Brian McGrory, a 1984 graduate of Bates College, is returning to the Boston Globe newsroom after stepping down as editor in 2023. The Globe announced his return on December 15. McGrory began his career at the newspaper in 1989 and previously served as editor from 2012 to 2023, during which time the Globe won three Pulitzer Prizes. He left to join Boston University’s journalism department, where he chaired the department and started a local reporting initiative connecting student journalists with professional newsrooms.
“Life doesn’t always follow plans, and this wasn’t part of mine,” McGrory said in the Globe’s story. “But pretty much my entire career has been tied to the Globe, proudly so, and I’m honored to return and play what I hope will be a helpful role during this complicated moment in the region and beyond.”
Linda Henry, CEO of Boston Globe Media, commented on McGrory’s return in a statement shared with WBUR: “Brian’s passion for the Globe and his love of Boston are deeply intertwined. We are thrilled to welcome Brian back and look forward to the work our world-class newsroom will continue to do under his leadership.” McGrory replaces Nancy Barnes, who was editor from 2023 until her resignation in December.
In another development involving Bates faculty, Associate Professor of Anthropology Joyce Bennett was featured in EL PAÍS for her research on Maya weavers in Guatemala. Bennett has interviewed over 130 weavers and studied their efforts to protect traditional weaving through intellectual property rights. She received both a Fulbright U.S. Scholars award and an Engaged Research Grant from the Wenner-Gren Foundation for this work.
“One woman told me she could still feel her mother’s hands over hers when she wove,” Bennett told EL PAÍS reporter Ana Rodríguez Álvarez. “That is the spirituality behind the textile.”
Bennett noted that global fashion brands have reproduced traditional designs without credit or compensation for their creators, while Guatemala lacks legal protections for collective ownership of these textiles.
“Global fashion wants inspiration,” Bennett told EL PAÍS. “But what it often does is extraction. They take designs that have been collectively protected for centuries and register them as their own. It is a silent but devastating violence.”
On December 19, Aleksandar M. Diamond-Stanic, associate professor of physics at Bates College, participated as a guest on Maine Calling’s show “Winter Light.” Diamond-Stanic discussed astronomical perspectives on winter light and shared cultural insights about solstice celebrations drawn from his Serbian heritage.
Ben Wolking ’29 delivered a TEDx talk about resilience following a diagnosis of an undiagnosed heart condition that disrupted his swimming career at Bates last fall. The Lake Okeechobee News covered his experience overcoming uncertainty after doctors advised he might not swim competitively again.
“I found tremendous meaning in the striving itself – … obsessively working with coaches to modify practices to my new limitations, the 8 p.m. bedtimes to be well-rested for the 5 a.m. swims, the grueling practices alongside my teammates, even the soreness after a long day in the gym – that’s what I looked back on most fondly,” Wolking said in his TEDx talk.
He credited Florida 4-H programs with helping him develop communication skills and resilience: “There’s a lot of different ways you can develop that resilience through 4-H,” Wolking told Lake Okeechobee. “It’s one of those underlying themes that goes through all the different projects.”
Barnaby Wickham ’94 received attention from The Associated Press for transforming collected hubcaps found while cycling around Baltimore into large-scale art installations, including one featuring Snoopy standing 16 feet tall by 21 feet wide.
“I think it’s sort of the excitement of the hunt, for one thing. I love to cycle. I love Baltimore. I love to go out in Baltimore, and there’s just enough hubcaps and other things like car grills to be interesting, but not so many that it’s too easy,” Wickham told AP.
Vanessa Paolella ’21 concluded her two-year Peace Corps service in Madagascar by writing her final “Letters from Madagascar” column for Sun Journal upon returning home for holidays before deciding she would return to continue working with Fianarantsoa School for the Deaf.
“Over the past two years, it’s gotten more difficult, not less, for me to live at the juncture of such deeply unequal worlds,” she writes… “As Peace Corps volunteers, we lived among people in deep poverty and experienced life as they do, to an extent. But for us, it was always a choice,” she writes. “We will always have more money, more opportunities, and a way out — something the people we lived among will likely never have.”
“My Peace Corps service is finished, but I still feel like there’s more work to be done,” she writes. Paolella plans formalization and expansion efforts at Fianarantsoa School for the Deaf.
Hannah Kothari ’26 was profiled by New Hampshire Bulletin regarding Chicks on Cliffs—a club she founded late last year aiming to build community among women interested in outdoor recreation across New England; since its founding Kothari has organized frequent meet-ups drawing almost 6,000 Instagram followers.
“It’s been very empowering for me to be outside with other women for the first time really in my life,” Kothari told Bulletin.
