Emanuel Merisotis ‘90 Reflects on The Student

Memories flood from living in Adams his sophomore year, to late night study sessions in Ladd Library or watching football games at Garcelon. For Emanuel Merisotis ‘90, Back to Bates Weekend is more than visiting his daughter at college; it is a reflection of his past.

Merisotis was a graduate of the Bates class of 1990, double majoring in political science and mathematics. Now, Merisotis gets to share his past with daughter, first-year student Katherine, as she navigates her next four years at Bates.

While Merisotis spent his four years at Bates, he participated in The Bates Student, working his first two years as a student correspondent, before being promoted to Sports Editor his junior year and Production Manager his senior year.

He began his writing career in an article printed on Sept. 19, 1986 titled, “New Service Installed At Computing Center.” The article described the new computing service on campuses, where twenty to thirty computers were installed for The Bates Student.

This article became an inspiration for Merisoti, as for the next four years he worked in this computer lab and assisted students who needed help with the computers.

After looking through past editions of The Bates Student articles from Merisotis, his work can be seen in many articles about the women’s soccer team ’86 through ’89. Consistently discussing the team’s accomplishments and challenges, Merisotis was unbiased in his work and throughout his years gained knowledge as a writer and an editor who was able to lead other student correspondents in their coverage of different sporting events.

In his last year of writing for The Student, Merisotis was the production manager, where he had the opportunity to write in whatever forum he chose, choosing topics related to his major: Political Science. He chose to write about foreign policy, culminating his four years at Bates. With the combination of his knowledge learned from professors as well as the extracurricular club he chose to be involved in, Merisotis cultivated a robust liberal arts education.

In many ways, Bates College has not changed since Merisotis attended.“Page Hall has not been redone in over thirty years,” he reminisces. “It still looks the same as when I went here.”

Now, Merisotis resides in Connecticut with his wife, Teresa Merisotis and two children Katherine ’23 and Stephen, who is a sophomore in high school. Merisotis works for the Senate Democrats in the Connecticut State Senate as a researcher and thoroughly enjoys photography, newspapers and birds.