{"id":19140,"date":"2006-05-04T00:00:42","date_gmt":"2006-05-04T05:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/home.bates.edu\/?p=19140"},"modified":"2019-07-02T16:21:37","modified_gmt":"2019-07-02T20:21:37","slug":"ivy-stone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2006\/05\/04\/ivy-stone\/","title":{"rendered":"The Class of 1975 joins the ivy stone tradition"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\n\t
\n\t\t
\n\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
\n\t\t\t
<\/div>\n\t\t\t
<\/div>\n\t\t\t
<\/div>\n\t\t\t
\t
\n\t\t\"1975\n\t\t

And after 30 years, the Class of 1975 takes its place in a Bates tradition dating back to the 1800s.<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t

<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\t
\n\t\t\"1975\n\t\t

The mason removes the protective masking tape and smooths the mortar.<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t

<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\t
\n\t\t\"1975\n\t\t

Chouinard checks the alignment. \"I'm very particular,\" he says.<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t

<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\t
\n\t\t\"1975\n\t\t

The stone is on Dana Chemistry Hall, facing Hathorn Hall.<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t

<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\t
\n\t\t\"1975\n\t\t

The fingers of a working man.<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t

<\/div>\n\t<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n

\"1975<\/a><\/p>\n

Better late than never.<\/p>\n

Thirty-one years ago, the Class of 1975 graduated from Bates without giving an ivy stone to the College. The\u00a0Class of ’74, too,\u00a0had left Bates without partaking of a tradition going back\u00a0a century.<\/a><\/p>\n

Why?\u00a0By\u00a0the late 1960s, Ivy Day\u00a0had devolved (or evolved,\u00a0from a student perspective) into a raucous student-only gathering in the Chapel featuring savage wit and satire.\u00a0Call it a compressed version of Mayoralty, the ’50s student megablast, or a Bates version of the Dean Martin roast of a few years hence.<\/p>\n

And the tone was, given the era, anti-establishment.<\/p>\n

In this new ivy iteration, the junior class presented the show. In April 1969, future film and stage star John Shea ’70 orated a wicked three-part ode, delivering a pointed three-pronged jab at Bates social rules that had greeted the sexual revolution with neither a wink or a nudge.<\/p>\n

Here’s a sample: “These wonderful guardians of virtue reach atop the hill of Muse, to do their deed, kill the seed, to quell our need…. Parentis personifae<\/em>…give us rest from thy thorny oppression!”<\/p>\n

Subsequent\u00a0editions upped the\u00a0ribald quotient,\u00a0and,\u00a0not surprisingly,\u00a0Ivy Day eventually went on hiatus. The linked tradition of\u00a0installing a class ivy stone limped along\u00a0with little fanfare, and even that tradition skipped two years, 1974 and 1975.<\/p>\n

The ivy\u00a0concept\u00a0was later resurrected\u00a0and thrives today in the form of\u00a0a conclusion to a\u00a0sober and spiritual\u00a0Baccalaureate ceremony, in which the class plants\u00a0an\u00a0ivy and\u00a0unveils its stone.<\/p>\n

But ’75 never forgot, and in 2005 the class celebrated its 30th Reunion by giving an ivy stone to the College. Designed by Diane Kounkoulas Peterson ’75, the stone arrived over the winter and\u00a0on May 4, 2006, Bates head mason Wilfred Chouinard installed the plaque.<\/a><\/p>\n

Chouinard, a third-generation mason\u00a0of French Canadian heritage,\u00a0has installed ivy stones since arriving at Bates in the 1986. “I’m very particular,” he said,\u00a0shimming the stone and checking it with a level before applying more mortar.<\/p>\n

Besides the annual stone installation, Chouinard’s favorite projects\u00a0include the\u00a0elegant brickwork in\u00a0front of Lane Hall, plus projects for\u00a0Lindholm House and, for his first Bates job, the entryways to Smith Hall. Like any skilled tradesman, his eye catches campus details that elude others. “Ever notice that the mortar on Coram used to be black and red?” he asked me.\u00a0“Now it’s all gray.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thirty-one years ago, the Class of 1975 graduated from Bates without giving an ivy stone to the College. But ’75 never forgot, and in 2005 the class celebrated its 30th Reunion by giving an ivy stone to the College. Designed by Diane Kounkoulas Peterson ’75, the stone arrived over the winter and on May 4, 2006, Bates head mason Wilfred Chouinard installed the plaque.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":148,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_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":[7],"tags":[73,79,4506],"class_list":["post-19140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alumni","tag-1900s","tag-1970s","tag-ivy-stone"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19140","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=19140"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19140\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":125687,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19140\/revisions\/125687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}