Bates College
Encyclopedia
Bates College is a highly selective, private liberal arts college
located in Lewiston, Maine
, in the United States
. and was most recently ranked 21st in the nation in the 2011 US News Best Liberal Arts Colleges rankings. The college was founded in 1855 by abolitionists
. Bates College is one of the first colleges in the United States to be coeducational from establishment, and is also the oldest continuously operating coeducational institution in New England
. Originally a Free Will Baptist institution, Bates is now a nonsectarian
institution. As of 2011, Bates is the college with the highest tuition in the United States, but this federal ranking doesn't consider Bates' grants of financial aid and it compares Bates' comprehensive fee, which includes room and board as well as tuition, to other colleges' tuition only.
Bates College offers 32 departmental and interdisciplinary program majors and 25 secondary concentrations, and confers Bachelor of Arts
(B.A.) and Bachelor of Science
(B.S.) degrees. The college enrolls approximately 2,000 students, 300 of whom study abroad each semester. The student-faculty ratio is 10-to-1.
Bates is a leader of the SAT optional movement for undergraduate admission. It instituted one of the first SAT optional programs in the nation in 1984.
Founded in 1855, Bates was New England's first coeducational college. The founders of Bates were active abolitionists, and several of the college's earliest students were former slaves. The college was originally called the Maine State Seminary and replaced the Parsonsfield Seminary
, which burned under mysterious circumstances in 1854. The Parsonsfield Seminary was founded in 1832 by Free Will Baptists
and served as a stop on the Underground Railroad
. Parsonsfield's Cobb Divinity School
, founded in 1840, merged with Bates in 1870 and eventually became Bates' religion department. Therefore, Bates' religion department is 15 years older than the College itself.
As with many New England institutions, religion played a vital role in the college's founding. The Reverend Oren Burbank Cheney
founded and served as the first president of Bates. He was a Freewill Baptist
minister, a teacher, and a former Maine
legislator. Cheney and Rev. Ebenezer Knowlton
steered through the Maine
Legislature a bill creating an educational corporation initially called the Maine State Seminary. Dr. Alonzo Garcelon
convinced Cheney and Knowlton to locate the school in Lewiston
, Maine's fastest-growing industrial and commercial center.
Cheney assembled a six-person faculty dedicated to teaching the classics
and moral philosophy to both men and women. In 1863 he received a collegiate charter, and obtained financial support for an expansion from the city of Lewiston
and from Benjamin E. Bates
, the Boston financier and manufacturer whose mills dominated the Lewiston
riverfront. In 1864 the Maine State Seminary became Bates College. The College consisted of Hathorn Hall
and Parker halls and a student body of fewer than 100.
Nearly 200 students and alumni of the College and Seminary
served in the American Civil War
(1861–65), and only two students from Georgia fought for the Confederacy. With Cheney's support, the first woman to graduate from a New England college was Mary Wheelwright Mitchell, class of 1869. Cheney also ensured that no secret societies or fraternities were allowed on campus. One secret society was founded at Bates in 1881, but the society was not sanctioned by the President or the College. By the end of Cheney's tenure, in 1894, the campus had expanded to 50 acres (20.2 ha) and six buildings.
In 1894 George Colby Chase, Class of 1868, succeeded President Cheney. Known as "the great builder," Chase oversaw the construction of eleven new buildings, including Coram Library, the Chapel, Chase Hall, Carnegie Science Hall, and Rand Hall. Chase tripled the number of students and faculty, as well as the endowment. The Cobb Divinity School
and Nichols Latin School departments of the College were discontinued under President Chase. In 1907 at the request of Chase and the Board, the legislature amended the college's charter removing the requirement for the President and majority of the trustees to be Free Will Baptists, allowing the school to qualify for Carnegie Foundation
funding for professor pensions.
In 1920 Clifton Daggett Gray
, a clergyman and former editor of The Standard, a Baptist
periodical published in Chicago, succeeded President Chase. On campus, renovations were completed on Libbey Forum and the Hedge Science Laboratory, and the Clifton Daggett Gray Athletic Building, Alumni Gymnasium, Stephens Observatory
telescope, and Women's Locker Building (now the Muskie Archives) were constructed. During World War II, when male students abandoned college campuses to enlist in the armed forces, Gray established a V-12 Navy College Training Program
Unit on campus, assuring the College students - men and women - during wartime. When he retired, in 1944, Gray had increased the student enrollment to more than 700 and doubled the faculty to seventy; the endowment had doubled to $2 million.
In 1944 Charles Franklin Phillips
, a professor at Colgate University
and a leading economist, became Bates' fourth president. He initiated the Bates Plan of Education, a liberal arts "core" study program. He also directed expansions of campus facilities, including the Memorial Commons, the Health Center, Dana Chemistry Hall, Pettigrew Hall, Treat Gallery, Schaeffer Theatre, and Page Hall. When he retired in 1967, Phillips left a student body of 1,000 and an endowment of $7 million.
In 1967 Thomas Hedley Reynolds
assumed the presidency. His greatest achievement was the development and support of faculty, which brought Bates recognition as a national college. In addition to recruiting teacher-scholars, Reynolds championed better faculty pay, an expanded sabbatical leave program, and smaller classes.
Additions to the campus under Reynolds' presidency included the George and Helen Ladd Library, Merrill Gymnasium and the Tarbell Pool, the Olin Arts Center and the Bates College Museum of Art
, as well as the conversion of the former women's gymnasium into the Edmund S. Muskie Archives and the acquisition of the Bates-Morse Mountain Conservation Area. Many of the early twentieth-century houses on Frye Street that now accommodate students, a popular alternative to larger residential halls, were acquired at this time.
Donald West Harward
began his service as sixth president of Bates in 1989. During Harward's presidency, students received greater opportunities to study off campus with Bates faculty or in College-approved programs. He integrated more fully into student academic and intellectual life the senior thesis, the important capstone experience that has been a part of the Bates curriculum since the early twentieth century but is now a focal point.
Under Harward, Bates for the first time in many years reached out institutionally into the community of Lewiston
-Auburn
. Bates students and faculty built relationships in the community through one of the most active service-learning programs in the country.
More than twenty major academic, residential, and athletic facilities were built during his tenure, including Pettengill Hall, the Residential Village and Benjamin E. Mays Center, and the Bates College Coastal Center at Shortridge.
Elaine Tuttle Hansen
served as Bates' seventh president from 2002 through June 30, 2011. Hansen's accomplishments include strengthened student diversity, expanded facilities through a campus master plan process, and completion of a major fundraising effort, "The Campaign for Bates: Endowing Our Values," which ended in June 2006 and raised nearly $121 million, $1 million more than its stated goal. Facilities improvements include a new student residence, new campus walkway, new dining commons, and the renovation and expansion of two historic buildings, Hedge and Rogers Williams halls, for academic use. Hansen is now executive director of the Center for Talented Youth
at The Johns Hopkins University.
On July 1, 2011, Nancy J. Cable became interim president, to serve through June 30, 2012, while Bates conducts a national search for its eighth president. Cable joined Bates in February 2010 as vice president and dean of enrollment and external affairs.
Bates College has been ranked in the top 25 liberal arts schools in U.S. News and World Report for the past 20 years. The Princeton Review named Bates the No. 1 "Best Value College" in the United States
in its 2005 ranking.
Bates operates on a 4-4-1 schedule: two semesters and a month-long "Short Term." Bates offers 32 departmental and interdisciplinary program majors, and 25 secondary concentrations. The most popular majors at Bates are politics, psychology, economics, biology, English, and history. Of all the students graduating in 2007, 11% had a double major while 32% of students had a secondary concentration (minor). 8 students in the Class of 2007 graduated with an individual interdisciplinary major.
All tenured or tenure-track faculty members hold Ph.D.
s or other terminal degrees. Bates students work directly with faculty; the student-faculty ratio is 10:1, and faculty members teach all classes.
Every Bates student has an opportunity to work one-on-one with faculty through programs including independent study, senior thesis, and research. Of the seniors of the Class of 2007 97% completed a senior thesis or project. Sixty-three percent of Fall 2007 class sections had nineteen or fewer students
The Bates College Department of Economics ranked second among liberal arts colleges for the number of times its faculty's scholarly research is cited by other researchers.
."
The highest number of applicants for admission to the college was 5,160 for the Class of 2012. It was an 11% increase from the year before. This number is up from 4,650 for the Class of 2011.
The record number of applicants for Early Decision to Bates College was 527 for the Class of 2012. There was a 22% increase in applications for Early Decision compared to the Class of 2011.
optional programs in the United States
. In 1990, the Bates faculty voted to make all standardized tests optional in the college's admissions process. In October 2004, Bates published a study regarding the testing optional policy, and presented it to the National Association for College Admission Counseling
. Following two decades without required testing, the college found that the difference in graduation rates between submitters and non-submitters was 0.1%, and that its applicant pool had doubled since the policy was instituted. With approximately 1/3 of applicants not submitting scores, non-submitting students averaged only 0.05 points lower on their collegiate Grade Point Average, and applications from minority students increased dramatically. Today, Bates remains a leader in the SAT optional movement.
The Bates College study prompted a movement among small liberal arts colleges to make the SAT optional for admission to college
in the early 2000s. Indeed, according to a 31 August 2006 article in the New York Times, "It is still far too early to sound the death knell, but for many small liberal arts colleges, the SAT may have outlived its usefulness."
Bates College is tied for the fifth highest freshmen retention rate of all liberal arts colleges. According to U.S. News and World Report, the average percentage of freshmen entering Bates between 2002 and 2005 who returned for sophomore year was 95%.
, Cornell
, Duke
, Harvard, Georgetown
, Northwestern
, University of Michigan
, UC Berkeley, and New York University
. More than 70% of recent alumni earned graduate or professional degrees within 10 years of graduation.
In a controversial article published by the Wall Street Journal in 2003, Bates College was ranked as one of the top schools in the nation for percentage of students entering the top five graduate programs in Business, Law, and Medicine.
Since 1990, Bates students have participated in study-abroad programs in almost 80 countries. The five most popular countries for the study abroad program in descending order are Italy, United Kingdom, China, Austria, and Spain.
Bates' 109 acres (44.1 ha) campus includes the George and Helen Ladd Library; the Olin Arts Center, which houses a concert hall, the Bates College Museum of Art
; and the Edmund S. Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library, which holds the papers of the former governor of Maine
, U.S. Senator
, United States Secretary of State
, author of the Clean Air Act
and Clean Water Act
, and member of the Class of 1936.
The Library’s collections include approximately 620,000 catalogued volumes, 2,500 serial subscriptions and 27,000 audio/video items. There are more than 80 Web-accessible research databases and more than 4,000 electronic journals, full-text titles or other electronic resources accessible through the catalog. An automated system links the Bates Library to those of Bowdoin and Colby colleges. Users can search the Web-based catalogs of all three libraries, and request delivery of books and other items directly. Bates students and faculty have borrowing privileges at the Bowdoin and Colby libraries, in person or electronically.
Within the Bates Campus lies Mount David — a tall rock outcropping.
The College also holds access to the 574-acre (2.32 km²) Bates-Morse Mountain Conservation Area, in Phippsburg, Maine
, which preserves one of the few undeveloped barrier beaches on the Atlantic
coast; and the neighboring Bates College Coastal Center at Shortridge, which includes an 80 acres (32.4 ha) woodland and freshwater habitat, scientific field station, and retreat center.
The campus hosts Gordon Research Conferences
during summer.
In 2009 Bates was one of 15 colleges in the United States named to the "Green Honor Roll" by Princeton Review. The United States Environmental Protection Agency
honored Bates as a member of the Green Power Leadership Club because 96% of the energy used on campus is from renewable resources.
The New Dining Commons, opened in February 2008, has passive lighting and occupancy sensors to control room lighting, "dual-flush" toilets, recycled and certified-green building materials used in construction, and summer ventilation that is primarily natural — air is cooled mechanically only in the hottest parts of the kitchen.
In 2005 Bates committed itself to purchasing its entire electricity supply from renewable energy sources in Maine, specifically biomass generating plants and small hydroelectric producers.
In February 2007, Bates President Elaine Tuttle Hansen signed the American College & University Presidents Climate Commitment. She is one of 62 chief executives in the coalition's Leadership Circle, which provides guidance, peer encouragement and direction to the effort.
Zipcar car-sharing service became available on campus to faculty, staff and students in 2007.
Bates's Dining Services department states that 28% of its purchases are locally grown or all-natural. Dining Services sends both pre- and post-consumer food waste to local farmers to be composted, and it operates a community outreach program that allows extra food portions to be served at local shelters.
Bates earned a "B" grade on the 2009 College Sustainability Report Card; the school earned "A"s in the Administration, Climate Change & Energy, Student Involvement, Food & Recycling, and Green Building categories.
The approximately 1,750 students at Bates come from 46 states and districts, and 65 foreign countries. The state with the highest percentage of students enrolled in the college is Massachusetts with 26.7%. New York comes in second with 13.4% and Maine in third with 10.8%.
Most students live in one of the 13 dormitories or 25 Victorian houses on campus. Bates does not and has never had fraternities or sororities. All campus organizations are open to any student who wishes to join.
There are nearly 90 student-run clubs and organizations at Bates, chief among them the Bates College Student Government (BCSG). Some of the most active clubs include:
The Bates Student
has been the main student newspaper since 1873. The John Galt Press, a conservative/libertarian newspaper, was founded and published at Bates and distributed at a number of other colleges and universities, though it has not been printed at Bates since the Winter semester of 2005. The Bates College Mirror has been the student yearbook since 1909, although annual class photo books date to 1870. The Garnet, a literary magazine, has been published at Bates since 1879.
Bates has many official and unofficial annual traditions including WRBC
's Annual Trivia Night (since 1979), Puddle Jump, Ronjstock, Senior Pub crawl
Parade to the Goose, Lick-It, President's Gala, "Ivy Day
" (also known as the Baccalaureate
, where class Ivy Stones have been chosen since 1879), Eighties Dance, Halloween
Dance, Class Dinner, Harvest Dinner, Triad Dance (since 1981), Stanton Ride, Mustachio Bashio, Clambake at Popham
Beach and Winter Carnival
by the Outing Club (since 1920), Alumni Reunion Parade (since 1914), and the annual Oxford-Bates debate (since 1921).
The Bates Bobcats compete in the NCAA
Division III New England Small College Athletic Conference
, and Colby-Bates-Bowdoin
Consortium. The official school color is garnet (the Garnet was the original mascot), though black is traditionally employed as a complement. Bates is home to one of the oldest college football
teams and fields in the United States, Garcelon Field, renovated in 2010 to install a FieldTurf
surface, new grandstand and scoreboard, and lights. The first college football game in Maine was played versus Tufts in 1875..
Bates fields 31 varsity teams. There are also intercollegiate club teams in cycling, ice hockey, rugby, sailing, ultimate frisbee, men's volleyball and water polo. The men's rugby team placed second in the nation in 1997 and has made it to the nationals or regionals all but one year since then. The women's rugby regularly makes it to the regionals and made it to the nationals in 2003. The men's club ice hockey team has won the league championship four straight years (2006, 2007, 2008, 2009) and won the 2008 and 2009 NECHA Cup. Recent NESCAC champions include men's track and field (2000). The 2004 women's basketball team was ranked the number one NCAA
Division III team in the United States for most of February 2005 and finished the year ranked number six by the USA Today
/ESPN
Today 25 National Coaches' Poll. They lost to University of Southern Maine
in the Sweet 16
. In May 2009, Amrit Rupasinghe and Ben Stein won the NCAA Division III tennis doubles championships in Claremont, CA. Stein also reached the singles final. The pair had finished as losing semi-finalists the year before when the NCAA Division III championships was hosted by Bates College at the James Wallach Tennis Center. In the spring of 2010 the Varsity Women's Rowing team's first boat finished 2nd at the NCAA Championship. Bates' tradition with rowing was highlighted when Andrew Byrnes
(class of 2005) won the Olympic Gold medal while rowing for the Canadian National team in 2008 in Beijing. Together the first and second Varsity boat earned 2nd place for team points. In the winter of 2008, Bates Nordic Skier Sylvan Ellefson was the highest ranked skier in the EISA and placed a record 4th in NCAA Division I championships, the best ever for a Bates skier.
The Bates College athletics department was ranked 19th out of 420 in the 2005 NCAA
Division III winter rankings.
In addition to outdoor athletic fields, Bates has indoor and outdoor tracks, a swimming pool, squash courts, an ice hockey rink, a boathouse, several basketball courts, indoor and outdoor tennis courts, an independent weight room with treadmills and elliptical machines, and an astroturf field.
Many notable individuals have attended Bates College, including Civil War hero Holman S. Melcher
(1862), prominent biologist and professor Herbert E. Walter
(1892), president of Morehouse College
and mentor to Martin Luther King Jr. Benjamin Mays
(1920), U.S. Secretary of State Edmund Muskie
(1936), U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy
(1944–45 as part of the Navy's V-12 program), Harvard minister and theologian Peter J. Gomes
(1965), award-winning television journalist Bryant Gumbel
(1970), U.S. Representative Robert Goodlatte (1974), CEO of Medco Health Solutions
David B. Snow Jr. (1976), author and 2009 Pulitzer Prize winner Elizabeth Strout
(1977), corporate vice president at Microsoft
Rick Thompson (1981), award-winning investigative reporter and news presenter Jonathan Hall (1983), published bioengineer John R. Hetling
(1989), editor of Time Magazine Online Joshua Macht (1991), blues musician Corey Harris
(1991), and neuroscientist and author Lisa Genova (1992).
Liberal arts colleges in the United States
Liberal arts colleges in the United States are certain undergraduate institutions of higher education in the United States. The Encyclopædia Britannica Concise offers a definition of the liberal arts as a "college or university curriculum aimed at imparting general knowledge and developing general...
located in Lewiston, Maine
Lewiston, Maine
Lewiston is a city in Androscoggin County in Maine, and the second-largest city in the state. The population was 41,592 at the 2010 census. It is one of two principal cities of and included within the Lewiston-Auburn, Maine metropolitan New England city and town area and the Lewiston-Auburn, Maine...
, in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. and was most recently ranked 21st in the nation in the 2011 US News Best Liberal Arts Colleges rankings. The college was founded in 1855 by abolitionists
Abolitionism
Abolitionism is a movement to end slavery.In western Europe and the Americas abolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and set slaves free. At the behest of Dominican priest Bartolomé de las Casas who was shocked at the treatment of natives in the New World, Spain enacted the first...
. Bates College is one of the first colleges in the United States to be coeducational from establishment, and is also the oldest continuously operating coeducational institution in New England
New England
New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...
. Originally a Free Will Baptist institution, Bates is now a nonsectarian
Sectarianism
Sectarianism, according to one definition, is bigotry, discrimination or hatred arising from attaching importance to perceived differences between subdivisions within a group, such as between different denominations of a religion, class, regional or factions of a political movement.The ideological...
institution. As of 2011, Bates is the college with the highest tuition in the United States, but this federal ranking doesn't consider Bates' grants of financial aid and it compares Bates' comprehensive fee, which includes room and board as well as tuition, to other colleges' tuition only.
Bates College offers 32 departmental and interdisciplinary program majors and 25 secondary concentrations, and confers Bachelor of Arts
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
(B.A.) and Bachelor of Science
Bachelor of Science
A Bachelor of Science is an undergraduate academic degree awarded for completed courses that generally last three to five years .-Australia:In Australia, the BSc is a 3 year degree, offered from 1st year on...
(B.S.) degrees. The college enrolls approximately 2,000 students, 300 of whom study abroad each semester. The student-faculty ratio is 10-to-1.
Bates is a leader of the SAT optional movement for undergraduate admission. It instituted one of the first SAT optional programs in the nation in 1984.
History
Parsonsfield Seminary
Parsonsfield Seminary, which operated from 1832-1949, was a well-known Free Will Baptist school in North Parsonsfield, Maine, in the United States. Also known as the North Parsonsfield Seminary, its preserved campus of four buildings is located on State Route 160.-History:In 1832 Rev. John Buzzell...
, which burned under mysterious circumstances in 1854. The Parsonsfield Seminary was founded in 1832 by Free Will Baptists
Free Will Baptist Church
Free Will Baptist is a denomination of churches that share a common history, name, and an acceptance of the Arminian theology of free grace, free salvation, and free will. Free Will Baptists share similar soteriological views with General Baptists, Separate Baptists and some United Baptists...
and served as a stop on the Underground Railroad
Underground Railroad
The Underground Railroad was an informal network of secret routes and safe houses used by 19th-century black slaves in the United States to escape to free states and Canada with the aid of abolitionists and allies who were sympathetic to their cause. The term is also applied to the abolitionists,...
. Parsonsfield's Cobb Divinity School
Cobb Divinity School
Cobb Divinity School, founded in 1840, was a Free Will Baptist graduate school affiliated with several Free Baptist institutions throughout its history...
, founded in 1840, merged with Bates in 1870 and eventually became Bates' religion department. Therefore, Bates' religion department is 15 years older than the College itself.
As with many New England institutions, religion played a vital role in the college's founding. The Reverend Oren Burbank Cheney
Oren B. Cheney
Oren Burbank Cheney was the founder of Bates College, an abolitionist, and a Free Will Baptist clergyman.-Early life:...
founded and served as the first president of Bates. He was a Freewill Baptist
Free Will Baptist Church
Free Will Baptist is a denomination of churches that share a common history, name, and an acceptance of the Arminian theology of free grace, free salvation, and free will. Free Will Baptists share similar soteriological views with General Baptists, Separate Baptists and some United Baptists...
minister, a teacher, and a former Maine
Maine
Maine is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and south, New Hampshire to the west, and the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the northwest and New Brunswick to the northeast. Maine is both the northernmost and easternmost...
legislator. Cheney and Rev. Ebenezer Knowlton
Ebenezer Knowlton
Ebenezer Knowlton was a U.S. Representative from Maine, Free Will Baptist minister, and co-founder of Bates College in Lewiston, Maine....
steered through the Maine
Maine
Maine is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and south, New Hampshire to the west, and the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the northwest and New Brunswick to the northeast. Maine is both the northernmost and easternmost...
Legislature a bill creating an educational corporation initially called the Maine State Seminary. Dr. Alonzo Garcelon
Alonzo Garcelon
Dr. Alonzo Garcelon was the 36th Governor of Maine, an American Civil War surgeon general, and a co-founder of Bates College in Lewiston, Maine.-Birth and early years:...
convinced Cheney and Knowlton to locate the school in Lewiston
Lewiston, Maine
Lewiston is a city in Androscoggin County in Maine, and the second-largest city in the state. The population was 41,592 at the 2010 census. It is one of two principal cities of and included within the Lewiston-Auburn, Maine metropolitan New England city and town area and the Lewiston-Auburn, Maine...
, Maine's fastest-growing industrial and commercial center.
Cheney assembled a six-person faculty dedicated to teaching the classics
Classics
Classics is the branch of the Humanities comprising the languages, literature, philosophy, history, art, archaeology and other culture of the ancient Mediterranean world ; especially Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome during Classical Antiquity Classics (sometimes encompassing Classical Studies or...
and moral philosophy to both men and women. In 1863 he received a collegiate charter, and obtained financial support for an expansion from the city of Lewiston
Lewiston, Maine
Lewiston is a city in Androscoggin County in Maine, and the second-largest city in the state. The population was 41,592 at the 2010 census. It is one of two principal cities of and included within the Lewiston-Auburn, Maine metropolitan New England city and town area and the Lewiston-Auburn, Maine...
and from Benjamin E. Bates
Benjamin E. Bates
Benjamin Edward Bates was a New England industrialist and philanthropist, who was the namesake and a founder of Bates College and the Bates Mill in Lewiston, Maine.-Biography:...
, the Boston financier and manufacturer whose mills dominated the Lewiston
Lewiston, Maine
Lewiston is a city in Androscoggin County in Maine, and the second-largest city in the state. The population was 41,592 at the 2010 census. It is one of two principal cities of and included within the Lewiston-Auburn, Maine metropolitan New England city and town area and the Lewiston-Auburn, Maine...
riverfront. In 1864 the Maine State Seminary became Bates College. The College consisted of Hathorn Hall
Hathorn Hall
Hathorn Hall is a historic academic building at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine featuring a brick exterior, white corinthian columns, a weathervane, and a bell tower.-History:...
and Parker halls and a student body of fewer than 100.
Seminary
A seminary, theological college, or divinity school is an institution of secondary or post-secondary education for educating students in theology, generally to prepare them for ordination as clergy or for other ministry...
served in the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
(1861–65), and only two students from Georgia fought for the Confederacy. With Cheney's support, the first woman to graduate from a New England college was Mary Wheelwright Mitchell, class of 1869. Cheney also ensured that no secret societies or fraternities were allowed on campus. One secret society was founded at Bates in 1881, but the society was not sanctioned by the President or the College. By the end of Cheney's tenure, in 1894, the campus had expanded to 50 acres (20.2 ha) and six buildings.
In 1894 George Colby Chase, Class of 1868, succeeded President Cheney. Known as "the great builder," Chase oversaw the construction of eleven new buildings, including Coram Library, the Chapel, Chase Hall, Carnegie Science Hall, and Rand Hall. Chase tripled the number of students and faculty, as well as the endowment. The Cobb Divinity School
Cobb Divinity School
Cobb Divinity School, founded in 1840, was a Free Will Baptist graduate school affiliated with several Free Baptist institutions throughout its history...
and Nichols Latin School departments of the College were discontinued under President Chase. In 1907 at the request of Chase and the Board, the legislature amended the college's charter removing the requirement for the President and majority of the trustees to be Free Will Baptists, allowing the school to qualify for Carnegie Foundation
Carnegie Corporation of New York
Carnegie Corporation of New York, which was established by Andrew Carnegie in 1911 "to promote the advancement and diffusion of knowledge and understanding," is one of the oldest, largest and most influential of American foundations...
funding for professor pensions.
Clifton Daggett Gray
Clifton Daggett Gray was the third president of Bates College in Lewiston, Maine and a Baptist theologian....
, a clergyman and former editor of The Standard, a Baptist
Baptist
Baptists comprise a group of Christian denominations and churches that subscribe to a doctrine that baptism should be performed only for professing believers , and that it must be done by immersion...
periodical published in Chicago, succeeded President Chase. On campus, renovations were completed on Libbey Forum and the Hedge Science Laboratory, and the Clifton Daggett Gray Athletic Building, Alumni Gymnasium, Stephens Observatory
Stephens Observatory
The Stephens Observatory is located atop the Carnegie Science Building at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine. It houses a Newtonian reflecting telescope, built by Roscoe G. Stephens of Kennebunk, Maine, and donated to the College in 1929. It is used mainly as a teaching facility for upper-level...
telescope, and Women's Locker Building (now the Muskie Archives) were constructed. During World War II, when male students abandoned college campuses to enlist in the armed forces, Gray established a V-12 Navy College Training Program
V-12 Navy College Training Program
The V-12 Navy College Training Program was designed to supplement the force of commissioned officers in the United States Navy during World War II...
Unit on campus, assuring the College students - men and women - during wartime. When he retired, in 1944, Gray had increased the student enrollment to more than 700 and doubled the faculty to seventy; the endowment had doubled to $2 million.
In 1944 Charles Franklin Phillips
Charles Franklin Phillips
Charles Franklin Phillips was the fourth president of Bates College in Lewiston, Maine and a well known economist and author....
, a professor at Colgate University
Colgate University
Colgate University is a private liberal arts college in Hamilton, New York, USA. The school was founded in 1819 as a Baptist seminary and later became non-denominational. It is named for the Colgate family who greatly contributed to the university's endowment in the 19th century.Colgate has 52...
and a leading economist, became Bates' fourth president. He initiated the Bates Plan of Education, a liberal arts "core" study program. He also directed expansions of campus facilities, including the Memorial Commons, the Health Center, Dana Chemistry Hall, Pettigrew Hall, Treat Gallery, Schaeffer Theatre, and Page Hall. When he retired in 1967, Phillips left a student body of 1,000 and an endowment of $7 million.
In 1967 Thomas Hedley Reynolds
Thomas Hedley Reynolds
Thomas Hedley Reynolds was the fifth president of Bates College in Lewiston, Maine and an American historian.-Education:Reynolds earned a B.A. from Williams College and a Ph.D...
assumed the presidency. His greatest achievement was the development and support of faculty, which brought Bates recognition as a national college. In addition to recruiting teacher-scholars, Reynolds championed better faculty pay, an expanded sabbatical leave program, and smaller classes.
Bates College Museum of Art
The Bates College Museum of Art is an art museum at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine.-History:The Bates College Art Museum was founded in 1955 as the Treat Gallery in the newly constructed Pettigrew Building at Bates College. Norma Berger, the niece of Marsden Hartley, a notable Maine artist,...
, as well as the conversion of the former women's gymnasium into the Edmund S. Muskie Archives and the acquisition of the Bates-Morse Mountain Conservation Area. Many of the early twentieth-century houses on Frye Street that now accommodate students, a popular alternative to larger residential halls, were acquired at this time.
Donald West Harward
Donald West Harward
Donald West Harward is a philosopher and served as the sixth president of Bates College in Lewiston, Maine from 1989 to 2002.Harward received his B.A. in mathematics from Maryville College, then his M.A. from American University, and Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Maryland...
began his service as sixth president of Bates in 1989. During Harward's presidency, students received greater opportunities to study off campus with Bates faculty or in College-approved programs. He integrated more fully into student academic and intellectual life the senior thesis, the important capstone experience that has been a part of the Bates curriculum since the early twentieth century but is now a focal point.
Under Harward, Bates for the first time in many years reached out institutionally into the community of Lewiston
Lewiston, Maine
Lewiston is a city in Androscoggin County in Maine, and the second-largest city in the state. The population was 41,592 at the 2010 census. It is one of two principal cities of and included within the Lewiston-Auburn, Maine metropolitan New England city and town area and the Lewiston-Auburn, Maine...
-Auburn
Auburn, Maine
Auburn is a city in and the county seat of Androscoggin County, Maine, United States. The population was 23,055 at the 2010 census. It is one of two principal cities of and included in the Lewiston-Auburn, Maine metropolitan New England city and town area and the Lewiston-Auburn, Maine metropolitan...
. Bates students and faculty built relationships in the community through one of the most active service-learning programs in the country.
More than twenty major academic, residential, and athletic facilities were built during his tenure, including Pettengill Hall, the Residential Village and Benjamin E. Mays Center, and the Bates College Coastal Center at Shortridge.
Elaine Tuttle Hansen
Elaine Tuttle Hansen
Elaine Tuttle Hansen was the president of Bates College in Lewiston, Maine from 2002 through June 2011. She became the Executive Director of The Center for Talented Youth at Johns Hopkins University in July 2011....
served as Bates' seventh president from 2002 through June 30, 2011. Hansen's accomplishments include strengthened student diversity, expanded facilities through a campus master plan process, and completion of a major fundraising effort, "The Campaign for Bates: Endowing Our Values," which ended in June 2006 and raised nearly $121 million, $1 million more than its stated goal. Facilities improvements include a new student residence, new campus walkway, new dining commons, and the renovation and expansion of two historic buildings, Hedge and Rogers Williams halls, for academic use. Hansen is now executive director of the Center for Talented Youth
Center for Talented Youth
The Center for Talented Youth is a gifted education program for school-age children, founded in 1979 by Dr. Julian Stanley at Johns Hopkins University. It was initially a research study of the rate at which gifted children can learn new material and became the first program of its kind to identify...
at The Johns Hopkins University.
On July 1, 2011, Nancy J. Cable became interim president, to serve through June 30, 2012, while Bates conducts a national search for its eighth president. Cable joined Bates in February 2010 as vice president and dean of enrollment and external affairs.
Academic program
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
in its 2005 ranking.
Bates operates on a 4-4-1 schedule: two semesters and a month-long "Short Term." Bates offers 32 departmental and interdisciplinary program majors, and 25 secondary concentrations. The most popular majors at Bates are politics, psychology, economics, biology, English, and history. Of all the students graduating in 2007, 11% had a double major while 32% of students had a secondary concentration (minor). 8 students in the Class of 2007 graduated with an individual interdisciplinary major.
All tenured or tenure-track faculty members hold Ph.D.
Ph.D.
A Ph.D. is a Doctor of Philosophy, an academic degree.Ph.D. may also refer to:* Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*Piled Higher and Deeper, a web comic strip*PhD: Phantasy Degree, a Korean comic series* PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...
s or other terminal degrees. Bates students work directly with faculty; the student-faculty ratio is 10:1, and faculty members teach all classes.
Every Bates student has an opportunity to work one-on-one with faculty through programs including independent study, senior thesis, and research. Of the seniors of the Class of 2007 97% completed a senior thesis or project. Sixty-three percent of Fall 2007 class sections had nineteen or fewer students
The Bates College Department of Economics ranked second among liberal arts colleges for the number of times its faculty's scholarly research is cited by other researchers.
Admissions
Acceptance rates at Bates were 26.9% for the Class of 2015. Bates was called one of the top 20 "toughest to get into" schools by The Princeton Review in 2002. The college is listed as one of thirty "Hidden Ivies" and one of the "Little IviesLittle Ivies
Little Ivies is a colloquialism referring to a group of small, selective American liberal arts colleges; however, it does not denote any official organization....
."
The highest number of applicants for admission to the college was 5,160 for the Class of 2012. It was an 11% increase from the year before. This number is up from 4,650 for the Class of 2011.
The record number of applicants for Early Decision to Bates College was 527 for the Class of 2012. There was a 22% increase in applications for Early Decision compared to the Class of 2011.
SAT optional policy
In 1984, Bates instituted one of the first SATSAT
The SAT Reasoning Test is a standardized test for college admissions in the United States. The SAT is owned, published, and developed by the College Board, a nonprofit organization in the United States. It was formerly developed, published, and scored by the Educational Testing Service which still...
optional programs in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. In 1990, the Bates faculty voted to make all standardized tests optional in the college's admissions process. In October 2004, Bates published a study regarding the testing optional policy, and presented it to the National Association for College Admission Counseling
National Association for College Admission Counseling
The National Association for College Admission Counseling , founded in 1937, is an organization of more than 11,000 professionals from around the world dedicated to serving students transitioning from secondary to postsecondary education, including professional school counselors, college access...
. Following two decades without required testing, the college found that the difference in graduation rates between submitters and non-submitters was 0.1%, and that its applicant pool had doubled since the policy was instituted. With approximately 1/3 of applicants not submitting scores, non-submitting students averaged only 0.05 points lower on their collegiate Grade Point Average, and applications from minority students increased dramatically. Today, Bates remains a leader in the SAT optional movement.
The Bates College study prompted a movement among small liberal arts colleges to make the SAT optional for admission to college
College admissions in the United States
College admissions in the United States refers to the annual process of applying to institutions of higher education in the United States for undergraduate study. This usually takes place during the senior year of high school...
in the early 2000s. Indeed, according to a 31 August 2006 article in the New York Times, "It is still far too early to sound the death knell, but for many small liberal arts colleges, the SAT may have outlived its usefulness."
Graduation and retention
Almost 90% of students graduate within six years.Bates College is tied for the fifth highest freshmen retention rate of all liberal arts colleges. According to U.S. News and World Report, the average percentage of freshmen entering Bates between 2002 and 2005 who returned for sophomore year was 95%.
Graduate school
Ninety-one percent of Bates College seniors or alumni applying to graduate programs in the health professions were accepted for matriculation in the fall of 2005. Bates students and alumni are consistently accepted to the top tier of law schools, including ColumbiaColumbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, Cornell
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
, Duke
Duke University
Duke University is a private research university located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present day town of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco industrialist James B...
, Harvard, Georgetown
Georgetown University
Georgetown University is a private, Jesuit, research university whose main campus is in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded in 1789, it is the oldest Catholic university in the United States...
, Northwestern
Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees....
, University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
, UC Berkeley, and New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
. More than 70% of recent alumni earned graduate or professional degrees within 10 years of graduation.
In a controversial article published by the Wall Street Journal in 2003, Bates College was ranked as one of the top schools in the nation for percentage of students entering the top five graduate programs in Business, Law, and Medicine.
Study abroad
The percentage of Bates students who study off-campus is relatively high, with 63% of the Class of 2007 receiving credit for off-campus study. In 2007, the Institute for International Education ranked Bates 14th among baccalaureate institutions for semester-length study abroad, and 15th for full-year study abroad (2005-2006 data)Since 1990, Bates students have participated in study-abroad programs in almost 80 countries. The five most popular countries for the study abroad program in descending order are Italy, United Kingdom, China, Austria, and Spain.
Campus
Bates College Museum of Art
The Bates College Museum of Art is an art museum at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine.-History:The Bates College Art Museum was founded in 1955 as the Treat Gallery in the newly constructed Pettigrew Building at Bates College. Norma Berger, the niece of Marsden Hartley, a notable Maine artist,...
; and the Edmund S. Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library, which holds the papers of the former governor of Maine
Governor of Maine
The governor of Maine is the chief executive of the State of Maine. Before Maine was admitted to the Union in 1820, Maine was part of Massachusetts and the governor of Massachusetts was chief executive....
, U.S. Senator
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
, United States Secretary of State
United States Secretary of State
The United States Secretary of State is the head of the United States Department of State, concerned with foreign affairs. The Secretary is a member of the Cabinet and the highest-ranking cabinet secretary both in line of succession and order of precedence...
, author of the Clean Air Act
Clean Air Act
A Clean Air Act is one of a number of pieces of legislation relating to the reduction of airborne contaminants, smog and air pollution in general. The use by governments to enforce clean air standards has contributed to an improvement in human health and longer life spans...
and Clean Water Act
Clean Water Act
The Clean Water Act is the primary federal law in the United States governing water pollution. Commonly abbreviated as the CWA, the act established the goals of eliminating releases of high amounts of toxic substances into water, eliminating additional water pollution by 1985, and ensuring that...
, and member of the Class of 1936.
The Library’s collections include approximately 620,000 catalogued volumes, 2,500 serial subscriptions and 27,000 audio/video items. There are more than 80 Web-accessible research databases and more than 4,000 electronic journals, full-text titles or other electronic resources accessible through the catalog. An automated system links the Bates Library to those of Bowdoin and Colby colleges. Users can search the Web-based catalogs of all three libraries, and request delivery of books and other items directly. Bates students and faculty have borrowing privileges at the Bowdoin and Colby libraries, in person or electronically.
Within the Bates Campus lies Mount David — a tall rock outcropping.
The College also holds access to the 574-acre (2.32 km²) Bates-Morse Mountain Conservation Area, in Phippsburg, Maine
Phippsburg, Maine
Phippsburg is a town in Sagadahoc County, Maine, United States, on the west side of the mouth of the Kennebec River. The population was 2,106 at the 2000 census. It is within the Portland–South Portland–Biddeford, Maine metropolitan statistical rea...
, which preserves one of the few undeveloped barrier beaches on the Atlantic
Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...
coast; and the neighboring Bates College Coastal Center at Shortridge, which includes an 80 acres (32.4 ha) woodland and freshwater habitat, scientific field station, and retreat center.
The campus hosts Gordon Research Conferences
Gordon Research Conferences
Gordon Research Conferences are international scientific conferences organized by a non-profit organization of the same name. The conference topics cover frontier research in the biological, chemical, and physical sciences, and their related technologies. The conferences have been held since...
during summer.
Environmental sustainability
United States Environmental Protection Agency
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is an agency of the federal government of the United States charged with protecting human health and the environment, by writing and enforcing regulations based on laws passed by Congress...
honored Bates as a member of the Green Power Leadership Club because 96% of the energy used on campus is from renewable resources.
The New Dining Commons, opened in February 2008, has passive lighting and occupancy sensors to control room lighting, "dual-flush" toilets, recycled and certified-green building materials used in construction, and summer ventilation that is primarily natural — air is cooled mechanically only in the hottest parts of the kitchen.
In 2005 Bates committed itself to purchasing its entire electricity supply from renewable energy sources in Maine, specifically biomass generating plants and small hydroelectric producers.
In February 2007, Bates President Elaine Tuttle Hansen signed the American College & University Presidents Climate Commitment. She is one of 62 chief executives in the coalition's Leadership Circle, which provides guidance, peer encouragement and direction to the effort.
Zipcar car-sharing service became available on campus to faculty, staff and students in 2007.
Bates's Dining Services department states that 28% of its purchases are locally grown or all-natural. Dining Services sends both pre- and post-consumer food waste to local farmers to be composted, and it operates a community outreach program that allows extra food portions to be served at local shelters.
Bates earned a "B" grade on the 2009 College Sustainability Report Card; the school earned "A"s in the Administration, Climate Change & Energy, Student Involvement, Food & Recycling, and Green Building categories.
Student life
Most students live in one of the 13 dormitories or 25 Victorian houses on campus. Bates does not and has never had fraternities or sororities. All campus organizations are open to any student who wishes to join.
There are nearly 90 student-run clubs and organizations at Bates, chief among them the Bates College Student Government (BCSG). Some of the most active clubs include:
- WRBC Radio Bates CollegeWRBCWRBC is the college radio station of Bates College, located in Lewiston, Maine and at 91.5 MHz on the FM dial. The WRBC studio is located in the basement of 31 Frye Street across from the student coffee house, The Ronj...
, one of the highest-rated college stations in the country (The Princeton Review) - The Chase Hall Committee (CHC), the campus programming board, sponsors a wide range of social activities, including concerts, comedy shows, and dances
- A cappellaA cappellaA cappella music is specifically solo or group singing without instrumental sound, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. It is the opposite of cantata, which is accompanied singing. A cappella was originally intended to differentiate between Renaissance polyphony and Baroque concertato...
groups the Crosstones, the Deansmen (all male), the Manic Optimists (all male), the Merimanders (all female), and TakeNote - The Bates Outing Club
- The internationally ranked Brooks Quimby Debate Council
- The Strange Bedfellows, an improv comedy group
- Robinson Players, a theatre group and Bates' oldest student group
- The Bates ChristianChristianA Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
Fellowship, Mushada Association (MuslimMuslimA Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
Students' Association), and Hillel - The Bates College DemocratsDemocratic Party (United States)The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
and the Bates College RepublicansRepublican Party (United States)The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S... - The Bates SailingSailingSailing is the propulsion of a vehicle and the control of its movement with large foils called sails. By changing the rigging, rudder, and sometimes the keel or centre board, a sailor manages the force of the wind on the sails in order to move the boat relative to its surrounding medium and...
Team - The Bates Musician's Union, a student-run group that organizes events featuring a number of student bands
- OUTfront, a group for LGBTQ students and their allies
- Bates College RugbyRugby footballRugby football is a style of football named after Rugby School in the United Kingdom. It is seen most prominently in two current sports, rugby league and rugby union.-History:...
Clubs (Men's and Women's) - Bates College Ice HockeyIce hockeyIce hockey, often referred to as hockey, is a team sport played on ice, in which skaters use wooden or composite sticks to shoot a hard rubber puck into their opponent's net. The game is played between two teams of six players each. Five members of each team skate up and down the ice trying to take...
Clubs (Men's and Women's) - Habitat for Humanity, the college's chapter of the national organization
- Women's Resource Center, an activist organization that advocates for women's issues
- Bates College Investing Club
- Many others...
The Bates Student
The Bates Student
The Bates Student, established in 1873 is the student-run newspaper of Bates College in Lewiston, Maine. The Student is run entirely by students and the administration does not interfere with the paper's operations...
has been the main student newspaper since 1873. The John Galt Press, a conservative/libertarian newspaper, was founded and published at Bates and distributed at a number of other colleges and universities, though it has not been printed at Bates since the Winter semester of 2005. The Bates College Mirror has been the student yearbook since 1909, although annual class photo books date to 1870. The Garnet, a literary magazine, has been published at Bates since 1879.
Bates has many official and unofficial annual traditions including WRBC
WRBC
WRBC is the college radio station of Bates College, located in Lewiston, Maine and at 91.5 MHz on the FM dial. The WRBC studio is located in the basement of 31 Frye Street across from the student coffee house, The Ronj...
's Annual Trivia Night (since 1979), Puddle Jump, Ronjstock, Senior Pub crawl
Pub crawl
A pub crawl is the act of one or more people drinking in multiple pubs or bars in a single night, normally walking or busing to each one between drinking.-Origin of the term:...
Parade to the Goose, Lick-It, President's Gala, "Ivy Day
Ivy Day
Ivy Day was formerly observed on October 6 in Ireland, in memory of the prominent nationalist politician Charles Stewart Parnell . James Joyce's short story, "Ivy Day in the Committee Room", features several Irish politicians who fail to live up to Parnell's memory...
" (also known as the Baccalaureate
Baccalaureate service
A baccalaureate service is a celebration which honors a graduating senior class from a college or high school...
, where class Ivy Stones have been chosen since 1879), Eighties Dance, Halloween
Halloween
Hallowe'en , also known as Halloween or All Hallows' Eve, is a yearly holiday observed around the world on October 31, the night before All Saints' Day...
Dance, Class Dinner, Harvest Dinner, Triad Dance (since 1981), Stanton Ride, Mustachio Bashio, Clambake at Popham
Popham
Popham is a surname.As a surname Popham may refer to:* Alexander Popham, , MP in the Long Parliament* Alix Popham, Welsh rugby union player* Arthur E...
Beach and Winter Carnival
Winter carnival
A Winter carnival is an outdoor celebration that occurs in wintertime.Winter carnivals, or festivals, are popular in places where winter is particularly long or severe, such as Scandinavia, Canada and the northern United States...
by the Outing Club (since 1920), Alumni Reunion Parade (since 1914), and the annual Oxford-Bates debate (since 1921).
Athletics
National Collegiate Athletic Association
The National Collegiate Athletic Association is a semi-voluntary association of 1,281 institutions, conferences, organizations and individuals that organizes the athletic programs of many colleges and universities in the United States...
Division III New England Small College Athletic Conference
New England Small College Athletic Conference
The New England Small College Athletic Conference is an NCAA Division III athletic conference, consisting of eleven highly selective liberal arts colleges and universities located in New England and New York...
, and Colby-Bates-Bowdoin
Colby-Bates-Bowdoin
The Colby-Bates-Bowdoin is an athletic conference in Maine containing three NCAA Division III and NESCAC schools, Colby College, Bates College, and Bowdoin College. These colleges have competed against each other in athletic contests since the 1870s. Bates, Colby and Bowdoin have one of the top...
Consortium. The official school color is garnet (the Garnet was the original mascot), though black is traditionally employed as a complement. Bates is home to one of the oldest college football
American football
American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...
teams and fields in the United States, Garcelon Field, renovated in 2010 to install a FieldTurf
FieldTurf
FieldTurf is a brand of artificial turf playing surface. It is manufactured and installed by the FieldTurf Tarkett division of Tarkett Inc., based in Calhoun, Georgia, USA. In the late 1990s, the artificial surface changed the industry with a design intended to replicate real grass...
surface, new grandstand and scoreboard, and lights. The first college football game in Maine was played versus Tufts in 1875..
Bates fields 31 varsity teams. There are also intercollegiate club teams in cycling, ice hockey, rugby, sailing, ultimate frisbee, men's volleyball and water polo. The men's rugby team placed second in the nation in 1997 and has made it to the nationals or regionals all but one year since then. The women's rugby regularly makes it to the regionals and made it to the nationals in 2003. The men's club ice hockey team has won the league championship four straight years (2006, 2007, 2008, 2009) and won the 2008 and 2009 NECHA Cup. Recent NESCAC champions include men's track and field (2000). The 2004 women's basketball team was ranked the number one NCAA
National Collegiate Athletic Association
The National Collegiate Athletic Association is a semi-voluntary association of 1,281 institutions, conferences, organizations and individuals that organizes the athletic programs of many colleges and universities in the United States...
Division III team in the United States for most of February 2005 and finished the year ranked number six by the USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
/ESPN
ESPN
Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, commonly known as ESPN, is an American global cable television network focusing on sports-related programming including live and pre-taped event telecasts, sports talk shows, and other original programming....
Today 25 National Coaches' Poll. They lost to University of Southern Maine
University of Southern Maine
The University of Southern Maine is a multi-campus public urban comprehensive university and part of the University of Maine System. USM's three primary campuses are located in Portland, Gorham, and Lewiston...
in the Sweet 16
NCAA Women's Division III Basketball Championship
-Past winners of the NCAA Women's Division III Basketball Championship:-See also:*NCAA Women's Division I Basketball Championship*NCAA Women's Division II Basketball Championship*NAIA national women's basketball championship-References:...
. In May 2009, Amrit Rupasinghe and Ben Stein won the NCAA Division III tennis doubles championships in Claremont, CA. Stein also reached the singles final. The pair had finished as losing semi-finalists the year before when the NCAA Division III championships was hosted by Bates College at the James Wallach Tennis Center. In the spring of 2010 the Varsity Women's Rowing team's first boat finished 2nd at the NCAA Championship. Bates' tradition with rowing was highlighted when Andrew Byrnes
Andrew Byrnes
James Andrew Byrnes is a Canadian rower and Olympic gold medalist. He was born in Toronto, Ontario and raised in Ithaca, New York...
(class of 2005) won the Olympic Gold medal while rowing for the Canadian National team in 2008 in Beijing. Together the first and second Varsity boat earned 2nd place for team points. In the winter of 2008, Bates Nordic Skier Sylvan Ellefson was the highest ranked skier in the EISA and placed a record 4th in NCAA Division I championships, the best ever for a Bates skier.
The Bates College athletics department was ranked 19th out of 420 in the 2005 NCAA
National Collegiate Athletic Association
The National Collegiate Athletic Association is a semi-voluntary association of 1,281 institutions, conferences, organizations and individuals that organizes the athletic programs of many colleges and universities in the United States...
Division III winter rankings.
In addition to outdoor athletic fields, Bates has indoor and outdoor tracks, a swimming pool, squash courts, an ice hockey rink, a boathouse, several basketball courts, indoor and outdoor tennis courts, an independent weight room with treadmills and elliptical machines, and an astroturf field.
Alumni
Many notable individuals have attended Bates College, including Civil War hero Holman S. Melcher
Holman S. Melcher
Holman Staples Melcher was an American Civil War officer and postbellum mayor of Portland, Maine. Melcher was a company commander in the 20th Maine Volunteer Infantry Regiment that charged down Little Round Top at the Battle of Gettysburg....
(1862), prominent biologist and professor Herbert E. Walter
Herbert E. Walter
Herbert Eugene Walter, , was a prominent biologist, author, Professor at Brown University and researcher.Herbert Walter was born in Burke, Vermont in 1867. He attended the Lyndon Institute, and then graduated from Bates College in Maine in 1892. He next received a M.A. from Brown University in...
(1892), president of Morehouse College
Morehouse College
Morehouse College is a private, all-male, liberal arts, historically black college located in Atlanta, Georgia. Along with Hampden-Sydney College and Wabash College, Morehouse is one of three remaining traditional men's colleges in the United States....
and mentor to Martin Luther King Jr. Benjamin Mays
Benjamin Mays
Benjamin Elijah Mays was an American minister, educator, scholar, social activist and the president of Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia from 1940 to 1967. Mays was also a significant mentor to civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr...
(1920), U.S. Secretary of State Edmund Muskie
Edmund Muskie
Edmund Sixtus "Ed" Muskie was an American politician from Rumford, Maine. He served as Governor of Maine from 1955 to 1959, as a member of the United States Senate from 1959 to 1980, and as Secretary of State under Jimmy Carter from 1980 to 1981...
(1936), U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy
Robert F. Kennedy
Robert Francis "Bobby" Kennedy , also referred to by his initials RFK, was an American politician, a Democratic senator from New York, and a noted civil rights activist. An icon of modern American liberalism and member of the Kennedy family, he was a younger brother of President John F...
(1944–45 as part of the Navy's V-12 program), Harvard minister and theologian Peter J. Gomes
Peter J. Gomes
Peter John Gomes was an American preacher and theologian,the Plummer Professor of Christian Morals at Harvard Divinity School and Pusey Minister at Harvard's Memorial Church—in the words of Harvard's president "one of the great preachers of our generation, and a living symbol of courage and...
(1965), award-winning television journalist Bryant Gumbel
Bryant Gumbel
Bryant Charles Gumbel is an American television journalist and sportscaster. He is best known for his 15 years as co-host of NBC's The Today Show. He is the younger brother of sportscaster Greg Gumbel.-Early life:...
(1970), U.S. Representative Robert Goodlatte (1974), CEO of Medco Health Solutions
Medco Health Solutions
Medco Health Solutions, Inc is a health care company currently serving the needs of more than 65 million people. Medco provides pharmacy services for private and public employers, health plans, labor unions, government agencies, and individuals served by Medicare Part D Prescription Drug Plans...
David B. Snow Jr. (1976), author and 2009 Pulitzer Prize winner Elizabeth Strout
Elizabeth Strout
Elizabeth Strout is an American author of fiction.She was born in Portland, Maine, and was raised in small towns in Maine and New Hampshire. After graduating from Bates College, she spent a year in Oxford, England, followed by studies at law school for another year...
(1977), corporate vice president at Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
Rick Thompson (1981), award-winning investigative reporter and news presenter Jonathan Hall (1983), published bioengineer John R. Hetling
John R. Hetling
John R. Hetling is an Associate Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago in the departments of Bioengineering and Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences . He is also the Director of Undergraduate Studies for the Department of Bioengineering and the Director of the Laboratory of Neurotronic...
(1989), editor of Time Magazine Online Joshua Macht (1991), blues musician Corey Harris
Corey Harris
Corey Harris is an American blues and reggae musician, currently residing in Virginia. Along with Keb' Mo' and Alvin Youngblood Hart, he raised the flag of acoustic guitar blues in the mid 1990s...
(1991), and neuroscientist and author Lisa Genova (1992).
In literature, film, and culture
- "Ally McBealAlly McBealAlly McBeal is an American legal comedy-drama series which aired on the Fox network from 1997 to 2002. The series was created by David E. Kelley, who also served as the executive producer, along with Bill D'Elia...
" (1997) In season 1, episode 2, Ally, approaching a man in a bar, finds out that he was her brother's roommate at Bates College. - The SopranosThe SopranosThe Sopranos is an American television drama series created by David Chase that revolves around the New Jersey-based Italian-American mobster Tony Soprano and the difficulties he faces as he tries to balance the often conflicting requirements of his home life and the criminal organization he heads...
(1999) — In an episode entitled "College," Tony SopranoTony SopranoAnthony John "Tony" Soprano, Sr. is an Italian-American fictional character and the protagonist on the HBO television drama series The Sopranos, on which he is portrayed by James Gandolfini. The character was conceived by The Sopranos creator and show runner David Chase, who was also largely...
and his daughter MeadowMeadow SopranoMeadow Mariangela Soprano , played by Jamie-Lynn Sigler, is a fictional character on the HBO TV series The Sopranos.-Character:Meadow is the first-born child of Tony and Carmela Soprano...
visit Bates, where Meadow remarks that Bates students claim "Bates is the world's most expensive form of contraception." However, the scenes set in Maine were actually filmed in New Jersey. - The Bates campus was filmed in The Letter, a movie about the pro-diversity rally for the local SomaliSomali peopleSomalis are an ethnic group located in the Horn of Africa, also known as the Somali Peninsula. The overwhelming majority of Somalis speak the Somali language, which is part of the Cushitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family...
population in Lewiston, MaineLewiston, MaineLewiston is a city in Androscoggin County in Maine, and the second-largest city in the state. The population was 41,592 at the 2010 census. It is one of two principal cities of and included within the Lewiston-Auburn, Maine metropolitan New England city and town area and the Lewiston-Auburn, Maine...
. - The College gained national notoriety in the New York Times in 2004 for its celebration of Newman DayNewman DayNewman Day is a collegiate drinking ritual where 24 beers are consumed over 24 hours. It is named for the late beer-drinking actor Paul Newman and his apocryphal remark made during a campus speech: "24 hours in a day, 24 beers in a case...
. - Dave MatthewsDave MatthewsDavid John "Dave" Matthews is a South African–born American musician and occasional actor, best known as the lead vocalist, songwriter, and guitarist for the Dave Matthews Band...
referred to a concert he performed at Bates in 1995 on the Charlie Rose ShowCharlie Rose (talk show)Charlie Rose is an American television interview show, with Charlie Rose as executive producer, executive editor, and host. The show is syndicated...
, claiming that the concert "at this little college in Maine" sparked his career. - During World War IIWorld War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, a Victory shipVictory shipThe Victory ship was a type of cargo ship produced in large numbers by North American shipyards during World War II to replace shipping losses caused by German submarines...
was named the S.S. Bates Victory, after the College. - In a July, 2006 article in Sports IllustratedSports IllustratedSports Illustrated is an American sports media company owned by media conglomerate Time Warner. Its self titled magazine has over 3.5 million subscribers and is read by 23 million adults each week, including over 18 million men. It was the first magazine with circulation over one million to win the...
, Bates students are credited with inventing "One Ringing." One Ring is a game where friends torment each other by calling and then hanging up immediately during sport matches. - A January 6, 2008 New York Times article mentioned Bates' annual Mustachio Bashio tradition which celebrates "fanciful facial creations."
See also
- Bates College Museum of ArtBates College Museum of ArtThe Bates College Museum of Art is an art museum at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine.-History:The Bates College Art Museum was founded in 1955 as the Treat Gallery in the newly constructed Pettigrew Building at Bates College. Norma Berger, the niece of Marsden Hartley, a notable Maine artist,...
- The Bates StudentThe Bates StudentThe Bates Student, established in 1873 is the student-run newspaper of Bates College in Lewiston, Maine. The Student is run entirely by students and the administration does not interfere with the paper's operations...
- List of Bates College people
- Cobb Divinity SchoolCobb Divinity SchoolCobb Divinity School, founded in 1840, was a Free Will Baptist graduate school affiliated with several Free Baptist institutions throughout its history...
- Stephens ObservatoryStephens ObservatoryThe Stephens Observatory is located atop the Carnegie Science Building at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine. It houses a Newtonian reflecting telescope, built by Roscoe G. Stephens of Kennebunk, Maine, and donated to the College in 1929. It is used mainly as a teaching facility for upper-level...
- Maine Central InstituteMaine Central InstituteThe Maine Central Institute , is an independent high school, founded in 1866, located in Pittsfield, Maine, in the United States. The school enrolls approximately 500 students. MCI is a nonsectarian institution. The school has both boarding students and day students.-History:The Maine Central...
- Lapham InstituteLapham InstituteThe Smithville Seminary was a Freewill Baptist institution established in 1839 on what is now Institute Lane in Smithville-North Scituate, Rhode Island. Renamed the Lapham Institute in 1863, it closed in 1876. The site was then used as the campus of the Pentecostal Collegiate Institute and later...
- WRBCWRBCWRBC is the college radio station of Bates College, located in Lewiston, Maine and at 91.5 MHz on the FM dial. The WRBC studio is located in the basement of 31 Frye Street across from the student coffee house, The Ronj...