{"id":4585,"date":"2019-10-04T09:03:44","date_gmt":"2019-10-04T13:03:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/commencement\/?p=4585"},"modified":"2021-02-19T11:58:18","modified_gmt":"2021-02-19T16:58:18","slug":"voices-from-2020-ryan-lizanecz-found-a-home-at-bates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/commencement\/2019\/10\/04\/voices-from-2020-ryan-lizanecz-found-a-home-at-bates\/","title":{"rendered":"Voices from 2020: Ryan Lizanecz Found a Home at Bates"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When Ryan Lizanecz \u201920 first came to Bates, \u201cI was anxious, I was curious, I was scared,\u201d he says. \u201cLiterally every feeling I could possibly feel at the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Lizanecz is from Portland, Maine, and he is the first in his family to go to college. Maine as a whole and Bates are similar, he says, in that both are \u201csmall communities where people know each other and people are friendly.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Nevertheless, arriving on campus was an \u201cinformation overload.\u201d Lizanecz had lived in the same house all his life and never been away from his family for more than a week.<\/p>\n<p>At night early in his Bates career, he says, he often dreamed of home.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><span style=\"color: #009779;\"><em>Video by Theophil Syslo<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Ryan Lizanecz \u201920 | Voices from the Class of 2020\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/w1P6CqRcoIo?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\u201cThankfully,\u201d he says, \u201cBobcat First! was my foothold.\u201d The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2017\/10\/12\/bobcat-first-success-that-lasts\/\">four-year program<\/a> designed to foster belonging among first-generation-to-college students \u201cprovided me with everything I needed to succeed in the first year\u2013plus of my college experience. They were really a family to me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>With that support, Lizanecz flourished. A politics major, he has delved into the ways that structures of power shape the world.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBates does a very good job, especially in the liberal arts, of teaching you about how all these different moving parts of the world are interconnected, and how that impacts how the world works,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_127901\" style=\"width: 910px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2019\/10\/190903_Convocation_0798.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-127901\" class=\"wp-image-127901 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2019\/10\/190903_Convocation_0798-900x596.jpg\" alt=\"At Opening Convocation on Sept. 3, Ryan Lizanecz \u201920 (center) sits between keynote speaker and honorand Dolores Huerta and Phillips Professor of Economics Michael Murray. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)\" width=\"900\" height=\"596\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/174\/files\/2019\/10\/190903_Convocation_0798-900x596.jpg 900w, https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/174\/files\/2019\/10\/190903_Convocation_0798-400x265.jpg 400w, https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/174\/files\/2019\/10\/190903_Convocation_0798-200x132.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/174\/files\/2019\/10\/190903_Convocation_0798.jpg 1919w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-127901\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">At Opening Convocation on Sept. 3, Ryan Lizanecz \u201920 (center) sits between keynote speaker and honorand Dolores Huerta and Phillips Professor of Economics Michael Murray. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Lizanecz has sung with the Deansmen, the oldest of Bates <em>a cappella<\/em> ensembles, throughout college. He is also the president of student government this year; in that role, at Opening Convocation, he told the incoming first-year students that their Bates experience will be what they make of it.<\/p>\n<p>Now, when he spends the night at home in Portland, Lizanecz dreams of Bates.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBates is my home,\u201d he says. \u201cThis is where my friends are. This is where I have the most fun. This is where I learn things that I care about. I think that that\u2019s what Bates has become to me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A first-generation-to-college student from Portland, Maine, Lizanecz at first felt \u201canxious, curious, scared\u201d on campus. The Bobcat First! program gave him a foothold.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":4574,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"categories":[13,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commencement-2020","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/commencement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/commencement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/commencement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/commencement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/commencement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4585"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/commencement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4585\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4593,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/commencement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4585\/revisions\/4593"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/commencement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/commencement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/commencement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/commencement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}