A selection of recent mentions of Bates and Bates people in the news.
Ralph Sylvester ’50
Lewiston and Auburn mark Veterans Day – Lewiston sun diary
The Lewiston sun diary led its Veterans Day coverage with the story of World War II Army veteran Ralph Sylvester ’50, now 98.
As writer Steve Sherlock wrote, “Perhaps none of the hundreds who attended Friday’s solemn ceremony at Veterans Memorial Park observed more Veterans Day services than Ralph Sylvester d ‘Auburn.”
Sylvester fought on the beaches of Normandy on D-Day and in the Battle of the Bulge. A soldier with the 295th Combat Engineers, “he built bridges over the Elbe that allowed American and British armies in the west and Soviet Union forces in the east to link up for the first time near the end of the war in 1945.“
The 98-year-old World War II veteran was at Omaha Beach on D-Day, fought in the Battle of the Bulge and built bridges over the Elbe that allowed American and British armies from the west and to Soviet Union forces in the east to link up for the first time towards the end of the war in 1945.
“Today brings back a lot of memories of all the others who were killed,” Sylvester told the newspaper. “About 20% of our company members were killed in the Battle of the Bulge, where 3,500 anti-tank mines were unknown to us.”
Edmond Muskie ’36
Pollution is still flowing through the Clean Water Act loophole – E&E news
Among the many stories marking the 50th anniversary of the enactment of the Clean Water Act, on October 18, 1972, E&E news took an in-depth look at the tough decisions Senator Ed Muskie ’36 and his fellow lawmakers had to make while crafting the landmark legislation.
One decision was not to try to tackle what is known as “non-point source pollution”, which refers to pollutants like pesticides, oil and fertilizers that flow into waterways. water from land.
When crafting the legislation in the early 1970s, lawmakers simply couldn’t find the right “vehicle” to deal with diffuse pollution, which is still largely unregulated today.
“This is an area where there are still conceptual issues as well as drafting issues and regulatory issues in general,” said Tom Jorling, then Republican minority counsel for the Senate Public Works Committee.
“I still haven’t seen anyone recommending something that would work,” he added. “It’s not that it wasn’t done in 1972; it’s being honest and saying it couldn’t be done right in 2022.”
Mana Abdi, OIE staff
Lewiston woman makes history as one of first two Somali Americans elected to Maine Legislative Assembly
Mana Abdi, program coordinator at the Bates Office of Intercultural Education, is one of two Somali-Americans elected to the Maine Legislative Assembly this year, the first in state history.
Her victory is a sign that the Legislative Assembly is becoming more representative of the people it serves, Abdi told the Lewiston sun diaryand it brings Maine closer to a better future for all.
“Lewiston deserves safe, affordable and available housing and good jobs,” Abdi said. “I will be a strong and relentless voice for our community in Augusta.”
Read the stories:
Daniel Hoffman ’85
My late wife Kim taught me to honor our loved ones by focusing on something that will outlive us – FoxNews
In an opinion piece for Fox News, Daniel Hoffman ’85, former CIA station chief and Fox News contributor, writes about the legacy of his late wife, Kim Hoffman, who died in 2021 of cancer. Their son, Jerron Hoffman, has dedicated himself to helping hospitalized children with cancer.
“I realized that families battling cancer or mourning their lost loved ones who cancer stole from them had so much in common,” Hoffman writes. “Cancer forges the common ground between us, from which we draw our strength in each other.”
Beverly Johnson, Faculty of Earth and Climate Sciences
Study shows Gulf of Maine cools for 900 years, then warms rapidly since late 1800s — ScienMag
The water off the Gulf of Maine is warming rapidly. New research co-authored by Beverly Johnson, professor of earth and climate sciences, shows that recent warming is reversing 900 years of cooling and is accompanied by changes in ocean currents.
The results have been published in the open access journal Earth & Environment Communications and reported in ScienMag.
The results? In the late 1800s, coinciding with the emerging Industrial Revolution, the Gulf of Maine began to warm and receive more water from the Gulf Stream, with the main driving factor being greenhouse gas emissions. At the current rate, the water in the Gulf of Maine could increase by 4 degrees Celsius every 100 years.
Jonathan Adler ’00
Psychology in Theater with PSPR Editor Jonathan Adler — Personality and Social Psychology Society
In 2019, Jonathan Adler ’00, professor of psychology at Olin College of Engineering, was looking for a way to tell lesser-known stories of the AIDS pandemic in the United States.
Part of an Olin team that received a grant from the Mellon Foundation aimed at integrating arts and STEM, he teamed up with Boston University’s Jim Petosa to write a play, Reverse transcriptionwhich juxtaposes the stories of gay men during the AIDS and COVID pandemics in the United States. It premiered off Broadway last summer on Stage 2 at The Atlantic Theater Co., produced by PTP/NYC.
“For me, there is no separation between psychological issues and drama,” he told the Society for Personality and Social Psychology newsletter. (Adler edits the SPSP Journal.) “Like all stories, all plays feature characters trying to do something, so there are always psychological topics to explore.”
Adler believes “one of the greatest tragedies” of COVID is that society has failed to learn the psychological lessons learned during the AIDS pandemic. “The gay community came together in the 80s and 90s,” but during COVID, the pandemic “ultimately became a force of polarization, not of interdependence.”
Whitney Blanchard Soulé ’90
Meet Whitney Soule, leader of the team that decides whether you enter Penn – The Philadelphia Investigator
The Vice Provost and Dean of Admissions at the University of Pennsylvania spoke with The Philadelphia Investigator on his career in college admissions, which began at Bates.
She had been a tour guide at Bates, and right after graduation the office had an unexpected opening and “needed someone right away. I was hired for a nine-month position, and 30 years later, here I am, still in admissions! I love it because the work is human-centered, mission-driven, and complex.
Noah Petro ’01
What the Moon can tell us about the Earth — Axios
A project scientist for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission, currently orbiting the Moon, said Noah Petro ’01 Axios that he considers the Moon to be “Earth’s eighth continent”.
The launch of Artemis 1 on November 16, the first in a series of missions aimed at establishing a long-term human presence on the Moon, takes a step towards understanding a little more of our own planet’s history, says -he.
The Apollo missions sent humans “to these really wonderful places,” Petro said. “The six landing sites are really amazing. But we never went back there.”
“Part of the area where the Artemis missions will explore is at the edge of this huge basin,” Petro said. “We don’t know how old he is. So for me, understanding the age of this crater becomes a very important point in the history of the Earth and the history of the Moon in its formation.