![\"Nathaniel](\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2023\/08\/EDIT_120906_Boone_0341A-900x600.webp\")
Before the military was fully desegregated in 1948, Boone trained at Montford Point, an all-Black training camp in North Carolina. \u201cThe white officers didn’t want us there,\u201d Boone said in a 2013 interview<\/a> with BatesNews<\/em>. \u201cSo, we were sort of fighting the war before we encountered any enemy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n After leaving the Marines in 1948, Boone attended Bates College and then Boston University School of Law. He practiced law for 41 years. In 2012, the Montford Point Marines received a collective Congressional Gold Medal from President Barack Obama. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Michael Somkuti \u201919, an avid gamer and co-founder of the Philadelphia-based LFG Philly, a social group connecting queer gamers, spoke with Suzi Nash of Philadelphia Gay News<\/em> about their gaming past and the importance of holding gaming spaces for the queer community.<\/p>\n\n\n After helping found the Bates Video Game Club and Esports, Somkuti co-founded LFG, or \u201cLooking For Group,\u201d a gaming term for when someone is searching for a gaming community to join. LFG\u2019s first in-person meeting was held during Pride Month, and drew a good crowd, Somkuti told Nash. \u201cI\u2019m really pleased because I just wanted to have an event that would be a safe space for queer gamers no matter who they are.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Beyond holding a gaming space welcoming gamers of all levels, Somkuti wanted to build that safe space to combat harassment often experienced by LGBTQIA+ gamers online and in real life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019ve experienced it trying out for teams. As a player, you never really know who\u2019s going to be on the other side and what they\u2019re going to say to you,\u201d they said. \u201cPersonally, I\u2019ve been called every slur in the book. It can be intimidating.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Read more: <\/p>\n\n\n\n Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies Tyler Austin Harper (on leave during the 2023-2024 academic year) wrote about anti-racist culture for The Atlantic<\/em> in August, addressing his own discomfort with being part of a new \u201csocial etiquette predicated on the necessity of foregrounding racial difference rather than minimizing it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAs a Black guy who grew up in a politically purple area \u2014 where being a good person meant adhering to the kind of civil-rights-era color-blindness that is now pass\u00e9 \u2014 I find this emergent anti-racist culture jarring. Many of my liberal friends and acquaintances now seem to believe that being a good person means constantly reminding Black people that you are aware of their Blackness. Difference, no longer to be politely ignored, is insisted upon at all times under the guise of acknowledging \u2018positionality.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n H. Sawin Millett \u201959, a state representative currently serving his ninth term in the Maine Legislature, spoke with News Center Maine<\/em>\u2019s Don Carrigan about spending the past 50 years working on education and state budget-related issues, and promoting bipartisanship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMy questions and my work has always been across the aisle, always helping them to understand the path to a solution,\u201d said Millett. \u201cThe path to agreement, not to just try to butt heads and out-maneuver people. I say during my campaigns I am going to Augusta to search for solutions to problems. I\u2019m not going there to search for scapegoats. There is no future, nothing gained if all you\u2019re looking for is somebody to blame and [just] vote ‘no’ on issues that require clear thinking.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n McKayla Kendall \u201926 spoke with the Lewiston Sun Journal<\/em>\u2019s Kendra Caruso about her work with Smile Train, a nonprofit organization and charity providing corrective surgery for children with cleft lips and palates, and about her own experience with cleft lip.<\/p>\n\n\n Though she was \u201cextremely fortunate to have access to the care that is necessary for people with clefts,\u201d that medical care meant that sometimes she missed out on sports and social events. Now she swims on the Bates women\u2019s swimming and diving team, and plays club lacrosse and Ultimate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In fifth grade, she found Smile Train, and knew she had to get involved. Kendall was a student ambassador with Smile Train throughout high school, and shared her story at conferences. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI think it\u2019s important for everyone to get involved in something they\u2019re passionate about,\u201d she told the Sun Journal<\/em>. \u201cIt\u2019s much easier to embrace your cleft when you can accept it as a part of who you are, but it takes support, community and time to get there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Associate Professor of Psychology Michael Sargent explored racial differences in the controversy behind the prospect of universities paying college athletes in a recently published article in Cultural Diversity & Ethnic Minority Psychology. <\/em>Opinions on this topic, he writes, often differ according to the race of the person holding the opinion, with \u201cBlack respondents expressing more support than White respondents do for \u2018pay for play.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n His research looked at the measure of how strongly respondents to a survey about the issue identified with their racial ingroup. \u201cThe dimension of interest in this work was self-investment<\/em>, the extent to which a person feels solidarity with other ingroup members, takes satisfaction in their group membership, and reports the group membership as being central to their sense of self.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In July, the Mathematical Association of America announced that Professor Adriana Salerno is one of three 2023 recipients of the Deborah and Franklin Tepper Haimo Awards, which recognize \u201cextraordinarily successful\u201d professors \u201cwhose teaching effectiveness has been shown to have an influence beyond their own institutions.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n Salerno, the citation said, is \u201can exemplary mathematician and educator, who cares deeply about her students and who invests a lot of time and energy creating a welcoming atmosphere in her classes so her students can thrive. She has shown her ability to lead inside her institution and at the national and international level. Dr. Salerno has worked to create a more inclusive environment for the mathematics community. Dr. Salerno connects with her students, they trust her and are not afraid to speak up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Expressing gratitude for the award, Salerno cited her Bates community. \u201cI have many people to thank, but I especially want to recognize Bates College colleagues and students for being my co-creators and collaborators in all my teaching.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n After 11 years as head pastor of Saugatuck Congregational Church in Connecticut, Alison Patton \u201992 joined the First Congregational Church-United Church of Christ in South Portland, Maine, in July, as a senior pastor. She spoke with Gretchen Webster for an article in the Westport<\/em> (Conn.) Journal<\/em> about her time as head pastor and a member of the Westport community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n During her time in Westport, Patton was the co-chair of the Westport-Weston Interfaith Clergy Council, and a member of TEAM Westport, the town\u2019s multi-cultural advocacy committee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Patton told Webster her aim was to create a \u201cjoyful and inclusive community.\u201d Community members said she’d achieved that. \u201cShe has a way of bringing people together by finding ways to create a collective voice that celebrates connection among diverse groups,\u201d said Elaine Daignault, director of the town\u2019s Department of Human Services. \u201cReverend Patton has been a tremendous asset to the Westport community.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lauren Tempest \u201908 was named the new general manager of the streaming service Hulu, after serving as Hulu\u2019s senior vice president of content partnerships, acquisitions and scheduling since May 2022. She takes over from Joe Earley, formerly Hulu\u2019s president and now president of direct-to-consumer, Disney Entertainment.<\/p>\n\n\n Tempest, who is based in Los Angeles, joined Hulu in 2015. In a recent article for Variety<\/em>, Todd Spangler wrote about the change of hands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In her previous role, Tempest helped to acquire top titles, including critically acclaimed \u201cSchitt\u2019s Creek,\u201d and helped launch hit shows like \u201cThe Bear\u201d and \u201cPrey.\u201d In 2019, she sat on the Bates Film Festival\u2019s professional advisory board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI have had the privilege of working with some of the most dedicated and passionate people during my time at Hulu,\u201d Tempest told Variety<\/em>, \u201cand I am excited to help lead and accelerate Hulu\u2019s vision and strategy, particularly during such a major inflection point in the streaming industry.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n As author of Barbie\u2019s Queer Accessories<\/em>, published in 1995, <\/em>Erica Rand, a professor of art and visual culture and gender and sexuality studies, found herself in demand as an expert on all things Barbie during the release and smashing success of writer\/director Greta Gerwig\u2019s Barbie<\/em> movie. <\/p>\n\n\n Rand fielded calls from NBC News<\/em>, Rolling Stone<\/em> and Into<\/em> magazine, among others, and shared her expertise with Bates News<\/a> for a story about the cinematic phenomenon. <\/p>\n\n\n\n She talked to NBC<\/em> about the phenomenon of gay window advertising, the situation when a reference directed at queer audiences would likely go unnoticed by those who might disapprove.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI think of this with the trailer, not so much with Ken being played as campy and queer, or even the overall campy vibe, but in terms of the lesbian in-joke of Barbie singing along to \u2018Closer to Fine\u2019 while she\u2019s driving along in her Barbie convertible,\u201d Rand said. \u201cAll this queer fantasizing can be generated in the space where few have seen the film.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n She added, \u201cWhatever Mattel is doing in the interest of marketing, it\u2019s not marketing lesbian Barbie or queer Ken, straight out.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Read more:<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Portland Press Herald<\/em> featured a new poem by Assistant Professor of English Myronn Hardy, \u201cAchilles Among Azaleas.\u201d Writer Megan Grumbling, also a poet, described how \u201clucently this poem conjures a layered, liminal space between rain and clearing, gray and gold, a present and a past and a desire.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Hardy, who lived for years in Morocco, has a new book coming out in October, Aurora Americana<\/em>, which his publisher, Princeton University Press, described as reflections \u201con exile and return as [Hardy] describes the experience of leaving North Africa and rediscovering a North America both recognizable and unrecognizable.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Newly retired Art & Visual Culture Professor Edward Harwood was an expert source in a Smithsonian Magazine<\/em> piece on an 18th and early 19th century trend in English gardens: the ornamental hermit \u201ccraze.\u201d The era, which began in about 1727, represented a move away from aligned and highly pruned gardens into untamed ones, filled with elements such as caves, mountains, aviaries, and menageries. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBut the hermitage, a secluded retreat for a real or imagined hermit that could look like anything from a grotto to a treehouse, eclipsed them all,\u201d according to Smithsonian<\/em>. \u201cBy 1750, if you only put in one structure in your garden, it would have been a hermitage,\u201d Harwood told Smithsonian<\/em>, which went on to detail how aristocrats actually hired people to impersonate hermits. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In a story that looked at how and why the tenure process is evolving, Nature<\/em> spoke to Dean of the Faculty Malcolm Hill about the way Bates responded to how faculty experiences are changing by broadening tenure criteria in 2021. Bates is expanding that criteria \u201cbeyond requiring peer-reviewed journal papers to also include contributions such as work with professional associations, efforts to remove barriers of oppression in the university, and community-based research,\u201d Hill said. The intention is to make the process more fair. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWriting a paper that\u2019s cited by four or five people is important,\u201d Hill told Nature<\/em>. \u201cBut with climate change, poverty, racism, our faculty are coming in and saying, \u2018I want my scholarship to also have relevance to real-world problems.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Charles A. Dana Professor of Earth and Climate Sciences Beverly Johnson, co-author of a groundbreaking new Environmental Protection Agency report, was interviewed by the Portland Press Herald<\/em> and Maine Public<\/em> about the research she and her students have done<\/a> in Maine to assess the health and size of the vital carbon reservoirs in salt marshes and sea grasses, known as blue carbon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A healthy marsh is one of the most effective carbon sinks on the planet, Johnson told the Press Herald<\/em>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSalt marshes are such beautiful, special places, but we are losing them fast,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cDevelopment, runoff, and now sea level rise, they\u2019re the reason why we\u2019ve lost half of the seagrass habitat over the last century. We have to act fast if we want to save them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Maine has at least 54,000 acres of these so-called blue carbon<\/a> reservoirs: salt marsh, eelgrass beds, and even phragmites that store at least 1.7 million tons of carbon in the soil and vegetation \u2014 equal to the annual carbon emissions of 1.25 million passenger cars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Maine projections are part of a new first-of-its-kind inventory of New England\u2019s coastal blue carbon reservoirs from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Besides co-writing the report, Johnson, working with her Bates students<\/a>, provided most of the Maine samples.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Read more:<\/p>\n\n\n\n When Jacob Cash \u201910 and his wife, April, moved back to Maine from New York in 2020, they weren\u2019t exactly planning on building a new home from scratch. The Advertiser Democrat<\/em>\u2019s Nicole Carter wrote about how his hobby of milling timber turned into a dream: to build a house, with a timber frame made from self-milled pine logs Cash sourced from around the state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt all just evolved,\u201d said Cash. \u201cI fell into it one step at a time and I became fascinated about shaping logs (into a home).\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Reconnecting with childhood friend and timber framer, Matt Burke, Cash got hooked into timber milling and bought his own portable sawmill. Two years later, the foundation was poured, and with the help of friends and family \u2014 and a crane \u2014 Cash held an old-fashioned timber frame raising on a mountaintop house lot in Harrison, Maine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nMichael Somkuti ’19: Creating gaming communities \u2014 Philadelphia Gay News<\/em><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2023\/08\/Somkuti_LFG-Philly-720x900.webp\")
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\n\n\n\nTyler Harper: ‘Anti-racists are overcorrecting’ \u2014 The Atlantic<\/em><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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\n\n\n\nH. Sawin Millett ’59 <\/h3>\n\n\n\n
After fifty years, Sawin Millett is still a leader in Maine Legislature \u2014 News Center Maine<\/em><\/h5>\n\n\n\n
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\n\n\n\nMcKayla Kendall ’26<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Face Time: McKayla Kendall helps empower others with cleft lips after learning to accept her own \u2014 Lewiston Sun Journal<\/em><\/h5>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2023\/08\/mckayla-kendall_smile-train-601x900.webp\")
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\n\n\n\nMichael Sargent, psychology faculty<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Racial ingroup identification can predict attitudes toward paying college athletes \u2014 American Psychological Association<\/em><\/h5>\n\n\n\n
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\n\n\n\nAdriana Salerno, mathematics faculty<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
MAA Honors the three recipients of the Deborah and Franklin Tepper Haimo Awards \u2014 Mathematical Association of America<\/em><\/h5>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2015\/08\/150827_Adriana_Salerno_0043-copy-643x900.jpg\")
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\n\n\n\nRev. Alison (Buttrick) Patton ’92 <\/h3>\n\n\n\n
For Rev. Alison Patton, community is a matter of faith \u2014 the Westport Journal<\/em><\/h5>\n\n\n\n
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\n\n\n\nLauren Tempest ’08<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Hulu promotes Lauren Tempest to general manager, overseeing overall business strategy \u2014 Variety<\/em><\/h5>\n\n\n\n
![\"Lauren](\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2023\/08\/Lauren-Tempest_hulu-edited.webp\")
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\n\n\n\nErica Rand, gender and sexuality studies faculty<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
A Barbie expert\u2019s take on Barbie <\/em>the <\/em>movie <\/h5>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2023\/08\/61QaueUjhkL._AC_UF10001000_QL80_-600x900.webp\")
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\n\n\n\nMyronn Hardy, English faculty<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Deep Water: \u2018Achilles Among Azaleas,\u2019 by Myronn Hardy \u2014 Portland Press Herald<\/em><\/h5>\n\n\n\n
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\n\n\n\nEdward Harwood, faculty emeriti<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Ornamental hermits were 18th-century England\u2019s must-have garden accessory \u2014 Smithsonian Magazine<\/em><\/h5>\n\n\n\n
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\n\n\n\nMalcolm Hill, Dean of the Faculty<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Is it time for tenure to evolve? \u2014 Nature<\/em><\/h5>\n\n\n\n
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\n\n\n\nBeverly Johnson, earth and climate sciences faculty <\/h3>\n\n\n\n
New report on Maine’s blue carbon reservoirs<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
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\n\n\n\nJacob Cash ’10<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The house that Cash (and friends) built \u2014Advertiser Democrat<\/em><\/h5>\n\n\n\n