It’s a typical Sunday in Ladd Library — college students are typing away, eyes eagerly locked onto screens in entrance of them, finishing assignments that they’ve postpone all weekend.
Whereas the scholars immerse themselves in work, their personalities are nonetheless on show for onlookers to find: The 13-inch canvas in entrance of them is painted with stickers representing their pursuits, affections, and identities, from favourite trip places and home-town slogans to Bates actions and social causes.
Adorning a laptop computer may help to “anchor college students and provides them a sense of consolation,” says Professor of Rhetoric, Movie, and Display screen Research Stephanie Kelley-Romano. “They will take a look at their [laptop] and see a sticker from a good friend again dwelling, or one which represents an expertise that they had with a cherished one. School could be very disorienting, and I feel stickers are one approach to bear in mind and categorical who we’re.”
Every sticker on a pupil’s laptop computer contributes to their particular person story in methods each large and small. Whereas some college students sport gold stars from classmates — an indication of encouragement from one pupil to a different — others show a much bigger piece of their id.
John Campana ‘26 of Detroit shares significant points of his life in two ornamental methods. On his laptop computer, his favourite sticker is the “one I acquired from my tattoo store again dwelling.” Campana has two tattoos, “each actually significant to me, and I acquired them at extremely pivotal moments in my life.” Campana’s first tattoo is a lotus flower, reflecting a deeply private time in his life. The second reveals the Roman numerals of his late grandfather’s beginning 12 months, a dwelling reminiscence of a beloved member of the family.
Elsewhere on his laptop computer are a slew of stickers selling his favourite band, Fleetwood Mac, for which he admits a sort of obsession. (The Campana household canine is known as “Stevie.”)
A number of college students show their dedication to the group on their moveable gadgets. “Take this Inexperienced Dot sticker for instance,” says Alden Zhang ‘26 of Bethesda, Md. “I’m a Junior Advisor this 12 months, and I acquired this sticker after finishing coaching for Inexperienced Dot,” the faculty’s bystander intervention program.
Different stickers that adorn Zhang’s laptop computer seize a significant facet of her id: her favourite music artist (Camila Cabello), her highschool (Sidwell Pals), and her favourite pastime (working), evoked by a “Rise and Run” sticker.
Amanda Energy ’26 of Scottsdale, Ariz., has a laptop computer case in a stunning shade of pink — however it’s naked for now. “I’ve acquired sticker-commitment points,” she laughs. “I really feel like placing a sticker on my laptop computer is such a dedication. I do know that folks will see these stickers on daily basis, and that they may immediately make assumptions about my pursuits and my id as a complete.”
Some laptops are like pages on a passport, detailing locations that the proprietor has visited in the latest years. Moses Hufford-Bucklin ‘26 of Delco, Pa., collects stickers from almost each location he visits — from his annual household trip to Acadia Nationwide Park to a fast journey in Tennessee.
“I’ve been visiting Acadia every summer time since I can bear in mind,” says Hufford-Bucklin. “Maine has at all times been such a particular place to me, it solely feels proper that almost all of my stickers have been collected from retailers up and down the Maine coast.”
Seniors have curated spectacular sticker collections over their years spent at Bates. “I began accumulating stickers through the starting of highschool and constructed it up as I went,” says Maddy Ewell ‘24 of Ridgewood, N.J.
“I added a Bates sticker after I used to be accepted — one of many pine-scented ones from Admission. I even have one from a Portland espresso store, however my favourite one is a sticker {that a} good friend gave me: a traditional Beethoven portrait with sun shades edited onto him.”
On the School Retailer, positioned in Kalperis Corridor, decals for numerous sports activities are usually a best-seller, says Gail St. Pierre, retailer director, with a detailed second being the Bates wordmark.
Downstairs, the faculty’s Publish & Print operation now has the capability to provide stickers for the campus group, which means that college students can stroll into the P&P sticker haven and ask the employees to provide a self-designed sticker for the low beginning value of 70 cents a sticker.
“Lots of golf equipment and sports activities groups have been coming in right here to design and print their very own stickers,” says Laurie Henderson, P&P’s director. From celebratory stickers marking the NCAA win by the ladies’s second varsity eight boat final 12 months, to stickers selling Take Be aware, a Bates a cappella group, P&P has been serving to these organizations get their names out into the Bates group and past.
Stickers maintain a lot greater than initially meets the attention, and make for nice dialog starters, says Kelley-Romano.
“If I see a pupil with a sticker from a cool place, or of a band I do know — we are able to speak about that. Or, I don’t acknowledge the importance, I can ask and be taught extra about them.”
Not solely does Kelley-Romano acquire and show stickers of her personal, she additionally fingers them out to college students in her rhetoric courses. “I like to provide college students the sticker to see the place they put it. Some put it on their pocket book, some simply put it of their pocket, however some put it on their water bottle, cellphone case, or laptop computer, and I’ve gotta say, it makes me really feel joyful after they publicly show their stickers!
“It’s actually only a image of a specific second, however it’s an academic second shared and I feel celebrating moments is absolutely what it’s all about.”
