LEWISTON — Wearing black robes and a lot of maroon masks, Bates College seniors lined up on a lovely Thursday to the tolling of the bell atop Hathorn Hall for a commencement ceremony that seemed almost normal after a college experience that was anything but.

Overcoming the “pretty high hurdles” imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, “there will always be something extra special of the Class of 2021,” Bates President Clayton Spencer said.

“The world has taught us all lessons that we would not have chosen,” Spencer said.

Malcolm Hill, dean of the faculty, told seniors, “You’ve been through more than most, yet persevered.”

The college sent off 469 seniors, who hailed from 38 states and 43 countries. Sixty-five of them were the first person in their family to attend college.

Graduating senior and chemistry major Nicole Kumbula, one of those first-generation students from Zimbabwe, took note of one tradition at the elite liberal arts college that likely helped her classmates make it through: the practice of holding doors open for others.

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It’s a gesture that “makes me feel like a queen,” she said, and also “serves as the ultimate symbol of our community.”

At Bates, Kumbula said, “there has always been someone waiting for us” to hold a door open and help others go through.

Another speaker, biochemistry major Munashe Machoko, another senior from Zimbabwe, said he “found a home away from home” at Bates, a place he said isn’t perfect but offers support and encouragement along with a rigorous education.

For seniors, it wasn’t always easy. Last spring, the college shut down when the pandemic hit, sending students home in March to finish the academic year learning remotely. This year, they’ve been forced to wear face coverings, keep their distance from one another, stay out of each other’s dorms and observe public health rules that sometimes seemed onerous.

Spencer hailed their perseverance in allowing the college to keep operating safely.

But commencement speakers did more than offer praise. They also issued a call to action.

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Vanessa German speaks to Bates College graduates via a prerecorded video shown on a large screen Thursday on the Lewiston campus. German, an artist whose work was celebrated at the Bates Museum of Art in 2020, is one of four people granted honorary doctorates during Thursday’s ceremony. Daryn Slover/Sun Journal Buy this Photo

One of four people granted honorary doctorates at the ceremony, Lewiston-born Yvon Chouinard, who founded Patagonia, told the class via a prerecorded video shown on a large screen on the steps of Coram Library that even though he left the city at age 7 for California, “I feel like I’ve been a cantankerous Mainer all my life.”

Chouinard told the class that mankind is facing its “largest, existential threat,” one that threatens to create a dead world if the climate crisis isn’t addressed.

He said, though, the response shouldn’t be despair.

“The cure for depression is action,” Chouinard said.

Another honoree, American Civil Liberties Union lawyer Chase Strangio, said graduates are heading out into “such an uncertain and unpleasant world” where it’s impossible to say what’s coming next.

He told students to be “kind and patient with yourselves” in dealing with the unexpected.

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“Go out into the world and be disruptive,” Strangio said.

Vanessa German, an artist from Pittsburgh also honored, told graduates that sometimes “things will just shine, shine, shine” in the days ahead, but other times they won’t.

She said she hoped they’d have people who will stand by them and lend a hand in the lifelong endeavor to be as “wholly human” as possible.

Musician Rhiannon Giddens, also honored at the ceremony, told students they’ve come through an unusual year that nobody expected. It will serve them, she added, as they go “forward into a very unpredictable future.”

Giddens said that faced with major stress, people can collapse or become tougher. “It’s not ease that makes us strong,” she said.

The trick is find people who can help you “get up off the floor” and provide ideas, inspiration and encouragement to face challenges. “Find that energy,” she said.

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Machoko said that he saw how well Bates and its students shifted last spring in just a few weeks from its traditional academic approach to an entirely new one online.

From that, he said, he is confident that whatever hardships the future holds, “we will figure it out.”

Bates held the first of two commencement ceremonies Thursday morning, with half the class graduating. The rest walked across the stage in the afternoon at a similar session. Only a part of the faculty was present to limit social interactions that could spread COVID-19.

Diplomas were not handed out because a compressed timeline for classes didn’t leave enough space for professors to get grades in and officials to make sure of details. The diplomas will be mailed out soon, the college said.

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