![\"Interviewer](\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2013\/04\/130211-Albertine-006.jpg\")
<\/a>Interviewer Hannah Albertine ’16 of Philadelphia is a writer for the Bates Communications Office.<\/p><\/div>\n
Like all impending (and intimidating) tasks, senior thesis sits in my mind as a project that will never actually be mine to take on.<\/p>\n
But when I met with Taryn O\u2019Connell ’13 in the Bobcat Den, I found myself staring directly at the very thing that had appeared so theoretical and scary to me: a big, black three-ring binder.<\/p>\n
Once I was able to catch my breath again after the initial shock, Taryn and I bonded over our mutual love of basketball. Taryn was a driving force on the Bates women\u2019s basketball team all four years.<\/p>\n
She recalled for me how strange it was to complete her final game as a college basketball player, and how the ending of her athletic career oddly paralleled her thesis experience.<\/p>\n
<\/a>For her senior thesis in environmental studies, Taryn O\u2019Connell ’13 investigated a debate about Androscoggin River pollution that took place in Lewiston in the 1950s. Photograph by Hank Schless ’13.<\/p><\/div>\n
She researched a debate about Androscoggin River pollution that took place in Lewiston in the 1950s. Her thesis is titled “Place, Class and Culture: A Case Study of Pollution Debates in Lewiston, Maine, 1953-1955.”<\/p>\n
I hear that seniors are told to practice their thesis elevator speech. What’s yours?<\/strong><\/p>\n My thesis is about the pollution debate between a group called the Associated Industries of Maine, which was made up of the industry heads of the paper and textile companies, and a group called the Citizens for Conservation and Pollution Control.<\/p>\n I got statements from newspaper articles and used primary sources like interviews and pamphlets. I\u2019m trying to see how these groups tried to expand their collective identity in Lewiston using place and class to reach different social classes in Lewiston.<\/p>\n What was the inspiration for your idea?<\/strong><\/p>\n My junior year I took a class called \u201cU.S. Environmental History\u201d with Professor Joe Hall that really shaped my thesis.<\/p>\n I realized that everything is right here.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n We did a project in the Muskie Archives and learned about Walter Lawrance, who was a Bates chemistry professor and the court-appointed “river master” for the Androscoggin.<\/p>\n There was a lot of information about the samples and testing they used to do, and I sat there and thought about how the river used to smell like rotten eggs. I realized that everything is right here. I wanted to learn about our community, and the thesis really pulled in my history buff side with my interest in social movements.<\/p>\n