Costlow’s Final Year<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Join us as we follow Jane Costlow \u2014 esteemed Bates teacher, scholar, and colleague \u2014 month by month during her 34th and final academic year.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n\n\n\n When Costlow first arrived at Bates, in fall 1986, she joined the Russian department, teaching language and literature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I remember a mild sense of panic,” she says, “because it was my first teaching job. I was really excited but I was also really kind of nervous.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n The excitement came from what she’d already learned about her new college during interviews. “I had wonderful interactions with people,” she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I had a sense that students were down-to-earth. And I was meeting other faculty and I thought, ‘Wow, these are really cool people.'”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Top left, Costlow and colleague Sonja Pieck trade notes about their summers. Top right, Costlow’s “Welcome back!!!” office-door message greets students. Above, Costlow throws on her academic gown before heading to Convocation. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/p>\n\n\n\n It’s time for Convocation, and with a casual ease Costlow dons her academic gown and a doctoral hood that she created herself. Its colors, black and “Yale blue,” signify her Yale degree in Slavic languages and literatures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Adding a personal touch, she dons a straw hat that has been sitting atop a file cabinet since she wore it at Commencement last May.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then she heads out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ever been on a treadmill at the gym when the speed suddenly goes up? That’s what a college campus feels like as summer turns to fall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For any educator, “that’s a huge transition,” Costlow says of switching from summer mode, when professors can, distraction-free, dig deeply into their research, to the academic year and its multiple demands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “You suddenly realize you’ll be in the classroom. You’ll have all these thesis students. In many ways, your time is not yours anymore,” she says. “But it’s always exciting to see your students, especially students returning from abroad.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n And it’s on Costlow’s mind that the rhythm of her life will change. “It’s just a little bit bittersweet to think, “Oh, well, this is the last time I’ll do this.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n The day after Convocation is the first day of classes and Costlow’s first session for her course “Lives in Place.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Presenting words and images of and by writers, filmmakers, and artists, the course examines the question “What does it mean to live sustainably in place?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Proving that even a 33-year Bates veteran can make a mistake, Costlow makes a false step on the first day of her final year. Accustomed to teaching in a certain Hedge Hall classroom year after year, she arrives there only to see another Bates veteran, Dana Professor of Anthropology Loring Danforth, preparing for his<\/em> class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"Jane](\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2019\/09\/190903_Jane_Costlow_Office_Robing_0056.jpg\")
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