{"id":173574,"date":"2026-06-18T04:10:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T08:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/?p=173574"},"modified":"2026-06-18T14:36:23","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T18:36:23","slug":"in-the-news-in-may-and-june-faculty-staff-and-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2026\/06\/18\/in-the-news-in-may-and-june-faculty-staff-and-students\/","title":{"rendered":"In the News this spring: Faculty, staff, and students\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Media love for the upcoming Bates Dance Festival from The Boston Globe, Portland Press Herald<\/em>, and WBUR <\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

From July 10 through 31, campus will be buzzing with activity from the Bates Dance Festival \u2014 a yearly dance experience that offers dance training and performances from renowned artists and draws audiences from Maine and beyond. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In May, the Portland<\/em> Press Herald <\/em>described the Bates Dance Festival<\/a> as a \u201cnot-to-miss\u201d cultural event happening in Maine this summer. Also that month, The Boston Globe<\/em> featured BDF on their list of 80 fun concerts, festivals, shows, and more to check out around Boston this summer<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then in June, WBUR sang BDF\u2019s praises \u2014 \u201cbracing for a bold program\u201d \u2014 in a piece headlined 9 dance events to attend this summer<\/a>. They highlighted \u201cThe Marthaodyssey,\u201d which former Martha Graham Dance Company member Jesse Factor will present on the Schaeffer Theatre stage. The mishmash of drag performance and Graham technique imagines what might have happened if Graham had choreographed Madonna\u2019s 1990 Blond Ambition<\/em> tour. \u201cA trip to Maine may be in order for those who enjoy contemporary dance,\u201d writes WBUR\u2019s Shira Laucharoen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

_____________________________________________<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Members of the Bates College Youth Community Action and Transformation Lab urge adults to talk politics with young people in the <\/strong>Portland Press Herald<\/em><\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Nathaniel Zuckerberg \u201926 and Linnaea Herring, a senior at Yarmouth High School, authored a piece for the Portland Press Herald<\/em> advocating for the engagement of political dialogue with young people.<\/a> Both Herring and Zuckerberg are members of the Youth Community Action and Transformation Lab led by Bates Assistant Professor of Psychology Elena Maker Castro. This lab conducts research for the Can We? Project \u2014 an initiative that provides Maine high schoolers with the communication tools needed to participate as engaged citizens in a democracy. Zuckerberg and Herring \u201cask every adult with a young person in their life to start that political conversation you may have avoided\u201d because they have found that teenagers are \u201cready and eager to practice dialogue.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

_______________________________________________<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bates Film Festival covered by <\/strong>News Center Maine<\/em><\/strong>, WGME<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

News Center Maine<\/em> interviewed Bates Professor of Rhetoric, Film, and Screen Studies Jon Cavallero<\/a> and students Shelter Gimbel-Sherr \u201927 of Seattle and Nate Shore \u201927 of Kennebunkport, Maine, about the 2026 Bates Film Festival. The festival, which ran from May 12 to 17 and was entirely organized by Bates students, featured over 45 films as well as panels of filmmakers, professors, and students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gimbel-Sherr and Shore highlighted how the festival has a special interest in promoting work from filmmakers and actors from Maine, including a Maine filmmakers panel that featured distinguished guests such as screenwriter Desi Van Til, and actors Dustin Tucker, Matthew Delamater, and Xander Berkeley. Shore talked about focusing on bringing together student filmmakers from Maine schools such as Southern Maine Community College, Colby College, and Bates College. He said, \u201cit should make a really great collaboration between the colleges.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On WGME, students Samantha Manogue \u201926 and Parker Huynh Benningfield \u201926 discussed<\/a> how the festival hopes to bring film to the larger Maine community. One way they do this is by making the festival completely free and open to the public. Manogue said that the festival board wants to \u201cmake film more accessible to all of our community members,\u201d and Benningfield added that accessibility is \u201cone of the driving factors in our mission.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

_______________________________________________<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education<\/em> covers appointment of Victoria Neason Wallace <\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

In a story headlined \u201cNew Appointments for Three Black Administrators in Higher Education\u201d<\/a>, The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education<\/em> features Victoria Neason Wallace, who was just named vice president for enrollment and dean of admission and financial aid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShe comes to her new role from Colby College in Waterville, Maine, where she has been serving as executive director of strategic initiatives within the Office of Admissions and Financial Aid,\u201d the paper writes. \u201cBefore Colby, Neason Wallace was senior assistant director for student volunteers in the Office of Undergraduate Admissions at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Neason Wallace will join Bates on July 1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

_______________________________________________<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Portland Press Herald<\/em> and Maine Public highlight Phyllis Graber Jensen\u2019s career retrospective at the Bates College Museum of Art<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Phyllis Graber Jensen \u2014 director of photography and video for the college \u2014 is the subject of a career retrospective on display at the Bates College Museum of Art from June 12 to Sept. 19 called Phyllis Graber Jensen: Picture Stories<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Portland Press Herald<\/em> highlighted this exhibit among others<\/a> on display at Maine art museums this summer. This retrospective features photos from throughout Jensen\u2019s career, and the Herald <\/em>notes that \u201cthroughout, what emerges is her commitment to the medium as a critical mode of communication and historical preservation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maine Public\u2019s State of the Art <\/em>featured Graber Jensen in a show that aired on June 7<\/a>. Titled \u201cPicture Stories,\u201d host Heather McDougall leads Graber Jensen through a 28-minute interview about her life (including her groundbreaking advocacy for women in sport as a teenager) and her career. McDougall asked about Graber Jensen\u2019s transition in 1995 from a hard news environment in Boston, working for the Boston Herald<\/em> and shooting breaking news and icons such as Leonard Bernstein, to communications and marketing work at Bates in 1995: \u201cWas it something you were seeking out or did it just sort of happen and then you just leaned into it?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was skeptical that I could make the transition from being a journalist to being a marketing photographer,\u201d Graber Jensen said. \u201cBut in the end I think the people that I work with, some of whom had journalism backgrounds, and the place that Bates is, allowed us to realize that we’re not journalists, but we use the tools of journalism in terms of storytelling. And I think that’s where the exhibition title came from in terms of \u2018Picture Stories.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I also believe that Bates understood the value of using images to tell the story of Bates. And at one point I worked with a colleague who was also a talented photographer, Mark Glass. And so we were producing a lot of photography and that became part of the storytelling tradition and we had an editorial director who was very supportive \u2014 Jay Burns \u2014 of visual storytelling. It became easier and easier for me to be who I was and pursue my interests and way of telling the story.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

_______________________________________________<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Commencement in the Sun Journal<\/em>: Regalia and reveling<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

In a picture story in Lewiston\u2019s Sun Journal<\/em><\/a>, photographer Russ Dillingham captured moments of joy, hilarity, bystanders playing hacky sack, and the classic moment of \u201ccheck the mirror\u201d before walking across the stage at Coram to receive a diploma. Not to mention speakers Sebenele G. Lukhele \u201926 and bestselling author and honorand Deborah E. Harkness. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

_______________________________________________<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mara Tieken talks about the challenges faced by rural students once they land at elite colleges, to Inside Higher Education<\/em><\/strong> and<\/strong> Education Week<\/em>.<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

In an article, headlined “Rural Students Made It to Campus. Now What?<\/a>,” Inside Higher Education <\/em>Editor-in-Chief Sara Custer draws on Professor of Education Mara Tieken\u2019s work as inspiration for an opinion piece.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Custer references a conversation Tieken had on IHE\u2019s podcast The Key<\/em> throughout her piece, including the way Tieken advocates for colleges to rethink how they support rural students once they arrive on campuses far from their homes, not just in terms of miles, but in cultural markers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tieken argues that colleges need a vocabulary around the rural experience, not unlike the way they approach the influence of race and class on students\u2019 access and experience of higher ed. \u201cWe don\u2019t have that vocabulary for how geography matters,\u201d Tieken told The Key<\/em> on  \u201cThe Hidden Challenges Rural Students Face, With Mara Tieken.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through her research, Tieken also found that identifying as rural can help students see the benefits of their background that may be hidden by negative stereotypes about rural communities in pop culture and the media. \u201cWhether or not it\u2019s a part of your identity, you\u2019re still facing the same barriers that are tied to those identity markers. And so, if you don\u2019t see it as such you internalize it [and think], \u2018It\u2019s about me. It\u2019s my fault. I\u2019m not right. I\u2019m just not good enough,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cThey need to hear these messages where their rurality is actually celebrated and they can see how it is an asset in their life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tieken was also quoted in a June 11 story in Education Week<\/em> headlined \u201cClosing a School? Don\u2019t Expect to Save Money, a New Study Warns.\u201d<\/a> Tieken is an expert on the pitfalls of school closures, which are often perceived as a way to save money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe assumption is just so baked into the logic of closure decisions that it\u2019s assumed closures will save money, so it can be really hard for leaders to combat that thinking,\u201d Tieken told Education Week<\/em>. \u201cThis is a really important piece of evidence as districts navigate these conversations and decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Faculty, staff and students in the news during Spring 2026. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1283,"featured_media":173613,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":["mara-c-tieken","jonathan-j-cavallero","elena-g-maker-castro"],"_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":[4,1,14],"tags":[1363,11051,6889],"class_list":["post-173574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-life","category-batesnews","category-faculty-staff","tag-bates-college-museum-of-art","tag-bates-in-the-news","tag-performing-and-visual-arts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173574","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\/1283"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173574"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173574\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":173589,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173574\/revisions\/173589"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}