My Last Year: Trying to get too much done in too little time – Bates News

Lets admit it: Ive been Jane Costlows shadow a Boswell to her Johnson these last three months as I try to document her 34th and final year of teaching at Bates.

Ive followed her onto the Quad for Opening Convocation, into Bates classrooms to see her teach, and down to Portland (and into a Trader Joes store) to photograph a student-led climate protest.

Little did I know that we were just getting started.

Graded papers in hand, Jane Costlow departs her Hedge Hall office to walk over to the Olin Arts Center, where shell teach her 9:30 a.m. course Lives in Place. She uses the short stroll from Hedge to Olin as a time to decompress. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College)

In late October, I rode the bus for seven hours to New York City to photograph Costlow presenting scholarly research about oil pollution in the Volga River in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Behind me on the ride down, a woman read her poetry aloud off her laptop (arent they handy?) to a stranger, an all-too-willing conversational partner who compared her poems, at length, to Yeats and then to Thoreau.

At first, I had a rosy reaction to their dialogue. What great preparation, I reasoned, for entering Costlows academic milieu, a heady mix of literature and history and language study until the dialogue persisted for the full seven hours, the kind of time I wouldnt spend even on Costlow.

But was it worth it? Yes, because I got to see how Costlow, in her final year at Bates as the colleges Griffith Professor of Environmental Studies, continues to excel at teaching, research, and service, the holy trinity of faculty responsibilities by which professors across the land are judged and measured.

Costlow attends a one-day conference Energy Aesthetics: Force, Flow, and Entropy in Russian Culture at NYUs Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College)

And over a recent three-week span, Costlow undertook all three with zeal.

On campus, she taught students and graded their papers.

In New York, she presented the paper Seeing Oil: Transporting the Volga into the Modern Era at the conference Energy, Aesthetics: Force, Flow, and Entropy in Russian Culture at New York Universitys Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia.

Costlows Final Year

Join us as we follow Jane Costlow esteemed Bates teacher, scholar, and colleague month by month during her 34th and final academic year.

And then, serving as chair of the colleges Philip J. Otis Committee, she orchestrated a three-day visit to campus in early November by poet and essayist Ross Gay, who visited classes, dined out with faculty and students, and delivered this years Otis Lecture.

(Squeezed into the mix, too, was Costlow offering commentary one Saturday afternoon on the documentary film Makala, screened at Lewiston Public Library for the Tournes French Film Festival.)

We spoke to Costlow about the pleasures and challenges of trying to manage all of these roles nearly simultaneously.

Ideally, they all feed into, nourish, and sustain each other. At Bates, Ive had the good fortune to teach what I really love, things that Im intellectually and personally really interested in.

Jasper Beardslee 22 of Miami and Elly Beckerman 22 of Washington, D.C., students in Costlows Lives in Place course, wedge in a quick conversation with her after class. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College)

There are ways in which my teaching has led me into new kinds of scholarly questions, which is great. And there really is something about your own intellectual curiosity, and other forms of curiosity, that can be fed by your scholarship and then that comes back into the classroom.

But theres never enough time for the scholarship that you want to do.

The service part can sometimes feel really integrated, and sometimes its just part of what we need to do to keep the household of Bates College going, part of what it is to be at a liberal arts college. I find that service is more likely to sap energy than necessarily nurturing energy.

Its just too much I dont think thats healthy for anybody.

Costlow meets with members of the Otis Committee, including Assistant Professor of Philosophy Paul Schofield and Professor of English Lillian Nayder in Hedge Halls Environmental Studies Lounge. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College)

And its not just the faculty trying to keep all these balls in the air. I have a first-year student violinist whos very excited about everything. I heard someone ask him after class, Oh, are you going to be playing in the orchestra? And he said, Well, technically, I dont have the time to play in the orchestra. But I might try to anyway.

And I just found myself laughing because I thought, There it is: You dont really have enough time to do all these things, but youre kind of ramming more things into your day. I worry about us trying to get too much done in too little time at Bates.

Clark A. Griffith Professor of Environmental Studies Jane Costlow and Visiting Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies Francis Eanes head to lunch.

We had dinner with Ross Gay at Nezinscot Farm in Turner the other night. We do it each year: a group of faculty and students take our Otis visitor to Nezinscot for a wonderful country-farm meal. Its just incredibly relaxed. We sit around this long table and have a sort of Thanksgiving dinner. We chat, and then at a certain point, somebody tries to ask a good question that we can all have a conversation around.

This year, we talked a lot about what an environmental studies education ought to be, about the students hunger for some kind of hands-on aspect to their education.

The next day, my colleague Carissa Aoki told me that on the ride back to Bates from the farm, the students talked about how wonderful it was to sit and just talk with the faculty, just to have that big, rambling, relaxed conversation, and that we dont do it enough. And theyre absolutely right. We dont.

At top, before dinner at Nezinscot Farm, essayist and poet Ross Gay kicks off introductions as Costlow and environmental studies major Alexandra Cullen 20 listen. Above left, Costlow consults with host Gloria Varney, and above right, Costlow leads the group in a moment of gratitude before dinner. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College)

I dont know. Do I need to bring in donuts and coffee to my classes? Should we sit on the floor instead of at desks? Theres something about the arrangement here the stress and the dizziness that gets in the way of having those deep conversations. I guess Im thinking that we just live in a world that is not conducive to reflection. And that impacts me and it also impacts my students.

For example, to write well, you really do need space to be reflective space to empty and clear your mind and get ready to write. Do we give our students that space for deep creative work?

In that sense, for me, writing and teaching often seem incompatible. The poet Adrienne Rich said that when she was teaching, she wasnt actually able to write poetry. It had to do with the way that being in a classroom takes the energy out of you.

Teaching students how to write and responding to their writing is probably one of the most important things I do as a teacher. And its a big task. I have pretty large classes now, and I just cant imagine teaching without having them write papers. I need to see their writing. I need to see their ideas developed. I need to try to help them even in the context of a fairly large class. I need to give them feedback and help them develop as writers.

As the 2019 Otis Lecturer Ross Gay puts a writing prompt on the blackboard, Costlow hands back papers to her students. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College)

I think Ive learned a lot over the years about how to approach responding to student writing. But grading is a whole other thing: Its really hard to know how to put a letter grade on a piece. I always hope that my responses to a students writing are more complicated and helpful than just the grade. But you know that students are going to look at the grade, and the grade matters.

I learned years ago from the Writing Workshop at Bates to start your remarks with something positive. I think thats something Ive pretty much internalized. I always try to say something supportive to a student in terms of responding to their ideas, even if something hasnt come together very well or that theres a really interesting idea thats kind of buried on page four.

The other thing Ive learned is not to get bogged down in minutiae or get lost in the weeds. Try to give some general comments that can be helpful for the development of their writing.

Jane Costlow shares her thoughts on the importance of student writing. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College)

I dont use red pens; I use green or purple. When I edit my own writing, I tend to have a twitchy finger: I circle a lot and make lots of marks. I try not to do that too much on a piece of student writing because everything that Ive learned about student writing says that while the mechanics of the paper the grammar and the like are important, its a lower-order importance. You have to try to look at the overall organization: the structure and the ideas.

I continue to learn from student papers, a new take on something that Ive been reading or a movie that weve been watching for a really long time. Thats exciting. Then you can also really tell when a student is engaged in what theyre writing about. Its hard to put a name to it, but theres this intangible feeling in the tone of the paper that you can recognize.

Maya Vinokour,assistant professor in the Department of Russian and Slavic Studies at NYU, takes note of a response made by Costlow after Vinokours presentation. Konstantine Klioutchkine of Pomona College is at right. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College)

That was a wonderful workshop because it was a relatively small, focused, and interactive gathering of scholars. We were all interested in similar issues, but it wasnt such a narrow focus that it felt like we were all talking about the same thing all day long. I like that kind of conference, where its more intimate and you can actually have sustained conversations with people over the course of a day.

We have a shared language. We all speak Russian. But we also share a deep love for some of the same texts and have similar kinds of questions about Russian culture.

At top, Costlow presents her paper at NYUs Jordan Center. Above left, Costlow receives feedback on her paper from a colleague. Above right, conference participants take a break before lunch. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College)

That day in particular was incredibly helpful because Id been working on this paper all summer and was super into it. Then the semester began, and I had to basically say, Okay, all those files have to go down on the floor, because the student papers have to come on to the desk.

That meant that I was significantly overdue with the paper it was commissioned for a volume of essays written mostly by environmental historians and I didnt know where I wanted to go with it. So, the comments that I got from people at the workshop were just amazing and really helpful.

Yes, its a reminder that in the best situations, our work can be involved in dialogue with each other. And so as much as I like kind of going and closing the door of my study and doing a deep dive into the material, theres something about being in conversation with other people. Thats actually true of my students as well as other colleagues, where I can get to that ah-ha moment and figure out my way through a writing project. Thats kind of cool.

After the conferences morning session, Tyler Harper, a doctoral candidate in the NYU Department of Comparative Literature, speaks with Costlow. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College)

Ellen is a professor of Russian literature at Princeton. Shes from Lewiston, and her mother taught piano in Lewiston and at Bates for years Natasha was a very beloved teacher, and taught my daughter piano. Ellens father, Ralph Chances, was in the Bates economics department for years, though I unfortunately never got to know him.

Ellen and I have become really close friends. We share a love of Russian literature, but we share lots of other things as well, and we actually have regular telephone conversations. Whenever I go to New York, we have breakfast at the Utopia Diner. Its always energizing and heartwarming to see her.

Costlow has breakfast at the Utopia Diner with her longtime friend Ellen Chances, professor of Russian literature at Princeton University. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College)

Being chair of the Otis Committee is a wonderful opportunity, and we receive great help from a lot of people, in College Advancement in particular. But of course theres still a lot of scheduling, logistics, and working everything out that I end up having a hand in. So on the one hand, its really gratifying. But there are only so many hours in the day. And its on top of other things.

Professor of Religious Studies Cynthia Baker joins Ross Gay and Costlow before his Otis presentation in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College)

Its an example of a service contribution that folds integrally into my teaching and my scholarship. Service contributions dont always do that. This service was a huge benefit for my students and for my own thinking about literature and the environment. Its nice when it feels like youre all kind of heading in the same direction.

I dont think Ive ever laughed so much at an Otis Lecturer, as a lot of our speakers tend to bring us perspectives about difficult and dire situations in the world, whether its extinction or climate change or plastics in the Pacific Ocean, those really tough issues. And those have been wonderful contributions.

Ross Gays reading prompted lots of laughter. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College)

But what I felt from Ross was that he was reminding us what we love and treasure why we care about particular places and possibilities in the first place. He also, somehow, created an experience of community in that place and short time.

It was like everybody there was really with him. Having that experience of being a kind of mini-community for the space of his performance was energizing and life-giving.

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My Last Year: Trying to get too much done in too little time - Bates News