Karma Samtani

Lisa Flanagan has seen it all.

For the past 21 years, she has worked at the Baldwin Center for Learning and Teaching (BCLT), serving as associate director and specializing in supporting multilingual and English as a second language (ESL) students. But prior to her time at Bowdoin, Flanagan’s path spanned continents and professions. From bartending in Tokyo to studying political theory at a folk school in Denmark, Flanagan’s zeal for the unknown and love for learning have given her more than a few notable memories to share.

“I spent last summer as a lighthouse keeper on Seguin Island.… I bicycled in China. I raised three kids on my own in Portland, and so I like to see new things. I like to meet new people,” Flanagan said.

Born and raised in Portland, Flanagan now lives in the house she grew up in. But her return to Maine came only after time spent across the world in different professions. Flanagan attended Tufts University, graduating in 1984 with a degree in history before heading to Denmark. There, she attended Den Røde Højskole, a folk school in Svendborg, studying the relationship between the Danish Communist Party and the USSR. After spending time traveling through Europe and Central Asia, Flanagan returned to New England, working in career services and fundraising at the Harvard Kennedy School and the Phillips Brooks House.

But her time abroad was not yet over. “I knew I wanted to travel more,” she said. That drive brought her to Japan, where she arrived without much of a plan. Still, she found a way to make things work, teaching night classes in English before her shifts bartending in the Roppongi district of Tokyo. In Japan, she also taught medical English to students training to be physicians at a medical college.

By then, Flanagan had identified her strength.

“I liked working with people who had also traveled and were [also] outside of their comfort zone,” she said.

In 1992, Flanagan returned to Massachusetts, working at the Berklee College of Music’s English intensive program, teaching students she fondly remembers as “jazz cats.” In Massachusetts, Flanagan worked at a number of other colleges and private high schools, helping students develop and strengthen their English writing, reading and speaking skills.

“That was super fun. I worked with biologists, with ceramic materials engineers, [people doing] all kinds of things,” she said.

During her stints at Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), she supported international graduate students preparing for oral board exams.

“It’s way better to work at MIT than at Harvard,” Flanagan said.

Flanagan explained that raising two kids in Cambridge was a challenge and was what ultimately motivated her return to Maine after her adventures worldwide. After a brief stint working at the University of Southern Maine, “Bowdoin poached me,” Flanagan quipped. Despite her tenure of over two decades at the College, Flanagan’s job is far from monotonous.

In lieu of a “day in the life,” Flanagan opted to share what the past day had looked like when we spoke Tuesday evening. In just one day, Flanagan held meetings to support students writing papers on the trustworthiness of primary sources, the Greek tragedy “Ajax” and superfund sites, worked with a member of faculty to discuss their publishing schedule and caught up with an Italian teaching fellow who worked at Bowdoin six years ago.

“It’s a great job, because it’s kind of like the [emergency room]. I never know who’s going to walk in,” Flanagan said. “The faculty are like the orthopedic surgeons, and the staff who do all this work that you don’t really see and … help the faculty do a better job, [so] they can concentrate on more specialized things—we’re more like the physical therapists who are working the students to strengthen their skills, to strengthen the muscles.”

Outside of supporting students with writing and language skills, Flanagan works closely with young faculty as they navigate the world of academic publishing. In recent years, Flanagan notes that her job has grown to encompass responsibilities like supporting students with time management, fellowship applications and practice with public speaking.

“It’s really fabulous to see people go from an 18-year-old kind of adrift to a 22-year-old with purpose,” Flanagan commented.

But Flanagan’s care for the students she works with doesn’t stop with their time at Bowdoin. During our conversation, she easily remembered the names, backgrounds and career trajectories of students from decades ago.

“I worked with Bier Kraichak [’08] in 2004, and we’re still in contact. He’s a professor of lichens in Thailand. I’ve worked with Bill De La Rosa [’16]… He came to my house for Thanksgiving…, [and] brought me his new fiancée to meet,” Flanagan said. “You know, you’ve helped this person figure out who they are, outside of their family, outside of their country, outside of what’s familiar, and you just watch them become themselves. That’s a huge gift.”

Despite the growing role of technology in students’ lives over the years, Flanagan noted that traffic at the BLCT has remained consistent.

“Last year, President [Safa Zaki] said that learning is intimate, it’s messy and there’s a lot of love involved, and that artificial intelligence can’t replace [it]. And she was spot on when she said that,” Flanagan said. “If you can build a relationship, you build trust, and trust builds change, and that will be lost when we become technocrats.”