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| Sarah Potter (photo: Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College) | |
Bates College, Lewiston, Maine, honored Sarah Potter, who retired as bookstore director on October 30 after 35 years of running what is now a $1.2 million business "with skill and a human touch."
During her tenure, she's hired some 185 Bates students, and hired some students in the 1980s and their Bates children in the 2000s.
"All of us try to help students become fully formed people," said Potter, who is a 1977 graduate of the college. "We all want them to get a sense of who they really are, so that even if they don't really know what they're jumping off into" when they leave Bates, "they have the confidence to jump."
Potter has adjusted the store's mission so that the store sees its "obligation as much more than selling a textbook," Potter said. "It's to help a student somehow get that book," whether through a sale, rental, reserve or other way.