By TINA IYER
Features Editor
 

Before leaving for Austin's, Biscoe, volunteer coordinator and assistant coordinator of student activities, spent some time cooing at the pooch who sits quietly in her Chase Hall office keeping her owner company as she works.

When we finally got to Austin's, we were lucky enough to order our meals and find window table during the lunchtime rush.

We sat in a cozy back room lined with shelves of wine. Abstaining, we chose to sip fruit-flavored bubbly Poland Spring water while we waited for our food.

Biscoe told me about the upcoming Volunteer Fair on Wednesday, Sept. 10, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. in Chase Hall. It is open to all students.

Biscoe is responsible for informing local non-profit organizations of students who are interested in doing community service.

Volunteer coordinators from 34 groups and agencies will participate in this year's fair, she said.

As our stomachs started to rumble, Biscoe explained that she is the chairman for the Androscoggin Volunteer Association, which meets once a month at Bates. Volunteer coordinators and directors gather every other week to act as a support network and discuss volunteer opportunities.

Biscoe is so full of energy and talkative that I had to stay on my toes to digest all of the information and thoughts that she threw my way across the small round table.

She changed our topic of conversation to Tuesday's Outward Bound trip to Camp Kiev, where she was involved in training student organization leaders. The trip, run by former Bates students, was made "very Bates specific," Biscoe said. It gave her a chance "to get to know organization leaders on another level."

Our food arrived. Biscoe had ordered half a turkey sandwich with pesto-mayonnaise dressing and chunky gazpacho soup.

We commented on how cute the three fish-shaped crackers that came with our lunches were. While we munched, Biscoe mentioned that she "came back to Bates."

"What?" I swallowed and asked if she went to Bates. She nodded. "I graduated in `84."

An English major from Turner, Maine, Biscoe confided that she is close to her parents and thus, wanted to stay in Maine for college.

She had been ready to go to the University of Southern Maine, but in the back of her mind she hadn't given up on her Bates admissions offer.

Smiling, Biscoe said, "Bill Hiss interviewed me. I remember: He was wearing clogs that day ..." She also applied to Colby (we both grimaced), and she remembers having an uncomfortable, "yucky" interview there.

After choosing Bates, Biscoe said she "dug clams to put myself through school, with the help of maximum loans." She spent her first year in Rand, "when it still had charm," and she also passed through the hallowed halls of Parker (when it was still all women) and Small House.

I asked Biscoe what she thought of the changes that have taken place at Bates since her student years. "The nice thing about Bates," she said, "is that you can still come back and the positive traditions live on. They aren't lost in the name of progress."

Biscoe headed for Massachusetts after graduation. She lived in such towns as Jamaica Plain, Watertown and West Concord.

An employee of Harvard University's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, she organized inner-city clean-ups and worked with Habitat for Humanity, coming to realize a direction for her career.

By 1992, Biscoe wanted to go back to Maine. Dean Branham clued Biscoe in to available job openings: that of housing coordinator and volunteer coordinator.

Biscoe interviewed for both jobs on the same day. She got the job she has now.

"When I first started," Biscoe said, "my office had a white candle, two boxes of Big Brother, Big Sister files, and a phone. No computer."

A few phone calls and connections later, she started the Volunteer Office as Bates knows it today.

Biscoe said that she was "just winging it, introducing myself in the community," but clearly her winging made strides. Although she used to spend most of her time working on volunteer coordination, in recent times the "student activities side has really grown, so now my work is divided fifty-fifty between student activities and volunteer work."

"The job is perfect for me," said Biscoe, looking up from her food.

Starting to eat her pickle, Biscoe said she began advising the Chase Hall Committee this year.

She dropped her pickle and turned back to the gazpacho. Then we dished some more about her Bates experience.

When she finished her sandwich and soup, Biscoe asked me if my pesto pasta salad was all I was going to eat. At least I finished my pickle, I thought, looking at the half-eaten green spear left on her plate. She read my mind when she said, "That pickle is so salty. I would almost call it briney. Otherwise, I would have conquered that pickle."

As she drank her water, she said, "This stuff is kinda cleansing." Biscoe said she keeps the Adirondack brand of water in her own house. "Raspberry's good, and so is peach, though a lot of people are turned off by peach," she said.

But peach is such a good fruit flavor, I volunteered. I mentioned peach Jolly Ranchers, and Biscoe almost jumped out of her seat. "Those are my ABSOLUTE favorite candies!"

But back to Bates. Biscoe said that what first sparked her interest in volunteer work was an experience she had her junior year during short term.

During this time, Biscoe and her roommate served Meals on Wheels to two elderly sisters, Ethel and Thelma "who were old and a little crazy," Biscoe said with a grin. Not only did the two bring their elderly charges food, they also picked them flowers and bought them underwear at K-mart.

Biscoe wrote to the sisters the following summer, and although the women died shortly thereafter, the experience left an indelible mark on her.

"I remember what I gained from that experience," she said. "I wanted to continue that sort of work, it energizes me as much as anything. It isn't about changing the world, but if you can help one person I think you could call it a good day."