LEWISTON — It takes more than a rainy day to dampen spirits at a Bates College graduation.

Degrees were conferred Sunday on 484 graduates at Bates College’s 149th commencement exercises. The decision to move the event from the historic quad to Merrill Gymnasium was made just hours before the 10 a.m. start time.

Soaking-wet seating for the graduates and hundreds of their family members and friends was still in place under the quad’s stately trees as the crowd gathered at the backup location. Up to the last minute, graduates in cap and gown could be seen sprinting across the campus in heavy rain that started in the hour before the ceremony.

The members of Bates College’s Class of 2015 come from more than three dozen countries and 31 states, as well as Washington, D.C. There are 50 graduates from Maine; five of them are from the Lewiston-Auburn area.

In her opening remarks, Bates President A. Clayton Spencer said 32 of the graduates represent the first in their families to complete a college education. She also paid tribute to the college’s hometown and the people of L-A, “who enrich our lives in every way.”

The first few words spoken by Alexander X. Bolden of Cleveland, Ohio, who delivered the senior address, brought a booming round of applause, when he thanked the young woman who accepted his marriage proposal the night before.

His talk also struck a heartfelt chord among classmates when he said, “Students are marching everywhere.”

He said, “Education itself is a revolutionary act,” and rather than calling for protest and demonstration against wrongful acts, he urged that education be used “as a tool of justice” which should be wielded with love.

Honorary degrees went to four leaders in medicine, mathematics, American furniture design and athletics. They are Manjul Bhargava, recipient of the 2014 Fields Medal for mathematics and a professor at Princeton University, who delivered the commencement address; Dr. Mark Abelson, a pioneering ophthalmologist whose research and work has led to dozens of new eye treatments and cures; Thomas Moser, master craftsman whose handmade furniture, made in Auburn, beautifies public spaces around the world; and Joan Benoit Samuelson, winner of the first women’s Olympic marathon at the 1984 Games in Los Angeles, an ardent Maine environmentalist, and founder of Maine’s annual TD Beach-To-Beacon 10K road race.

Bhargava, in a fascinating commencement address, emphasized the surprising unity of mathematics with many other fields. He spoke about his discovery early in life that math is inseparable from the arts. He is a scholar of Sanskrit poetry and he told how the literary form of that ancient Indian language is dependent upon mathematical relationships.

Such “unexpected connections” are present in all fields of art and music, as well as professions such as engineering and architecture, Bhargava said. At some point, a person enjoying music may realize that he has been “tricked into learning a mathematical theorem.”

“Scientists ought to know about the arts,” he said, and he urged the graduates to “find two, three, or four things that you enjoy, and keep doing them,” because the interconnections would become apparent and important to their lives.

Bhargava also paid tribute to a colleague at Princeton University. That was professor John Nash, who was killed last week, along with his wife, in an automobile accident. Nash, 86, was a distinguished mathematician who struggled to overcome schizophrenia and whose remarkable life was the subject of the 2001 movie, “A Beautiful Mind,” and the 2000 play “Proof.”

The audience erupted in loud applause when Spencer announced that the Bates women’s rowing team claimed its first, and the college’s first ever, NCAA championship in any sport at Gold River, Calif., on Saturday. Team members made an overnight trip from the West Coast to be at the Bates commencement.

Five of the Class of 2015 graduates went to L-A high schools. They are Mekae James Hyde of Lewiston, Lewiston High School (B.A. in politics); Asha Hassan Mohamud of Lewiston, Lewiston High School (B.S. in biology); Allaina Madeline Murphy of Poland Spring, St. Dominic Regional High School (B.A. in politics); Alex Stephen Parker of Lewiston, St. Dominic Regional High School (B.A. in politics); and Naima Abdirahman Qambi of Auburn and Columbus, Ohio, Edward Little High School (B.A. in psychology).

Also among the 50 Maine graduates were students from Topsham and Rumford.

Copy the Story Link