![\"Chester](\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2013\/03\/A2-rock-climber.jpg\")
<\/a>Chester Chiao ’13 trains on the rock wall in Merill Gymnasium Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College<\/p><\/div>\n
What are you doing in this picture?<\/strong> Why do you climb?<\/strong> How does climbing fit into your Bates life?<\/strong> Does your style differ from other Bates climbers?<\/strong> Why climb shirtless?<\/strong> This bespoke investment piece earned top honors at the 2012 Trashion Show. And why not? Model Annie Cravero \u201913 of Hanover, N.H., rocks a skirt fashioned from thrifted plastic bags (similar in quality to that four-season Maine fabric, the blue tarp), bags that last fall hauled AESOP trail mix. The leaf-bag bodice is studded with tabs and caps donated by students. As one alumna noted on Facebook, \u201cI would so wear that bottle cap number.\u201d So chica.<\/p>\n Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College<\/p><\/div>\n Though optional, 51 percent of last year\u2019s incoming freshmen submitted SAT scores.<\/p>\n About 10 percent of Bates graduates go directly to graduate school.<\/p>\n The Green Bikes program maintains 20-plus bikes for student use.<\/p>\n Bates students coordinate more than 100 organizations and clubs on campus.<\/p>\n Admission deans now read student applications online rather than in hard copy.<\/p>\n \u201cI am taking a vow of silence in protest of a recent hate speech incident,\u201d the sign read. \u201cStop hate speech at Bates.\u201d<\/p>\n Wearing that sign and letting it speak for him for 12 hours on Nov. 1 was Phillip Dube \u201916 of Norton, Zimbabwe. In one of the more effective acts of protest on a campus that has seen its share, Dube undertook his public vow of silence in response to a racial slur directed at him.<\/p>\n The encounter was \u201cnot consistent with what I thought about Bates.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Dube was hurt and shocked when, in his own dorm room, a fellow student used the slur against him during a social gathering. It was an encounter \u201cnot consistent with what I thought about Bates,\u201d he told The Bates Student<\/em>.<\/p>\n And he didn\u2019t just swallow it: Instead, he pressed silence into service as an eloquent comment about the poison of hateful language on campus. Campus reaction was widespread and sympathetic.<\/p>\n President Spencer praised him for parlaying a negative experience into a focus for reflection. Commons fell silent for a minute in his support. And geology professor Beverly Johnson, who teaches Dube in a course, devoted class time to a consciousness-raising exercise in which students were asked to recount their own experiences of hate speech, at Bates or elsewhere.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are 18 students in the class,\u201d Dube told the Student<\/em>, \u201cand everyone had something to say.\u201d \u2014 DLH<\/p>\n
\nI am training for endurance: keeping myself on the wall as long as possible.<\/p>\n
\nI ask myself that question when I am 500 feet above ground on a vertical rock face, freezing my butt off. Weirdly enough, I think climbing keeps me sane. Climbing helps me discover my limits, face my fears and overcome them. It also teaches me how to be both physically and mentally in check.<\/p>\n
\nMy buddies and I always look for adventures on the weekends \u2014 trying to get on multi-pitch climbs in North Conway, N.H., or pulling on hard sport climbs in Shagg Crag, about 15 miles east of Bethel, Maine.<\/p>\n
\nI am smaller than most climbers at Bates (and the rest of the world). I have to come up with different \u201cbeta,\u201d ways or sequences to do a certain climb, and be more dynamic to reach faraway holds.<\/p>\n
\nClimbing without a shirt is a big part of the bouldering culture. They say it makes you climb harder. Maybe that\u2019s true, or maybe they just want to show off their back muscles. I took my shirt off because it was really hot in the gym, and I didn\u2019t have another shirt to change into before dinner. Plus, I\u2019m too scrawny to show off anything.<\/p>\n
\nCapping It Off<\/h3>\n
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\nStudent Facts<\/h3>\n
\nHow You Talk<\/h3>\n
\nBates remembers Troy Pappas \u201916<\/h3>\n