the family CONNECTION A NEWSLETTER FOR BATES PARENTS AND FAMILIES FALL 2003 FOCUS Secrets of great cities Thanks to Martin Scorsese, Harris ’91 has The Blues PHOTO COURTESY OF COREY HARRIS Musician Corey Harris ’91 “isn’t just a great player, he also knows the history of the blues very well,” director Martin Scorsese said in an interview for the PBS series The Blues. Scorsese, the series’ executive producer, directed Students enrolled in “Study of the City” visit Boston’s Big Dig, stopping for a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the newly constructed Harris in its first installment, “Feel Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge. Like Going Home.” The episode followed Harris as he visited older hen you visit a place where you want to spend more time — well, how did that American blues players, jammed with peers like Keb’ Mo’ and “W come to be? Interesting places don’t happen just by luck,” says one of Maine’s traveled to West Africa to talk best-known urban planners. Instead, says Theo Holtwijk, it takes a painstaking process of and play with Ali Farka Toure, planning and design to create those inviting places. an influential Malian musician. Students in a Bates seminar this fall have learned about such processes from Holtwijk, When Harris, who is admired for his deeply informed and eclectic director of planning for the growing coastal town of Brunswick and an award-winning approach to the blues, journeyed landscape architect. A visiting lecturer and Mellon Foundation Fellow at Bates, Holtwijk is to Africa for the film, it must have teaching “Introduction to the Study of the City” for the Program in Environmental Studies. felt like going home in a way: First during his junior year at Bates, While this 300-level seminar involves a wide range of readings in community planning, then again after graduation on a Holtwijk has emphasized experience of the up-close and personal variety. Since September his Watson Fellowship, Harris went students have worked with a filmmaker and a photographer known for their documentary to West Africa to trace the historic work; spent two days in Boston learning about the Big Dig and Frederick Law Olmsted’s roots that have nurtured so much “Emerald Necklace” of parks; and created “portraits” of neighborhoods around Bates using of American music. photography, mapping, research and interviews with residents. They’ve also sat in on conferences and public meetings that have made it clear that this sometimes-abstract discipline can have significant impacts, not always beneficial, on real live IN THIS ISSUE people. The human touch is indispensable in his field, Holtwijk points out. “The technical skill of planning is becoming less important than the skill of building consensus,” he says. “Our son calls us weekly “You have to be really smart in how you seek input — the process of seeking input from and says ‘thanks’ for sending people is as important as the product that results from it.” him to this awesome place.” — See Parent Reflections, inside FALL GREETINGS By Henry and Cathy Roberts P’04 hopes and concerns, and who, like you, ing fund-raising year in 2002-2003, Co-Chairs, Bates Parents & Families Association want a good weekend break! and in fact, the Association is a fund- Welcome to the Fall 2003 Family Called the “best ever,” the week- raising leader among peer schools. Connection. We’d like to share some end broke attendance records with more During fiscal year 2003, the fund good news about what is happening than 2,000 family members on hand. attracted approximately $620,000 at Bates today. Our volunteer numbers are growing from 1,479 donors for scholarships, To those who attended Parents & through the generosity of many parents faculty support, curriculum develop- Families Weekend, we hope you and of current — and past — Bates students ment, technology, student activi- yours enjoyed it as much as we did. It sharing their time and expertise through ties and residential life, and campus was a good opportunity not only to the Welcoming and Events Committee, maintenance. With this year’s goal of spend time with your son or daughter, the Communications Committee, and $625,000, we look forward to and but also to get to know some of the the Parents Fund Committee, as well as appreciate your continued support, professors, coaches and staff. Differ- the many career advisors offering advice and we anticipate some fun competi- ent activities and events each year and internships. For all your donated tion between current classes for the provide a window into the resources time and financial support, we are ex- highest participation from parent afforded to our sons and daughters at tremely grateful. donors. To continue to provide a top- Bates — and, of course, the weekend We offer many thanks, too, for rate education, Bates truly depends is a time to meet other Bates parents your much-needed support of the Bates upon the growth of the Parents Fund. who may share your experiences, Parents Fund. We had another reward- Thank you! Symposium marks a century of ‘Souls’ The symposium comprised two days of presentations by scholars from Bates and away, an exhibit of materials from a Du Bois archive, plays exploring themes in African American history and a concert of sacred music. The presentations drew scholars from all over the Northeast. Topics ran the gamut from African American expressions of mourning to Du Bois’ studies at the Uni- versity of Berlin — discussed by Sieglinde Lemke, a scholar from the German capital. Students found the talks inspiring and eye-opening. “I had never considered a fu- neral home to be a racially divided place,” Katie Hawkins, a junior from South Port- land, Maine, commented after a presenta- tion by Karla Holloway, author of Passed On: African American Mourning Stories. Photographs and other W. E. B. Du Bois biographical materials were displayed at the Ladd Library. The evening performances added emotional and spiritual resonance to the n October, the Bates community and Bois — a philosopher, sociologist, historian, academic content. A pair of one-act plays Iguests from as far away as Germany used co-founder of the NAACP and writer accom- exploring violence against black Americans performances, visual media and scholarly plished in a wealth of genres — and his 1903 included Nero’s adaptation of a Du Bois presentations to mark the centennial of The collection of essays examining myriad dimen- story about a lynching. In tenor Chauncey Souls of Black Folk, a landmark in African sions of the African American experience. Packer’s concert of spirituals, “there were American thought. “The poet Langston Hughes said that moments of genuine amusement, thanks to A two-day symposium, “W. E. B. Du the book reads like a resume for the race,” his theatrical ability,” says Nero, “and mo- Bois and The Souls of Black Folk: The First says symposium organizer Charles Nero, ments that were exquisite and delicate.” 100 Years” celebrated and reassessed Du associate professor of rhetoric. Students take aim at lead pollution PARENT REFLECTIONS Parents can offer each other advice as they watch their children grow and develop at Bates. This column is one way for parents to share their experiences. Please send thoughts or a short story you’d like to share to the Parents & Family Association Office, Bates College, 2 Andrews Road, Lewiston, Maine 04240, or send an e-mail to [email protected]. DOUG HUBLEY Coming to Bates was actually a Rachel Booty ’04 Dana DiGiando ’04 relief for all of us. Daniel had been et the lead out” has taken on a to one of the more promising approaches viciously attacked the night before “Gwhole new meaning at Bates, to removing lead from soil: phytoremedia- we planned to depart from New thanks to the dedication and skill of two tion, or the use of plants to absorb lead York City. We spent most of the students in the environmental studies (ES) through their roots. night in an emergency room where program. Last summer, thanks to grants that he was treated for cuts and lacera- Rachel Booty and Dana DiGiando are Bates helped her obtain, DiGiando first devoting their senior theses to researching studied in an innovative five-week lead- tions. So our goodbyes on Aug. 31 a serious environmental problem in the toxicity program at Northwestern Uni- were relatively painless and tear- urban United States: soil contaminated by versity. Next she spent weeks in Maine’s less. The hectic pace of the night lead from paint and vehicle exhaust. largest city, Portland, helping a neighbor- we arrived at Bates left us little hood association with a program testing An ES major with a concentration in time for introspection. When we environmental geology, Booty comes from the effectiveness of spinach — shades of exchanged our departing words a farming family. At Bates she has taken Popeye — in phytoremediation. her experience with the land to a new level, DiGiando and Booty are all about put- and hugs and kisses, we felt that working with a community gardening ting science to work for the common good. we were leaving our son in good program in Lewiston and, for her thesis, It’s been 25 years since lead-based paint hands — the people at Bates were undertaking an array of soil, plant and air was banned and 30 since the first controls so welcoming, so caring and so tests to determine the extent of the lead- were put on leaded gasoline — and so, comforting. We remembered the contamination threat to the community. says DiGiando, “it’s ridiculous that there fall visits to campus and the day DiGiando is double-majoring in are so many children still being poisoned.” chemistry and ES.