{"id":168676,"date":"2025-04-25T11:59:55","date_gmt":"2025-04-25T15:59:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/?p=168676"},"modified":"2025-05-13T10:18:57","modified_gmt":"2025-05-13T14:18:57","slug":"bates-faculty-in-the-news-april-25-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2025\/04\/25\/bates-faculty-in-the-news-april-25-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Bates Faculty in the News: April 25, 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A selection of recent mentions of Bates faculty in the news, including glowing coverage of an exhibition at the college’s Immersive Media Studio plus faculty commentaries on the importance of rural education, the expanding implications of AI in education, how homelessness impairs people’s sense of autonomy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Bates IMStudio<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Chronicle of a Fall\u2019 showcases Bates College\u2019s Immersive Media Studio \u2014 Portland Press Herald<\/em><\/h5>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n

A recent Portland Press Herald<\/em> story highlights the new Immersive Media Studio at Bates<\/a>, a flexible, high-tech space in Coram Library designed for multimedia installations that integrate video, sound, light, and interactive technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Mimi Bois ’27 (left) of Provincetown, Mass., and Maura Ferrigno ’25 of New Providence, N.J., experiencing the immersive media installation Chronicle of a Fall <\/em>at the Bates <\/em>IMStudio. (Photograph by Daryn Slover \/ Portland Press Herald)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The story describes how the immersive video project Chronicle of a Fall,<\/em> by artists Nadav Assor and Tirtza Even \u2014 on view at the IMStudio through May 2<\/a> \u2014 helped to inspire the studio\u2019s creation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reported by Megan Gray, the Press Herald<\/em> story describes how Chronicle of a Fall<\/em> successfully reflects the potential for magic and meaning making in the new IMStudio. The project depicts the layered sensory experiences of immigrant workers in the U.S. cultural sector using pointillized projections, bodycam footage, and surround sound.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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View the installation trailer for Chronicle of a Fall<\/em>:<\/p>\n\n\n

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Even emphasized the rarity of spaces equipped to properly present immersive video work to the Press Herald.<\/em> \u201cThis studio doesn\u2019t exist, pretty much, in many places,\u201d Even said. Carolina Gonz\u00e1lez Valencia, an associate professor of art and visual culture who is also a filmmaker, added that “it\u2019s not just about having the technology, but why.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coram Library and the IMStudio “sit at the very heart of the Bates campus,” Gray noted in her story, adding that “the choice of location was deliberate.” The faculty-led Bates Arts Collaborative, which helped design the studio, “wants this space to be used across disciplines.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe want it to feel like it could belong to anyone,\u201d said Assistant Professor of Music Asha Tamirisa, who along with Gonz\u00e1lez Valencia is part of the arts collaborative. \u201cAnyone could work there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Mara Tieken<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Commentary: Rural school closures \u2014 punishment for crimes never committed \u2014 The Daily Yonder<\/em><\/h5>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n

In addition to her recent op-ed in the Portland Press Herald<\/em> offering a stirring and evidence-driven defense of the Department of Education<\/a>, Associate Professor of Education Mara Tieken recently published a commentary about rural school closures<\/a> in The Daily Yonder<\/em>, a national news outlet dedicated to reporting on rural people and places.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tieken, who studies rural education and previously worked as a third grade teacher in rural Tennessee, explains how school closures and consolidations harm students and their communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEvery year, hundreds of thousands of children are displaced when their schools are permanently shuttered,\u201d Tieken writes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

School districts often anticipate that closing schools with low attendance rates or low grades will save money and improve educational opportunities, Tieken explains, and many states have laws requiring districts to shutter schools with consistently poor academic performances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, Tieken says, research does not support notions that school closures mitigate financial hardships and improve grades. Conversely, closures often lead to academic and behavioral problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cClosure is not an answer to budget shortfalls, academic underperformance, or educational inequality,\u201d Tieken writes. \u201cThere is no cheaper alternative; we cannot punish our way to excellence.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In her upcoming second book, Educated Out, Associate Professor of Education Mara Tieken turns her attention to rural students studying at elite higher education institutions. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As a rural education scholar, Tieken regularly fields requests for support from rural schools facing closure and maintains a website, Rural Schools Open, which offers resources for understanding and combating school closure. She also regularly writes about rural education; Tieken\u2019s second book, Educated Out<\/em>, is set to release in May and profiles nine first-generation, rural students attending an elite private college Tieken calls \u201cHilltop.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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Mara Tieken’s book Educated Out will be published in May by the University of Chicago Press.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

In the book, Tieken examines how the students\u2019 rural and often low-income backgrounds affect their experiences at the school. Some of these students, for example, reported being unable to access certain opportunities, such as unpaid internships and expensive extracurriculars, due to their financial situations. Students also mentioned feeling judged for their rural backgrounds at Hilltop, while simultaneously feeling like they no longer fit in with their home communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA lot of them felt kind of stuck in between: they don’t fully belong at Hilltop, they don’t fully belong at home,\u201d Tieken says. \u201cAnd for some of the students, it felt freeing. They got to make their own road, do their own thing. But I think it’s also really alienating and disorienting at times.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Earlier this month, Tieken also shared her expertise in a Portland Press Herald<\/em><\/a> op-ed about the impact that dismantling the Department of Education could have on Maine schools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

About 10 percent of Maine\u2019s education funds come from the federal government and support some of the most critical statewide programs. In 2024, Maine received $62 million in federal funding for Title I education supporting low-income students and $66 million for special education support. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnother important program is the department\u2019s Rural Education Achievement Program,\u201d Tieken writes. \u201cREAP helps offset the unique budgetary challenges that come with providing education in sparsely populated, remote places, and it is critical in a state like Maine, where more than two-thirds of schools are rural.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Additional federal funding supports Pell Grants for undergraduate students, vital research about public education, and early learning and adult education programs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAll of this work is threatened right now. These programs and grants make for strong schools, useful research and prepared graduates,\u201d Tieken writes. \u201cThey help produce teachers, doctors and business leaders and keep Maine on the cutting edge of educational and technological practice.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Carrie Diaz Eaton <\/h3>\n\n\n\n

AI: privacy and security \u2014 Maine Calling<\/em> on Maine Public<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Associate Professor of Digital and Computational Studies Carrie Diaz Eaton was part of a rich discussion about AI on Maine Calling<\/em>, Maine Public\u2019s weekday radio program<\/a>, earlier this month. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other panelists were Michael Donihue, interim director at Colby\u2019s Davis Institute for AI; Bowdoin\u2019s Fernando Nascimento, assistant professor, digital and computational studies; and Berkeley Almand-Hunter, technical director of partner products at the Roux Institute. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Host Jennifer Rooks wanted to know how Diaz Eaton\u2019s students at Bates relate (or don\u2019t) to AI. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat do 17-, 18-, 19-year-olds coming to Bates understand about AI and where are there gaps in knowledge that you’re really working on helping them to understand?\u201d Rooks asked. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Associate Professor of Digital and Computational Studies Carrie Diaz Eaton discussed artificial intelligence and her students’ perception of the changing technology on Maine Calling<\/em>, Maine Public\u2019s weekday radio program. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Diaz Eaton described three students she\u2019s got working for her now, helping her develop a new module for incoming students, a sort of AI literacy course.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd I have one that’s like, \u2018I’m so excited about this. We got to teach everybody how to do a prompt and get this information really well and how to use it and to be valuable in the workplace,\u2019\u201d Diaz Eaton said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI have another student that’s like, \u2018I really value my own thought process and what I bring to this as a human, and I just don’t feel comfortable using AI at all. I don’t trust it.\u2019\u201d Then there\u2019s the student who is focused on the ins and outs of the technological aspect of it all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo I feel like I’m always in this microcosm of really diverse opinions and preparedness from students,\u201d Diaz Eaton said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She also told listeners about her course, “Calling Bull: Data Literacy and Information Science,\u201d which she\u2019ll be teaching in the Fall. It\u2019s a course she teaches regularly,<\/a> but in recent years, discussion of AI has become a more substantive portion of that course. \u201cBecause you\u2019ve got misinformation being created at a scale, on purpose or not,\u201d Diaz Eaton told the audience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Paul Schofield<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

An autonomy worth having \u2014 Jacobin<\/em><\/h5>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n

For Jacobin<\/em>, Associate Professor of Philosophy Paul Schofield, whose research focuses on moral and political philosophy, wrote about the current homelessness crisis and the idea of \u2014 and historical perspective on \u2014 involuntary hospitalization<\/a>, which is once again being offered as a solution in some quarters after being roundly rejected by both the left and the right 40 years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Schofield describes the political alignments for and against it and then advocates for what he calls a \u201cdeeper autonomy, a kind of autonomy worth having,\u201d outlining a new middle ground.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Associate
Associate Professor of Philosophy Paul Schofield published an analysis looking at the current homelessness crisis and the idea of involuntary hospitalization.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

He uses the case of a homeless woman named Joyce Brown who was forcibly hospitalized in 1987 by the city of New York and successfully challenged the city\u2019s right to detain her with the help of the New York Civil Liberties Union to demonstrate how involuntary hospitalization is not a solution. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Schofield then also examines two cases of homeless women in the Northwest, one who froze to death and another who gave birth on the street to a baby who quickly died of hypothermia, to illustrate how autonomy is more complex than people on either end of the political spectrum might admit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese are cases in which people are straightforwardly prevented by their sickness and circumstances from being able to weigh values, to fully understand the implications of their actions, and to act in ways that accord with what they care about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“In other words, they are cases in which their mental illness and material circumstances undermine their autonomy. Leaving them alone might be a way to respect bare-bones libertarian freedom. But if it\u2019s meaningful autonomy we care about, it\u2019s entirely insufficient.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This area of moral philosophy is one Schofield has been examining to great success. He was recently honored by the American Philosophical Association for an op-ed he published in The Conversation <\/em>about how \u201chomelessness compromises a person\u2019s freedom<\/a>.\u201d He was one of five winners of the association\u2019s Public Philosophy Op-Ed Contest, which recognizes standout pieces that \u201csuccessfully blend philosophical argumentation with an op-ed writing style.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A selection of recent mentions of Bates faculty in the news including a glowing review of a exhibition at the college’ Immersive Media Studio, and faculty commentaries on the importance of rural education, the expanding implications of AI in education, how homelessness impairs people’s sense of autonomy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":148,"featured_media":168753,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":["carolina-gonzalez-valencia","mara-c-tieken","asha-k-tamirisa","carrie-diaz-eaton","paul-e-schofield"],"_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":[4],"tags":[11051,12362],"class_list":["post-168676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-life","tag-bates-in-the-news","tag-faculty-in-the-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/148"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168676"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168676\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":168946,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168676\/revisions\/168946"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}