A selection of recent mentions of Bates and Bates people in the news.
Amy Bass ’92
Opinion: The Swiftie math of the Super Bowl is a perfect score — CNN
An academic expert in the fascinating intersection of sport and and society, Amy Bass ‘92 wrote a pair of opinion pieces for CNN about how this year’s Super Bowl — with Taylor Swift in attendance — further entrenches the NFL “as a bona fide entertainment industry.”
While NFL as entertainment has been true for decades, Bass, who is a professor of sports studies at Manhattanville College, wrote that Swift and her fandom took it up a notch this year.
In turn, the NFL embraced her presence at games and “the adulation, condemnation, and profit generation that follow her and her merry band of Swifties wherever she goes.”
After the game, Bass summed it up: “From Nickelodeon’s broadcast of the game, which included a lower-third caption on [Travis] Kelce on the bench that read “Taylor’s Swift’s boyfriend — good at football” to the arena’s jumbotron showing Taylor downing a drink alongside longtime friend Ashley Avignone, it was yet again clear that the NFL has been thrilled with what has been called The Swift Effect on football.”
Larry Handerhan ’05
Two ‘extreme extroverts’ find love in a pandemic bubble — The New York Times
A New York Times “Mini Vows” story from October 2023 told the story the marriage of Larry Handerhan ’05 and Donnelly McDowell. “In the early months of their relationship, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the two spent a lot of time together,” writes Sanam Yar.
Handerhan and McDowell both identify as “extreme extroverts,” they told Yar, but as Handerhan explained, “as someone who has double-booked social activities my entire life pre-pandemic, it was such a blessing to not have anywhere to go but have someone I really enjoyed being with. I 100 percent fell in love with him on his couch, watching TV, not really moving very fast.”
The couple were married at Martha’s Vineyard Agricultural Society’s Agricultural Hall in West Tisbury, Mass., on Sept. 30, 2023.
Nora Demleitner ’89
St. John’s president Nora Demleitner appointed collegewide president — Eye On Annapolis
Effective July 1, Nora Demleitner ’89 will become the collegewide president of St. John’s College, which has campuses in Annapolis, Md., and Santa Fe, N.M. Demleitner has served as the Annapolis campus president since 2022.
“She is a strategic thinker who is outcome-focused, and, most importantly, a listener who understands the needs of our students, alumni, and community,” said Pam Saunders-Albin, vice chair of the board of trustees.
Aleksander Diamond-Stanic
Odd radio circles are glowing around some galaxies. Now we know why — NPR’s Short Wave
The national media reported on landmark space research by a team of scientists including Aleksandar Diamond-Stanic, a Bates associate professor of physics.
The team’s research, published on Jan. 8 in Nature, offers an explanation for the origin of so-called odd radio circles, which are “rings of light in the radio portion of the electromagnetic spectrum from an unknown source,” explains NPR’s discovery-focused Short Wave program.
The ORCs are now thought to result from a starburst galaxy, a “force from these combined explosions can expel large amounts of shocked gas, like outflowing winds.” Meanwhile, CNN reports that “understanding the origins of odd radio circles…helps astronomers ultimately understand what impact the phenomena may have on shaping galaxies over time.”
Erica Rand
“Good Hair, Bad Math” — Transgender Studies Quarterly
Among the most-read articles in the academic journal TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly in 2023 was one by Bates professor Erica Rand, “Good Hair, Bad Math: Breaking Apart Gender on a Figure Skating Pairs Team” The article appeared in the journal’s special issue focused on sports.
A professor of art and visual culture and of gender and sexuality studies, Rand is a competitive figure skater, who, since 2019, has been part of a white, queer, gender-nonconforming figure skating pairs team with Anna Kellar.
And in recent years, she’s turned her scholar’s eye and her activism toward the growing efforts to expand inclusion in figure skating.
In the essay “Good Hair, Bad Math,” Rand shares and considers “some of our experiences, the challenges, and deep pleasures as we work to advance the skills and rule changes required to test and compete; to navigate racialized gender binarism and cis-heteronormitivity sedimented in training, rule, and custom; and to develop performance vocabularies to legibly represent queer gender.”
Paul Schofield
Being homeless means not being free, as Americans are supposed to be — The Conversation
Clearly, homelessness creates a state of deprivation that affects a person’s well-being, writes Associate Professor of Philosophy Paul Schofield in The Conversation. The moral dimensions of homelessness, and how it “limits Americans’ freedom,” should also be considered.
“A person who is homeless and sleeps on a public bench will often be told by the police to move. Someone who sets up a tent on a sidewalk will usually have it confiscated. Someone who urinates or defecates in a park can be arrested. Now you can see why some think that homelessness compromises a person’s freedom,” Shofield writes.
Zachary Murguía Burton
Mental health play ‘The Manic Monologues’ comes to studio space at new Arrow Street Arts — Cambridge Day
Cambridge (Mass.) Day reports the New England debut of a play co-written by Zachary Murguía Burton, a visiting assistant professor of earth and climate sciences, and based on his own personal experiences with mental health challenges.
Reporter Madeleine Aitken notes that a health crisis in 2017 “reset the life of (then-)doctoral student Zachery Burton, redirecting him from geology long enough to fulfill a mission on the stage: His Manic Monologues, co-written with then-girlfriend Elisa Hofmeister, brings to life true stories that challenge what it means to be touched by a mental health condition (in Burton’s case, bipolar disorder).”
Bates College
Food justice a tasty topic at Bates College — Sun Journal
The Sun Journal covered the college’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day keynote address by food justice advocate Bryant Terry, which included a cooking demonstration.
“Between cooking, and sometimes while stirring a pan, Terry offered thoughts on a wide variety of food-related issues, from what he called ‘food apartheid’ that squeezes poor Americans to the growing popularity of plant-based, corporate-created alternatives to meat,” wrote reporter Steve Collins.
The Puddle Jump
World of photos, Feb. 11, 2024 — Western Australia Today
Thanks to the distribution power of The Associated Press, images from the annual Puddle Jump at Bates, held Feb. 9, have appeared in news outlets around the world.
The photos were taken by Lewiston Sun Journal photographer Andree Kehn and distributed over the AP wire. Thus far, the Puddle Jump has made a splash with the Bulgarian News Agency, that country’s official news agency, and with the online news site Western Australia Today, whose photo editors deemed the Puddle Jump photo “among the best from the international wire agencies.”
Sivani Arvapalli ’26
Photo: Only 3 percent of eligible blood donors donate — Lewiston Sun Journal
A photo feature by Sun Journal photographer Daryn Slover captured a moment at the first American Red Cross blood drive on campus since the pandemic as Julia Jeong ‘24 of Clifton, Va., donates blood. Sixty-two percent of the population is eligible to give blood, but only 3 percent do, according to Red Cross statistics.
Sivani Arvapalli ’26 of South Windsor, Conn., organized the blood drive, saying she was motivated to help after the Oct. 25 shootings in Lewiston. “I was motivated to do it, so I got it done,” says Arvapalli, who is now organizing the next blood drive on campus, slated for April 18.
Skip Capone
Cheverus names Skip Capone new football coach — Portland Press Herald
Maine media outlets reported that former longtime Bates assistant football coach and Maine coaching legend Skip Capone was named head football coach at Cheverus High School in Portland, Maine.
Capone brings 45 years of coaching experience to the post, including 22 seasons as an assistant coach at Bates and 14 seasons as head coach of Lewiston High School.
“I’m all in, and we’re not messing around,” Capone, 69, tells the Portland Press Herald’s Travis Lazarczyk.
