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News Article "I'm going to Colby" Written by Gerry Boyle from Colby Magazine The seventh and eighth graders at Beatrice Rafferty School, on the Passamaquoddy Pleasant Point Reservation (also known as Sipayik) in Perry, Maine, ringed the back of the classroom as Kelsey Potdevin ’09 stood to introduce a video about Colby that she and other students had prepared. Potdevin, an All-America swimmer whose mother is a member of the Athabascan Native American tribe in Alaska, told the students they had the power to get to college. “It just takes a lot of hard work,” she said. And, for the students at Beatrice Rafferty, in economically depressed Washington County, no small amount of inspiration, which Potdevin hoped to provide. “She’s showing them that she’s a Native American and she’s thriving [at Colby],” said seventh-grade teacher Ravin Gustafson. “Most of these kids don’t aspire to anything like Colby College. But seeing this right in front of their faces—that’s the value of it.” Potdevin was one of eight Colby students who spent spring break working with Native American students in Maine, the first of three visits this spring by students participating in the Wabanaki-Bates-Bowdoin-Colby collaborative. Bates and Bowdoin students planned to visit the schools later in the semester. In its second year, the collaborative is intended to raise aspirations of Native American students in Maine and to find ways to improve the three colleges’ campus climate for Wabanaki students (including members of the Passamaquoddy, Maliseet, Penobscot, and Micmac tribes). In addition to the spring visits, Wabanaki students spent time at the campuses last summer. The program has a dual purpose, said Janice Kassman, special assistant to the president for external affairs and coordinator of the program for Colby: “Bringing information about all three colleges to the Wabanaki youth, but also having our students learn about Native culture in our state.” During their visit to Sipayik, a small community on a hill overlooking Passamaquoddy Bay, the Colby students did learn about native culture. They sat in with fourth graders in a class taught by culture teacher Barbara Dore, learning animal names in Wabanaki and reading aloud from a book in Wabanaki, Conehlan Not Mathtoquehs! (Stop That Rabbit!). The fourth graders, led by Dore, sang a Wabanaki welcome song for the visitors, accompanying themselves on handcrafted native drums. Jake Obstfeld ’09, a government major from New York City, came away from his conversations with new knowledge of native culture, including moose hunting, he said, but also awareness of how students from a Native American culture grow up with a different worldview from that of non-natives. The notion of a separate culture rang a bell with Ozzy Ramirez ’09, who is from New York City with roots in Peru and Puerto Rico. Ramirez said he knows what it’s like to grow up “isolated from the rich,” and that he can empathize with the Wabanaki students, many of whom live outside of the economic mainstream. And he said many Colby students are aware of poverty among Native Americans but don’t know that those problems exist in Maine. “People think that it’s out west, New Mexico and Arizona,” Ramirez said. “They don’t really think that it’s here, that people need help here.” The three colleges hope to help by inviting Native American students to summer programs, the first of which was held last year. One high school student from the Penobscot Indian Nation at Indian Island in Old Town took part in the summer program, Kassman said, and was admitted to the Colby Class of 2013. For the spring break visit, the academic theme was philosophy, which translated into word games, Colby “Jeopardy,” and even Obstfeld parading into a classroom full of fourth graders wearing the Colby Mule mascot costume. But all of the preparation, the video, and the games notwithstanding, the college students’ mere presence was most important. “Just having us in the schools,” Obstfeld said. “What we say is secondary.” Whether it was the presentations and games or just showing up, the visit did have an impact. Students—Colby and Passamaquoddy—chatted in the school cafeteria. “A lot of them came up to us and said, ‘I’m going to Colby,’” Potdevin said. But the students are several years away from actually applying to college, and potential pitfalls loom. Beatrice Rafferty School Principal Mike Chadwick said the primary school has a minimal absentee rate, but absenteeism skyrockets when the Native American students get to high school, off the reservation. In past years, students have attended Washington County Community College, the University of Maine-Machias, and other state colleges. This spring, one Penobscot student enrolled at Bates College. But teachers said that in last year’s eighth-grade class at Beatrice Rafferty School, no students intended to go to college. This year there were two. The long-term impact of the Bowdoin-Bates-Colby program—the talk of campus clubs and college food, even the idea that students actually choose their classes—will have to be measured over time. “We don’t know if it’s going to work at all yet,” Potdevin said. “We’re going to have to try it for a while before we know.” And it’s never too early to start. “Fourth grade is young,” said substitute teacher Kate Cling, who has three children in the school. “But I guess that would be the time to plant the seed.”

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