Whether it’s an après surf portrait or performance art, firing up Alumni Gym crowds or MLK Day audiences, the last six weeks have provided us with a series of events we’re unlikely to forget. Join us in remembrance by taking a gander at our latest edition of This Month at Bates.
Waving at the Camera
Posing for a post-surfing photo along the rocky coast in Scarborough, Maine, are Eno Little ‘27 (left) of Sante Fe, N.M., and Max Dio ‘26 of Wellfleet, Mass. After morning classes at Bates, the two hustled to the coast to chase some of the first large swells of the winter season. They used the timer on Little’s camera to capture this image. “It’s good to get out in the water after studying so much,” said Dio.
Puppy Love
Cate Fleming ’27 (left) of Brookline, Mass., photographs 11-week old Poppy, one of five golden retrievers — plus one large, lumbering Newfoundland mix — that visited Memorial Commons in Chase Hall for a stress-busting playdate during finals week in December sponsored by Campus Life and Campus Safety.
Clearing the Way
In their Chevy Silverado plowtruck, Jeremy Lavertu (right) and Ian Brownlie, members of the grounds and maintenance staff in Facility Services, head toward their next snow-clearing stop on campus following an early December snowfall. Plowing and shoveling all the pathways, roads, parking lots, and stairs keeps the campus “safe for our community,” said Lavertu.
Tri-colored Columns
As a way to beckon visitors to a December open house to celebrate the new Immersive Media Studio in Coram Library, the building’s massive columns were illuminated with multicolored spotlights. Michael Reidy, senior lecturer in theater, designed the striking display.
Immersive Art
A guest at the Immersive Media Studio’s open house lounges in a bean bag chair while absorbing undersea video from Beyond Midnight, a collaborative work by Bates faculty members Michel Droge, Carolina González Valencia, Tristan Koepke, and Asha Tamirisa.
A former classroom, the IMStudio is a now-windowless creative space on Coram’s first floor. With perfectly smooth and featureless walls coated with so-called 4K paint, aka theater-screen paint, the space is equipped with museum-quality projection and sound equipment.
The bean bag chairs were a big hit with guests who came to enjoy Beyond Midnight, a dream-like, 30-minute, visual and auditory experience that included video footage from an undersea expedition off Costa Rica last summer that Droge joined as a visiting artist.
Branching Out
During an Open Studio Night at Olin Arts Center in December, Miguel Angel Pacheco ’24 of Caracas, Venezuela, performs a “duration artwork,” which is a piece of art that unfolds over a period of time,
Pacheco’s piece, titled “Quemar La Casa” (“To Burn the House”), uses performance and installation in an act of witnessing, and is part of his senior thesis in his interdisciplinary arts and performance major. In this scene, Pacheco was having one last moment with his shoes, finding his center, and “having a moment of realization.”
“I had done this before, and it is a recurring weight of this moving and leaving. People peak in, gazing above the longest pieces of wood spilling into the hallway, curious.”
Dressed for Success
This guy exudes the joy of winter on the Historic Quad after one of the first snowfalls of the season in Maine on Dec. 5, 2023.
A Cut Above
Hair stylist Rosa Storer (right) of Taboo Hair Design in Lewiston is interviewed by four first-year Bates students as part of a community-engaged project for the course “Introduction to Africana.” Shown in the salon are, from the left: Michael Spencer of Mansfield, Texas, Carly Baker of Roxbury, Maine, Isabelle Benson of Norwich, Vt., and Nur Rajaie of Chicago.
Last fall, Bates College students in the Africana course, which had the theme “Seeing and Being Seen,” partnered with local barbers and hair stylists to gain insight into the relationship between Blackness, community, and identity. Storer was one of five local partners who welcomed students in the salon where she works at 28 Bates St.
The course was co-taught by Charles Nero, the Benjamin E. Mays 1920 Distinguished Professor of Rhetoric, Film, and Screen Studies, and Visiting Assistant Professor of Anthropology Joshua Rubin with support from the Harward Center for Community Partnerships.
Economic Elegance
During a poster presentation by economics students in Pettengill Hall’s Perry Atrium in December, President Garry W. Jenkins talks with Alice Wruck ’24 of Columbus, Ohio, about her research poster on how big-picture economic factors affect the success of companies that sell luxury goods. Wruck’s advisor on her senior thesis was Paul Shea, the Dowling Family Professor of Economics.
Cool Vibes
Jamie Hollander ’24 of Medfield, Mass., sports a Ronj coffeehouse sweatshirt. New to the Bates scene last fall, the Ronj merch — T-shirts and sweatshirts — features customer-created designs on the back (seen here) and on the front, a drawing of the historic building at 30 Frye St.
Honoring a Bates Great
On Dec. 9, family, friends, and fellow alumni came to campus to honor the life and legacy of the late Billy Selmon ’15, a respected and beloved men’s basketball captain who died in January 2023.
Prior to the team’s game vs. Colby, a framed basketball jersey with Selmon’s No. 23 was presented to his family. From left: his parents, Angela Selmon and Bill Selmon; wife and daughter, Hillary Throckmorton ’15 and Billie Selmon; head coach Jon Furbush ’05; and his brother, Kenny Selmon.
It Never Gets Old
The game vs. Colby that followed was an overtime thriller. Here, with the 99–92 victory assured, fans bid farewell to the Colby Mules with just under 14 seconds left.
Friends and Froth
In December, a trio of senior friends and field hockey teammates took to the steps of Coram Library to celebrate their completed theses. From left, Molly Harmon of Farmington, Maine, Molly Griffin ’24, of Holden, Mass., and Ella Blum of South Salem, N.Y.
Blum’s sociology thesis: “The Narratives of Fandom: Sports Identity Development and Retention Among College-Aged Students.”
Griffin’s psychology thesis: “Do Logos with Incongruent Color Backgrounds Slow Down People’s Reaction Times to the Color? Is This Effect Larger for Preferred Logos?”
Harmon’s earth and climate sciences thesis: “Determining Surface Rupture of the 1803 Earthquake in Central Himalaya Using Paleoseismology.”
Crafts and Cranes
Bates students teach fifth-grade students at Geiger Elementary School how to make onigiri (Japanese rice balls) and paper cranes on Dec. 12, 2023. The Bates students were from the First-Year Seminar course “Reading Japan in Multicultural Picture Books” taught by Keiko Konoeda, a lecturer in Japanese. From left are: Emily Cain of Burien, Wash., Angel Huntsman of Harpswell, Maine, and Peyton Burg of McLean, Va.
A Fierce Storm
This Norway spruce next to Cheney House on College Street was no match for the historic wind and rain storm that made national news when it struck New England in December. While flooding of inland rivers and the Atlantic and downed power lines affected large parts of Maine, the campus was left relatively unscathed, losing this spruce and a few other trees.
Green Dream
As if awaiting the return of students, these moss-green chairs stand out against the stark white walls in a chemistry classroom in Dana Hall on Jan. 8, 2024. Two days later, when classes started for the winter semester, the chair were back in business.
Feel the Music
From left, seniors Jeremy Brogan of Freeport, Maine, Aidan Richman of Portland, Maine, and Jakob Adler of Los Angeles play a musical prelude at the start of the Spoken Word Festival hosted by the college’s Multifaith Chaplaincy at Gomes Chapel on Dec. 14, 2024, the day before Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
The trio played music throughout the evening festival, which featured poets, spoken word artists, and musicians, including original works by students and faculty. The evening’s special guest was Maya Williams, the poet laureate of Portland, Maine.
Appetite for Activism
Artist, author, activist, and award-winning chef Bryant Terry delivers the keynote address on Martin Luther King Jr. Day before a packed Gomes Chapel. This year’s keynote concluded with something different: Terry’s rousing cooking demonstration in which he prepared a curry dish from his Afro-Vegan cookbook, offering tips and insights along the way.
Go Up for Glory
Alexandra Long ’25 of Newtown, Pa., attacks the rim during the first half of a thrilling 62-60 win over Tufts for the Bobcat women’s basketball team in January in Alumni Gym. In the second half, with less than a second remaining and the score tied, Long inbounded a long pass to Elsa Daulerio ’26 of Harpswell, Maine, whose layup won the game for the Bobcats, their first over the Jumbos since 2010.
Key Collaboration
Indigenous artist Brad Kahlhamer (center), a co-curator of Exploding Native Inevitable, an exhibition of contemporary Indigenous art now featured in the museum, speaks during the opening reception in January. “They are amazing voices, make compelling art, and have important things to say,” said Kahlhamer, who has exhibited extensively in the U.S. and abroad.
At right is exhibition co-curator and Director of the Museum of Art Dan Mills, and at left is Anthony Shostak, the museum’s education curator.
Cutting-edge Classwork
Professor of Biology and Neuroscience Martin Kruse (third from right) guides his students during a class session for “Lab-Based Biological Inquiry: Cellular Neuroscience” in January in a Bonney Science Center lab. Kruse has received a $415,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health to study IRBIT, an important but not fully understood cellular protein that might play a critical role in several neurological conditions, such as epilepsy and Alzheimer’s disease.
Digging Deep
Aasya Patel ’26 of Indore, Madhya Pradesh, India, competes against Amherst at the No. 3 position in the lineup for the Bates women’s squash team in January at the Bates Squash Center.
Welcome Back
Seniors Jakob Adler of Los Angeles and Amelia Walllis of Norwich, Vt., greet each other with gusto on Jan. 10, 2024, in Ladd Library. The image was included in an Instagram gallery featuring Bobcat friends greeting one another on the first day of classes for the winter semester. Each duo said that they agreed to be described as “happy to see one another after winter break!” And their smiles tell the story.
A Happy Moment
Ted Koenigsbauer ’24 of Seattle exults after winning a point against his Hobart opponent in a men’s squash match in January at the Bates Squash Center.
For the Record
Sometimes you help to holding onto Bates records. During the installation ceremony for a new track and field record board at the Slovenski Track in January, former Bates All-American Justin Easter ’03 holds the slide-in strips for his two outdoor records, as his young son, Arlo, holds one of the red slide-in strips that name the event.
Easter holds the 3,000-meter steeplechase record (8:54.27 in 2003) and co-holds the distance medley relay (10:06.69 in 2000) with Stephen Gresham ’03, John McGrath ’00, and Matt Twiest ’00)
The ceremony, which welcomed generations of Bobcat standouts back to Bates, was held prior to the Bates Invitational, which Bates won handily.
Winning Spin
Solomon Sakakeeny-Smith ’25 of Boston competes in the weight throw at the Bates Invitational on Jan. 20, 2024, at the Walt Slovenski Track. Bates finished in first place out of seven teams and 29.5 points ahead of runner-up Bowdoin.
