During Short Term, Bruce Bourque teaches his students basic archeological field methods at a prehistoric dig on Merrymeeting Bay in Topsham.

Eight years ago, a landmark article in the journal Science — contributed to by Bates archeologist Bruce Bourque — offered a pair of conclusions that altered our understanding of marine ecosystems.

First, humans had been depleting marine ecosystems far longer than anyone thought, practically since we learned to fish. Second, our management of marine ecosystems had failed to take into account the once-incredible abundance, like Columbus seeing the Caribbean swarming with sea turtles, of fish and other marine vertebrates.

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On one of their three sea-going geology trips along the Maine coast, students paddle 13 miles from Stonington to Isle au Haut.

John Dennis (standing), cultural director for the Micmac Cultural Community Education Center in Presque Isle, is shown with the Bates students who visited Maine's Wabanaki tribes: from left, Danielle Scherer '11, Lina Kong '10, Maren Vouga '09, Hannah Richardson '11 and Janee White '12. Photo by Professor Kathryn Low.

Bates College students spent the last week of April encouraging Native American schoolchildren in Maine to picture themselves attending college in the state.

The Bates students visited schoolchildren of the Maliseet, Micmac, Passamaquoddy and Penobscot tribes -- collectively known as Wabanakis. (more...)

Information and knowledge are two different things. Teachers like Joseph Hall Jr. proffer the first, but their real work is leading students to the second.

Hall does that so well that Bates students chose him for the prestigious 2009 Kroepsch Award for Excellence in Teaching.

Yet in some areas of his specialty, early American history, associate professor Hall remains a student himself. That's something that excites him about his Short Term unit "Wabanaki History in Maine" (the state's Penobscot, Passamaquoddy, MicMac and Maliseet Indians are collectively known as Wabanakis).

This year, joining Hall in teaching the course will be James Francis, Penobscot tribal historian, and Rebecca Sockbeson, a Penobscot now completing her doctorate in education policy at the University of Alberta. But the course also includes visits to Penobscot and Passamaquoddy communities, where the Bates contingent will interview residents on a variety of issues. (more...)

Professor of English Lavina Shankar poses with Phoebe in December 2005.

Lavina Shankar, professor of English at Bates College, delivers a talk titled "Dogs and Their Humans: Bonds and Boundaries," at noon, Thursday, March 19, in Callahan Hall of the Lewistion Public Library, 200 Lisbon St. Part of the Great Falls Forum series, cosponsored by Bates, the Lewiston Sun Journal and St. Mary's Regional Medical Center, the talk is open to the public free of charge. (more...)

"Red Sox Nation," a course taught by Professor of History Margaret Creighton, uses the Olde Towne Team to discuss issues like race, class and gender in America. (more...)

Bryan McNulty, director of Communications and Media Relations at Bates, was quoted in a Bloomberg.com story about colleges offering new, three-year programs to students looking to save money. Reporter Janet Frankston Lorin wrote that "while Bates College has offered an option for a three-year degree since the 1960s, only one or two students graduate from the program each year." The reason, said spokesman McNulty, is that most students want the four-year experience, including about 70 percent who study abroad for a year or semester. At Bates, the debut of the three-year option in the '60s gave rise to the College's popular spring Short Term.

Read the Bloomberg.com story here.

In fact, travel during Short Term has a quality all its own. Students in German professor Dennis Sweet's interdisciplinary unit "Wake Up!" are also spending two weeks off campus, but in very different activities — such as a week-long meditation retreat and a week in the wilderness. The course is designed to provide a rigorous experiential journey to self-awareness, appreciation of nature and social engagement.

Professor of German Denis Sweet launched an experiential Short Term course in 2008 that "really deals with one's self, one's place in the world and one's place in society." He offers the life-changing course once again in Short Term 2009. See a multimedia presentation about the experiences shared by Sweet and his students in spring 2008.

View the multimedia presentation of Professor Sweet's 2008 course.

In a Bates classroom, author Denis Sweet, professor of German, is lost in "unthought."

It was Short Term 2008, the debut of my course, "Wake Up!" The rain was pouring down in the woods of southwestern Massachusetts, pattering hard on the blue tarp that I was crouched under.

It had been pouring rain like this all day. And it was cold. I hadn't eaten, or rather, I had deliberately not eaten. I was fasting from dawn to dawn. I had put on all my clothes, including the rain gear, and had crawled into the sleeping bag to try to fend off the cold (but not to sleep; the point was to keep watch through the night and greet the first light of dawn). But every hour or so, I would struggle out of the sleeping bag and methodically peel off all the layers of clothing. I had visitors, you see, and needed to begin another hunt for fat, colorful dog ticks. After 13 I stopped counting. (more...)

In the woods near Merrill Gym, Short Term students in "Forensic Science," taught by Stephanie Richards ’84, a visiting biology professor, search for a mock gravesite. From left are Jennifer Diefendorf ’11, Christopher Ray ’10, teaching assistant Marshall Karpell ’08, Leigh Krueger ’10 (behind tree), and Kelsey Omstead ’08. "They’re looking for changes in the soil texture and color on the ground," says Richards, who planted plastic human skeletons last fall for the course. "Marshall is explaining differences in the types of plants they might see if the ground had been disturbed."

Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen.