual meeting.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n\n\n\n

    <\/a>College Key Travel Funds at Work<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    At the annual Mount David Society Luncheon on March 31, Bantu Mabaso \u201918 of Swaziland delivered a captivating speech lauding Bates philanthropy. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Serving as an Office of Intercultural Education Fellow, Community Liaison Officer for the Bates Africana Club, and a Junior Advisor in the Office of Residence Life in her sophomore year sparked an interest in community development initiatives. The following excerpt from Bantu\u2019s speech highlights her pet project, Phalala Youth Empowerment for Food Security in Swaziland, and outlines one of the many ways College Key funds offer once-in-a-lifetime opportunities to Bates Students. (A video clip of her full speech follows the excerpt.)<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    I began to design and implement a food security project that would work collaboratively with farming communities in rural Swaziland to increase their food supply by incorporating climate-proofing in their own farming practices to combat food shortages caused by severe drought as a result of climate change. I was lucky enough to receive a Davis Projects for Peace grant through the Harward Center for Community Partnerships to do so. I used my experiences building relationships at Bates to work in partnership with the Swazi Ministry of Agriculture to design a skills-based curriculum that teaches farmers about climate-resilient farming. I also facilitated the construction of a learning centre where field officers attached to the project by the ministry would provide tutelage and mentorship to a cohort of 30 farmers at a time. I also worked with local chiefs to acquire 54 acres of farmland, as the sustainability of the program would be dependent on participants having access to land on which they could farm using these new methods.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Upon completion of the project I was invited to represent my work at the Clinton Global Initiative University meeting at UC Berkeley in California as an exemplary approach to solving hunger, a world challenge. My trip to the conference was made possible by the College Key Fund through the Bates Career Development Center.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Speaking to a room full of hundreds of young people like me with great conviction about my work, and meeting development practitioners from all over the world confirmed my desire to work in development. This inspired my decision to spend the last semester as a visiting student studying International Development and Humanitarian Aid at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    My story is just one example of your contribution to Bates\u2019 ability to support students in the pursuit of the things that they are passionate about. Because of the financial support that so many of you have generously offered, I have been afforded opportunities to pursue my interests in ways that I never thought possible and my life has been enriched tremendously because of it. The opportunity to come to Bates continues to mean a lot to me, my family and my country. It has made me truly appreciate the power of philanthropy as a tool for making a positive impact in the world that will resonate with future generations. Thank you for making this great experience possible.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    To date, almost all of the $10,000 in College Key travel funding awarded to BCDC has been allocated to students participating in the Career Discovery in Practice (CDIP) job shadow program. Some funding has been reserved to assist students needing help with expenses for travel to interviews and summer internships. College Key\u2019s support made it possible for students to complete job shadows with alumni and parents at Google, a Stanford University biology lab and Giant Creative Strategy in California, a child welfare and behavioral health organization in New Mexico, an artist\u2019s studio in New York City, the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, and a medical office in Maine. Students also traveled to a job interview in New York City and a conference in Washington, D.C.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

    \n\t\t\t
    \n\t\t\t\t<\/lite-vimeo>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\n
    \n\n\n\n

    The College Key Gets Social<\/h2>\n\n\n\n