Small Boat, in the Arctic, with John Abbott '87

This past summer, John Abbott '87 -- wilderness expert, alpinist, and ice-climber -- found himself aboard an authentic-replica Viking ship sailing through open waters along the Arctic Circle. And it's all due to a chance encounter at Bates ten years ago.

Abbott got involved with Viking 1000, as it's called, through writer/adventurer W. Hodding Carter IV, the project organizer. During his senior year at Bates, Abbott had shared an off-campus house with some friends, including a woman who later wed Carter (he's son of the journalist and former State Department spokesman Hodding Carter). Years later, a shared affinity for outdoor adventure led Abbott and Carter to discuss Carter's vision: to sail a Viking ship along the nineteen-hundred-mile Viking trade route from Greenland to Newfoundland. Abbott, though no sailor himself, eventually signed on as the twelve-member crew's survival expert.

By last spring, the proposed voyage -- which has been sponsored by clothier and outfitter Lands' End -- was gaining considerable national press attention. CBS News trekked to Hermit Island, where the boat was being built, for a feature that was televised on the network's CBS Sunday Morning program. A web site (www.viking1000.org) was launched, offering photos, essays, and crew biographies.

Abbott has a favorite saying: "A ship in harbor is safe, but that's not what ships are built for." He decided to make good on his maxim and reconcile with a recurring nightmare by embarking on the eight-week historic journey.

"A lot of my outdoor activities have been about confronting my own fears," said Abbott, who has made several winter traverses of New Hampshire's Mount Washington, home of the world's highest recorded winds where scores of unwary climbers have perished. "I often have this dream that I'm alone and adrift at sea. I hope this trip will help me come to terms with that and it will be an empowering experience."

After being christened the Snorri (after the first Viking child born in the New World) at a gala May ceremony at the Maine Maritime Museum in Bath, the crew sailed the boat to Boston, where it was hauled via container ship to Brattahlid, Greenland. As of this magazine's mid-July editorial deadline, the boat -- called a knarr (kuh-NAHR), an exact replica of Leif Ericsson's vessel -- was being put to sea and was expected to make landfall at L'Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland, by September 1.

Although half the crew brought some sailing experience to the voyage, Abbott says most of their experience involved sailing in more temperate climes, such as off the coast of Massachusetts or in the Caribbean. Abbott, a former Outward Bound instructor who is outdoor programs specialist at the University of Vermont, hasn't sailed much, but he's "pretty good at roughing out miserable weather, like minus-seventy-five degrees while ice climbing on Mount Katahdin." As the wilderness expert on the first knarr to retrace Leif Ericsson's route to Newfoundland in almost a thousand years, he is responsible for recommending changes in equipment, clothing, and the crew's caloric intake based on weather conditions.

Despite the early-summer launch, this was to be no cruise to Margaritaville: water temperatures near the Arctic Circle in July and August can dip to below freezing, and a person overboard without proper gear could succumb to hypothermia in ten minutes. While the air temperature in southern Greenland and Newfoundland might regularly top fifty degrees in July, the relentless Arctic wind along the route makes the damp sea air much colder, especially since the knarr has an open deck without head or galley.

To ensure survival, if not comfort, Abbott recommended outfitting the crew with expedition-weight Polypropylene underwear, polarfleece, and special one-piece waterproof and breathable suits with safety-line and life-jacket harnesses for extreme conditions. The crew also will have available three-quarter-inch-thick neoprene immersion suits. "They're supposed to keep you alive in the water for up to two days," he said, adding wryly, "if you have the presence of mind to put one on before disaster strikes."

For navigation, the crew carried a single side-band radio and a hand-held global positioning system (GPS), but Abbott said they intended to navigate by the stars and skies to maintain the integrity of a true Viking voyage. "We'd have to be facing a life-threatening situation and do some real soul searching before using them," he said.

Class of 2001: A Bates Odyssey

Featuring students from thirty-five states and fourteen countries, the Class of 2001 numbered approximately 460 as of early summer. The figure was prior to the usual "summer melt" of around two or three dozen students that occurs before fall matriculation.

This manageable number, combined with the exit of the largest graduating class in Bates history last spring (472 members), means no repeat of last year's housing crunch on campus, which was exacerbated by the huge entering Class of 2000 (534 members).

Scholastically speaking, 36 percent of the Class of '01 ranked within the top 5 percent of their high school graduating class, the highest percentage since institutional data became available in 1981.

Other statistical tidbits on the Class of '01:

* Applications totaled 3,728, a drop of 3 percent from last year's record 3,847. (There's no grass-is-greener comparison here, as some peer NESCAC schools saw decreases of up to 11 percent.)

* Of the 1,252 admitted, Bates had a 38-percent "yield" -- the rate at which accepted students decide to matriculate. Though down slightly from last year's record 40 percent, the yield is still above what Bates has experienced in recent years.

* Applications from Maine students showed a 10-percent increase.

* Reflecting an emerging (and disturbing) national trend in numerical disparity between men and women at liberal-arts colleges -- as discussed in a recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education -- there are approximately 18 percent more women than men in the Bates Class of 2001 (271 women, 190 men).

* Fifty-six percent of the first-year students are from New England, consistent with recent years.

* Compared to the overall acceptance rate of 33 percent, 77 percent of legacy applicants (children of alumni) were accepted for admission, and half of those accepted chose to matriculate.

* Multicultural students make up 9 percent of the class.

* More than half of the Class of 2001 is receiving some form of financial aid.

As usual, the Bates recruitment program depended on both admissions professionals and volunteers in the Alumni-in-Admissions program.

Last season, 469 alumni interviewed a record 536 students. In addition, alumni and Bates parents played host to a dozen off-campus receptions for admitted students, including one in Hong Kong co-sponsored by Kim Ma, a former assistant dean of admissions at Bates, and Dwight Harvie '54, whose daughter, Ayako, is a Bates sophomore.

Brain Food: Bates Chef Honored as Maine's Best

When Bradford Slye was asked to describe the four mother sauces during a job interview, his response won him the top chef's position in the Bates kitchens.

"I had my doubts when Brad replied: `It would be very difficult to describe four sauces,'" said Bob Volpi, director of dining services. "Then, after a dramatic pause, Brad added: `Because there are actually five mother sauces: Espagnole (brown), bechamel (cream), tomato, velouté (thin white gravy), and hollandaise.' He then went on to dazzle us with his knowledge of each."

Slye has dazzled others with his skills, too. In June he was named Maine's Chef of the Year by the American Culinary Federation.

Slye, 44, is enthusiastic about feeding 1,500 Bates students three meals a day, seven days a week. He's been doing it at Bates for nearly four years.

He enjoys cooking with fresh herbs and barbecuing over an open wood fire, burning mesquite and apple wood whenever possible. And the friendly master food preparer doesn't mind sharing his technique:

"You have to have a good bed of coals," he said, for steak, chicken, and fish. "It's the coals, not the flames that make it good. Many people don't like blue fish. Too oily, they say. But -- with a marinade of white wine, garlic, and a little onion -- over the wood fire, it's great."

The easy-going executive chef is at home in the three kitchens of Chase Hall. He works with nine other chefs, whom he praises for their professionalism and teamwork.

"We have a good time working together," he said. "I've shown the chefs how I do things. We talk about the menu ahead of time and then go to work. I know it's cliché to say there are no precise recipes for what we cook, but it's true. There are things we do that defy definition. Cooking is half technical and half artistic. It's the artistic part that defies definition."

Miltos Vafiadis '97, who's from Greece, can testify to Slye's willingness to share cooking tips.

"He is very open," said Vafiadis. "If he has any secrets, he's not saying." Vafiadis recently appreciated the chef's help with preparing an Orthodox Greek Easter meal: Lamb on a spit, pork chops, intestine soup, Greek salad, and bright red Easter eggs.

"Brad was terrific. He gave me many helpful tips. All I'd ever done was watch my mother cook," said the summa cum laude math major who is headed for graduate studies at the University of Arizona in Tucson. "You don't really expect the executive chef to stop by and ask how your lamb is coming and then return to have some and say how good it is. It felt like he returned the high respect I have for him." -- Reprinted, in edited form, courtesy of the Lewiston Sun-Journal.

An Unlikely Media Feeding Frenzy

The give and take among scientists is traditionally collegial. But last spring, after the popular press got wind of a sexy scientific dispute, the mild-mannered exchange got snippy, catching a Bates visiting professor right in the middle.

The exchange of ideas began benignly enough. In the journal Physical Review Letters, two scientists presented a revolutionary theory that the universe might not be the same in all directions, that it might actually have an up and a down. Seeing the piece in print, Bates visiting assistant professor of physics Emory "Ted" Bunn joined colleague Daniel Eisenstein of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton for a round of rebuttal.

In a one-page response to the theory, sent to the journal and also posted on Pre-Print Archive, a World Wide Web site popular among independent physicists, Bunn and Eisenstein took issue with one critical assumption made by Borge Nodland (University of Rochester) and John Ralston (University of Kansas).

This kind of exchange, confined to the scientific arena, is a common one, according to Bunn. "People work hard to produce findings that the data doesn't exactly support. Whenever you're on the edge of something, you often find that what you've found out is wrong. It's the reason scientific work gets heavily reviewed."

But wait. Unknown to Bunn and Eisenstein, who as a courtesy had previewed their paper with Nodland and Ralston, a Princeton physicist faxed a copy of the criticism to the New York Times.

Whoa, baby. Once the Times story ran, replete with defensive invective, the Associated Press followed suit with a story of its own, focusing as much on the dispute as the notion that the universe might suddenly have an up and down. More than one hundred newspapers ran with the bout. Bunn ended up talking with Scientific American, Science News, Lingua-Franca, Slate and The Economist.

"These disputes are awkward when research scientists are going head to head," Bunn reflected on his brush with fame. "I didn't expect them to like what I said but it was more unpleasant than I had hoped." (Ralston complained to the Associated Press: "It's not something we missed. These guys seem to have drawn a very rash deduction.")

Bunn flinched at the mudslinging. "The tone of the discussion was not at all collegial," he said. "You wouldn't find it in the professional press. They didn't have strong arguments to substantiate their findings. They made up for it with bluster."

Although Bunn appreciates Nodland and Ralston's anger at discovering their work dissed in the popular press before other scientists had the chance to evaluate it, he maintains his theoretical position. Basically, he says, the Nodland-Ralston analysis made a critical error by not taking into account the origin of polarized radio waves used in the study; hence their misleading conclusion that some light rays twisted more in one direction than another.

In the months after Bunn and Eisenstein critiqued the Nodlan-Ralston theory, another pair of astrophysicists -- Sean Carroll of the University of California at Santa Barbara and George Field of Harvard -- have completed a thorough investigation that strongly confirms Bunn and Eisenstein's original response. Four papers are now in print, three under review, that echo the same criticisms. "Among the leading astrophysicists, I haven't talked with anyone who believes what they read," Bunn said.

"The whole subject is much more interesting for the sociology than the science of it," he said. "It's been interesting to have nonscientists pay attention to my work," he granted.

But when push comes to shove, he'd rather have his own original research recognized. "It's not the most satisfying way to make your mark, to say that this previous result is wrong. It doesn't say anything positive about the universe."

Whirlwind Bates Visit for Russian Scholar

Scattered on the living room floor of the Multicultural Center amidst stacked, steaming boxes of pizza, a handful of faculty joined students for an informal presentation by a visiting Russian scholar and activist. "St. Petersburg is the birthplace of Russian feminism: My home," Julia Zhukova said firmly.

This was no pricey visiting speaker snatched off the lecture circuit. Instead, Zhukova visited Bates last spring as the result of a friendship forged through the off-campus travel that Bates professors engage in to stay current in their fields.

When Jane Costlow, associate professor of Russian, attended a women's studies conference at an old Soviet resort on the Finnish Gulf two years ago, she met Zhukova, a member of the Petersburg Center for Gender Issues, an academic and action-oriented think-tank and one of the conference sponsors. "We struck up a friendship and hit it off," Costlow remembered.

Thanks to e-mail, Internet access to Cyrillic, and occasional visits from mutual colleagues traveling to the East and West, their friendship prospered. Costlow's faculty colleague Dennis Sweet, associate professor of German, traveled to St. Petersburg two summers ago and paid Zhukova a visit. Enthusiastic about his new acquaintance, Sweet returned to Bates with the thought of inviting Zhukova -- who is a trained historian, an archivist in the St. Petersburg public library, and a free-lance designer -- to the Bates campus. "She has all these jobs because of the economic conditions of the intelligentsia there," Costlow explained. "We thought it would be really good for our students to meet with someone like Julia, and good for her to see a small liberal-arts college and what women's studies was like here."

In the days before the thirty-one-year-old Zhukova's visit, Costlow solicited requests for classroom appearances and informal chats. She was amazed to find that her visitor was in high demand.

In a Latin American history class, Zhukova described the de-Sovietization of Cuba, as well as perceptions of Cuba from the perspective of a small child growing up in the Soviet Union. A visit to a first-year psychology seminar on Dostoevski included a discussion of the cultural history of the former USSR. History students heard Zhukova talk about the history of the women's movement in Russia, and Costlow's Russian literature students waded deep into an exchange of ideas on Anna Karenina.

Impressed by Bates pedagogy, Zhukova soaked up these experiences with great gusto. "It doesn't surprise me," Costlow said. "At Bates, there's more interaction than lecturing."

For her part, Zhukova brought her Bates comrade a welcome gift: an unpublished archival review of a 1907 Russian novel for which Costlow is writing an introduction and translation.

Inspired by her Russian visitor, Costlow is contemplating a women's studies Short Term making use of Petersburg Gender Center contacts. "It's still a pie-in-the-sky idea," she admitted. "But when you're teaching a language and the culture, you try to keep a handle on what's going on there. That's pretty daunting right now," said Costlow, who travels annually to Russia and has taken three Short Term classes to Oryol, a city south of Moscow.

David Soley '80 Wins Challenge to Maine's `Scarlet Letter' Law

Arguing his case before a fellow Bates graduate, Portland lawyer David Soley '80 last spring won a constitutional challenge to Maine's so-called "Scarlet Letter" ballot law (see spring Bates Magazine, page 14).

Passed in 1996, the law sought to force politicians' support for term limits by attaching ballot labels next to their names if they refused to support specific wording of a proposed U.S. constitutional amendment on term limits for U.S. representatives and senators.

Given Bates's rich history in the Maine judiciary, it was no surprise that Soley argued his case before a fellow Batesie: U.S District Judge Morton Brody '55, a member of the Bates Board of Overseers. In overturning the new law, Brody ruled that it "effectively coerces Maine's elected officials through its ballot labeling provisions. Given this coercion, the state's legislators cannot act in a deliberative and independent manner required by...the Constitution. The [law] is, therefore, unconstitutional...."

Soley challenged the Scarlet Letter law on a volunteer basis for the Maine League of Women Voters and two Maine state legislators. A partner with the Portland law firm of Bernstein, Shur, Sawyer & Nelson, he lives in Freeport.

Seniors' Gift Says Thanks to Bates Employees

For their traditional Senior Gift, the Class of 1997 shattered all dollar and participation records with a gift of $18,943.97 from nearly 70 percent of the class.

The gift will endow a permanent scholarship fund to support educational opportunities for children of Bates employees, with preference for dependents of the College's maintenance, dining services, and support staff.

Stu Abelson '97 of Andover, Massachusetts, who chaired the Senior Gift Committee, announced the new fund at last spring's Employee Recognition Luncheon, an annual spring event honoring retiring Bates staff and employee achievements.

The luncheon audience responded to the announcement with a standing ovation. "I have goose bumps," said physical plant worker Lorraine Bolen of Lewiston.

Abelson told the crowd that "we are very pleased to honor those of you who have befriended us and contributed so positively to our Bates experience. We hope that as this fund becomes our living legacy, it serves to remind everyone who works, learns, and teaches here that what is most important about Bates College is Bates people."

The 1997 Senior Class Gift is easily the largest ever. The 69.3-percent participation is some twenty points higher than the previous record, and the grand dollar total, which includes a dollar-for-dollar match from Trustee Helen A. Papaioanou '49, is some five times greater than the typical Senior Gift.

The seniors formally presented the gift to Bates at the annual Ivy Stone ceremony on the Sunday afternoon of Commencement Weekend.

Bates Announces New Leadership Giving Levels

Complementing the rapid growth in alumni giving to Bates, the College is announcing new gift club levels and has introduced new Partner levels for younger alumni.

The changes, now in effect for the 1997-98 giving year and beyond, are the first since Bates inaugurated its gift-recognition program fifteen years ago.

"During the Bates Campaign, the Bates constituency set new standards for leadership giving, from thousands of $500 gifts up to an amazing fifteen gifts of $1 million or more," said Rosalyn Hines, director of development. "Building on this leadership giving momentum is critical, particularly as we move to meet the increasing needs of the College as it approaches its sesquicentennial in 2005."

In the last five years alone, Annual Alumni Fund gifts of $500 or greater have increased from $400,000 in 1991 to well over $1 million this past year.

A gift club program has three goals, explained Hines. "The first is to increase gift revenue for the College, allowing Bates to provide an educational experience second to none. The second is to raise sights of prospective donors. The third goal is to identify and appropriately recognize our leadership donors at all levels. These gift club changes are designed to continue successful efforts in all three areas."

Gift club membership is only one part of the recognition equation, she added. "The other part is Bates's responsibility to make clear the connection between philanthropic leadership and how that leadership benefits Bates students and faculty. They are, after all, the College's centerpiece."

Ongley Agape at Award

Lois Ongley joined the Bates faculty in 1992. Five years later, she's agape at winning the College's coveted Kroepsch Award for Excellence in Teaching.

Ongley, assistant professor of geology, says she cherished hopes of being nominated, but never expected to win the award so early in her career. "I was so surprised, I felt like I had to pick my jaw up off the floor," Ongley said. "I want to be an excellent teacher, and I'm really pleased and proud that my teaching has obviously made an impression on students, who considered it so significant that they sat down and wrote a letter of nomination."

In nominating Ongley, one student wrote that "her creative course design and innovative laboratory subjects make classes with her highly educational and fun. Her obvious enthusiasm for the study and teaching of geology is matched by her devotion to her students. Her excellence as a teacher extends beyond the classroom; I learn something from every random conversation with her."

During recent summers, Ongley has led a research team of Bates seniors to the Zimapán region of Mexico, where they have studied groundwater contamination and, in turn, the local residents who suffer from chronic arsenic poisoning. Ongley was recently awarded a National Science Foundation grant totaling $165,000 that will fund two more summers of research with Bates students in Zimapán. Ongley, who earned a bachelor's degree from Middlebury College and a doctoral degree from Rice University, was founding president of the Association for Women Geoscien- tists Foundation in 1983. Prior to her arrival at Bates, she was an exploration geologist with The Anschutz Corporation in Oklahoma City and Houston Oil & Minerals Corporation in Houston. Established by Robert H. Kroepsch '33, who received an honorary doctor of laws degree from the College in 1971, the Kroepsch Award is given annually to a member of the faculty nominated by peers and students for outstanding teaching. The two-part award includes a $1,000 prize and a $1,500 discretionary fund to support Ongley's teaching.

Development Vice President Joyce Accepts New York Position

Ron Joyce, who in his two years at Bates oversaw the successful conclusion of the College's largest fund-raising campaign ever, resigned his position as vice president of development and alumni affairs, effective August 15.

He has accepted a position as senior vice president of external relations at the Albany (New York) Medical Center and Medical College.

In announcing Joyce's decision, President Harward noted his achievements as vice president, including the successful conclusion of the Bates Campaign ($59.3 million), a record fund-raising year in 1996-97 ($10.1 million), and sharply increased alumni giving participation (52 percent in 1996-97, now among the highest in the nation).

President Harward, who announced the immediate formation of a vice presidential search committee, expressed "great regret" and extended to Joyce "best wishes and appreciation for his contributions to Bates."

Joyce came to Bates in July 1995, succeeding Gina Tangney, who had served nine years as vice president. He previously worked at Colgate University, where he was vice president for alumni affairs, communications, and development.

Wenzel and Williamson Named Dana Professors

Thomas J. Wenzel, professor of chemistry, and Richard C. Williamson, professor of French, have been named Charles A. Dana Professors.

Wenzel, who earned a bachelor's degree from Northeastern University and a doctoral degree from the University of Colorado, is president of the national Council on Undergraduate Research. In 1990, he was named a Camille and Henry Dreyfus Scholar, and he has been awarded eleven National Science Foundation grants since he began teaching at Bates sixteen years ago.

Williamson, who earned bachelor's and master's degrees from Yale University and a doctoral degree from Indiana University, was named 1994's Outstanding Teacher of French in Maine by the American Association of Teachers of French. Last year, he was named a Chevalier in the Order of the Palmes Académiques (see following story). He edited Les Femmes Savantes, by Moliere (New York: Hippocrene Books, 1996), and co-edited Toward a New Integration of Language and Culture, (Middlebury, Vermont: Northeast Conference, 1988). Williamson joined the Bates faculty in 1975.

Established in 1966 with a $250,000 matching grant from the Charles A. Dana Foundation, Dana Professorships are intended to strengthen the teaching of liberal arts and sciences nationwide by providing additional financial support for a limited number of exceptionally qualified professors. There are seven Dana Professors at Bates.

Francophile Par Excellence

Named a Chevalier in the Order of Palmes Académiques by the French Ministry of Education, Richard Williamson, professor of French, responded avec beaucoup de joie to the high honor: "I accept it with deep humility, especially because it is normally awarded to French people who teach in another country."

President Donald W. Harward shared Williamson's pride. "His outstanding contributions to Bates are recognized by all of us who know him," said the president, adding that the outside honor "allows the Bates community to reflect on his many accomplishments from within."

Pierre Buhler, cultural counsel of the French Embassy in New York, explained the accolade in a letter to Williamson: "This distinction expresses the gratitude of French authorities for the action you have led in favor of our language and our culture in the United States."

Established in 1808 by Napoleon I, the award recognizes teaching, usually at the university level. It is awarded only to those who have taught at least fifteen years.

Williamson, a member of the Bates faculty since 1975, recently concluded more than a decade as chair of the Department of Classical and Romance Languages and Literatures.

Five Faculty Win Promotions

The conclusion of the academic year saw four Bates faculty members win tenure and another secure promotion to full professor.

Political scientist Mark A. Kessler was promoted to the rank of full professor. A member of the Bates faculty since 1983, Kessler coauthored The Play of Power: An Introduction to American Government (St. Martin's Press: 1996), a textbook concerned with the integration of women and minorities into the U.S. government and political system. Kessler, who also wrote Legal Services for the Poor (Greenwood: 1987), received dual honors from the Northeast American Political Science Association for his paper "Legal Mobilization for Social Reform: Power and the Politics of Agenda Setting." It was judged the best paper presented at the organization's 1991 meeting and best paper evaluated in the American government section panels.

Kessler, who specializes in American politics, received a bachelor's degree from the University of Pittsburgh and master's and doctoral degrees from Pennsylvania State University.

Aviva Chomsky, history, is the author of West Indian Workers and the United Fruit Company in Costa Rica, 1870-1940 (Louisiana State University Press, 1995). She received a Johns Hopkins University Cuban Studies Travel Grant in 1994 and spent four months in Cuba researching migrant workers in the sugar industry at the turn of the century. She teaches an on-site Short Term course on the origins of the Cuban revolution and is the author of the article "Cuba: What the New York Times Won't Tell You," published in The Dissident in 1995. Chomsky, who earned bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees from the University of California, Berkeley, joined the Bates faculty in 1990. She begins a two-year leave at Salem (Massachusetts) State College this fall.

Matthew J. Côté, chemistry, has been published in a number of professional journals. In 1992, he was awarded a $29,500 grant from The Research Corp. for a project titled "Scanning tunnelling optical microscopy of transparent platinum cluster films." His visiting postdoctoral research at the University of California, Berkeley, involved using electrochemical scanning tunnelling microscopy to study redox reactions of silver electrodes with atomic resolution. He received a bachelor's degree from Syracuse University and a doctoral degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Côté began teaching at Bates in 1991.

Hong Lin, physics, has researched nonlinear dynamics due to interaction among transverse modes of a laser and eliminating distortion in image transmission via four-wave mixing and phase conjugation. Her research has been published in Optics Communications, Acta Optica Sinica, and Acta Physica Sinica. She earned bachelor's and master's degrees from the Beijing Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics in China and a doctoral degree from Bryn Mawr College. Lin joined the Bates faculty in 1991.

Shuhui Yang, Chinese, specializes in Chinese vernacular fiction. He has written a critical essay titled "The Fear of Moral Failure: Self-Parody in Lu Xun's Fiction" and co-translated Selected Chinese Songs (Beijing: People's Music, 1983). He has been a professor of English at Fudan University in China, and received the school's Best Teacher Award in 1983. He is a member of the American Association of Chinese Comparative Literature and the Association for Asian Studies. Yang received a bachelor's degree from Fudan University and master's and doctoral degrees from Washington University. He joined the Bates faculty in 1991.

Barsky, MacAvoy, Schmidt Named Bates Trustees

Three new Bates Trustees, two of whom were nominated from the alumni ballot, have joined the College's Board of Overseers.

Joseph M. Barsky '71 and Deborah Thyng Schmidt '77 won nomination from last spring's alumni ballot and have been elected to serve five-year terms.

Paul W. MacAvoy '55 was appointed by Trustee election to fill a vacant position whose term expires in 2000.

A resident of Eden Prairie, Minnesota, Joseph Barsky is vice president and senior portfolio manager at American Express Financial Advisors (AEFA). He graduated with honors in economics from Bates and received his M.B.A. from the University of Michigan in 1973 and the C.F.A. designation in 1978. At AEFA, he supervises $12 billion invested in the firm's growth and income mutual funds.

In Bates affairs, Barsky has served as an Annual Alumni Fund class agent and a member of the Annual Alumni Fund Committee. For the last twelve years, he has been the Alumni-in-Admissions coordinator for Minnesota. He received the David G. Russell Award in 1993 as the outstanding Alumni-in-Admissions volunteer.

Deborah Thyng Schmidt of Longmont, Colorado, a free-lance writer, graduated from Bates summa cum laude with membership in Phi Beta Kappa. She received a master's degree in English from the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 1980 and has worked in admissions at Carleton College and Cornell University.

In Bates affairs, Schmidt is a member of the Bates College Key and has been active in the Alumni-in-Admissions and Career Discovery programs. She has been an Annual Alumni Fund class agent and was president of the Alumni Council in 1992-93. In her local community, she serves on the administrative council of her church, as a Brownie Scout leader, and as a volunteer at her daughters' schools.

A resident of Woodstock, Vermont, and New Haven, Connecticut, Paul MacAvoy is the Williams Brothers Professor of Management Studies at Yale University and former dean of the Yale School of Management. He previously served on the Bates Board of Overseers from 1976 to 1981.

A Bates economics major, MacAvoy graduated magna cum laude and was named a Woodrow Wilson Fellow. He received his M.A. in 1956 and his Ph.D. in 1960, both in economics from Yale. In 1976, Bates awarded him an honorary Doctor of Laws degree.

An adviser to three United States presidents, MacAvoy has been given credit (only "partially deserved," he says) for inventing the term "voodoo economics" during the 1980 presidential campaign to describe Ronald Reagan's policies.

In the 1960s, MacAvoy was staff economist for the president's Council of Economic Advisers and a member of a task force charged with revising antitrust laws. In the 1970s and early 1980s, he was a member of the National Petroleum Council, served on the Council of Economic Advisers, and chaired the subcommittee for government regulation and productivity of the president's National Productivity Advisory Committee.

MacAvoy is on the board of directors of Alumax Inc., Open Environment Corporation, and Lafarge Corporation. He has been on the adjunct staff of the Brookings Institution and the American Enterprise Institute and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, founded in 1776 as America's honorary academic society and interdisciplinary studies center. In his scholarly areas of interest, he has written fifteen books and numerous articles.

Root Is Fifteenth Watson Fellow from Bates

Jeremy Root '97 of Eugene, Oregon, is one of sixty students nationwide and the fifteenth ever from Bates selected to receive a coveted Thomas J. Watson Fellowship.

The $18,000 award will support a year of travel and research in South Africa. An American cultural studies major, Root is fascinated by "South Africa's almost total reversal of its previous system. It is an exciting place to study justice," he said. The formal title of his study is "Administering Justice in the New South Africa."

Root's interest in South Africa stems from an uncle by marriage of "mixed descent who grew up in Cape Town. He's primarily Indian, and when he married my aunt, he wasn't allowed to return to South Africa," Root said. "As a young boy of seven, I was appalled. As my sensitivities developed, the case of South Africa has been of primary interest to me."

Root departed for South Africa in early August to undertake his Watson Fellowship project. His planned year of study and travel includes research, observation and interviews with judges, court officials, police officers, and prisoners. "I'd like to get a whole array of perspectives on how people perceive the justice system is -- or isn't -- working," he said.

Root hopes to attend law school and to one day be a judge. "My dream is to be on the United States Supreme Court," he said without hesitation. Particularly interested in constitutional law and civil liberties, he completed his honors senior thesis on "The Million Man March and Black Masculinity."

This year, the Thomas J. Watson Foundation considered 182 candidates nominated by fifty small, private, liberal-arts colleges noted for their quality and commitment to undergraduate education. The Watson Fellowship Program is known for providing opportunities for fellows to immerse themselves in cultures other than their own for an entire year.

Bates's first Watson Fellow was Stanley Needles '69, who traveled in Europe following his graduation to study leftist politics. Needles, a lawyer, now resides in Portugal. This issue's cover feature, Corey Harris '91, is another former Watson winner; he studied in Cameroon.

A Napkin for Your Thoughts

For all meals in Commons, the final course is food for thought.

On a bulletin board outside of Commons, known as the Napkin Board, students post their praise, criticism, and recommendations on brown napkins (chlorine-free, of course). In turn, their comments are answered with whimsy and candor.

The idea for the board came from Bob Volpi, director of dining services. Not that students are hesitant about voicing their opinions, but Volpi figured the board might be a constructive way to elicit student input into the Bates dining experience.

Last year's inaugural Napkin Board editor was Katy McCann '97 of Maynard, Massachusetts (this year's editor hasn't been chosen yet). She responded to each comment after soliciting advice and information from members of the dining services staff.

For example, one patron lamented the absence of poppy-seed dressing, citing its supposed narcotic effect. McCann offered this response: "It's a health risk, my addicted little napkin; no one should be consuming that much of the funky poppy seed. We have worked out our salad-dressing rotation to feed your need and to take your health and state of mind into consideration."

A plaintive request for a favorite lunch meat received these soothing words: "Well, I can't tell you what happened to the smoked turkey, but I can tell you that I delivered your heartbreaking cry to the folks at the deli bar, and the next time we have some I hope they'll remember you and serve it up."

Too much salt in the soup? "The soup makers and soup tasters have been informed and will try to be more careful of that in the future," assured McCann.

One diner, who found fault with the cheese on Bates pizza, prefaced his complaint with this compliment: "Dearest Katy, your comments on Du Bois's views on education in Thursday's class were thought-provoking. Sorry, I went off on a tangent there."

The recently graduated McCann, a German major who plans to teach English as a second language abroad this year, said the job gave her a new perspective on the dining services operation. "I wish students who complain could see what kind of work goes into the smallest things," she said. "Even if I present one random complaint, it's taken very seriously. People in dining services say, `We'll have to get on that and find out what's wrong.'"

Through McCann's work with the Napkin Board, the students have brought about some meaningful changes: because of student concerns about treatment of migrant workers on strawberry farms in one part of the country, dining services now purchases strawberries from elsewhere in the United States.

The Napkin Board's editorial board includes Brad Slye, executive chef, to whom McCann directs comments about food quality (see accompanying story on Slye's award as top chef in Maine); Ken Smith, purchasing manager, who determines if it's possible to obtain exotic condiments and ingredients; and Volpi, who considers requests for changes in dining services policy.

Volpi believes students have been more forthcoming with kudos as well as complaints since the Napkin Board began operation. "She brought a lot of humor to some difficult questions from fellow students, but she also took the job very seriously," he said. "If a comment has hit my desk for a third time, she was usually standing in front of me with her arms folded asking for a reasonable response."