Bates College

 

Bates College

  Bates College
2 Andrews Road, 2 Lane Hall
Lewiston, ME 04240		 General information
 (207) 786-6255

Type of institution: Private not-for-profit, 4-year or above
Federal Aid: Institution has a Program Participation Agreement with the US Department of Education for eligible students to receive Pell Grants and other federal aid.
Degrees offered: Bachelor degrees
Carnegie classification: Not Applicable
Number of students: 1,744 (2006)
2007-2008 Undergraduate application fee:$ 60

About this School
:For other uses, see Bates (disambiguation), Bates (surname) Bates College is a private liberal arts college, founded in 1855, located in Lewiston, Maine, in the United States. Bates confers Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) or Bachelor of Science (B.S.) degrees. The College enrolls approximately 1,700 students. Bates is a nonsectarian institution. Bates is located on a 109 acre (441,000 m²) campus. Primary academic resources on campus include the George and Helen Ladd Library; the Edmund S. Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library, which holds the papers of the former Maine Governor, U.S. Senator and U.S. Secretary of State and member of the Class of 1936; and the Olin Arts Center, which houses a concert hall, and the Bates College Museum of Art. 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 remaining undeveloped barrier beaches on the Atlantic coast; and the neighboring Bates College Coastal Center at Shortridge, which includes an 80 acre (324,000 m²) woodland and freshwater habitat, scientific field station, and retreat center.
 
History
Bates has always admitted students of different races, religions, genders and nationalities. Although they met with considerable criticism from other regional colleges, the founders held fast to their commitment to admit both men and women. Founded in 1855, Bates was New England's first coeducational college, and several of its 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. 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 steered through the Maine Legislature a bill creating a corporation for educational purposes initially called the Maine State Seminary, located 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 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 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 and is thought to be responsible for a fire starting in the bell tower of Hathorn Hall in March of 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 (202,000 m²) and six buildings. George Colby Chase, a graduate of the Bates Class of 1868, succeeded Cheney in 1894. Known as "the great builder," Chase oversaw the construction of eleven new buildings on campus, including Coram Library, the Chapel, Chase Hall, Carnegie Science Hall, and Rand Hall. A twelve-inch reflecting telescope was installed in Stephens Observatory on top of Carnegie Science Hall in 1929. Chase tripled the number of students and faculty, as well as the endowment. The Cobb Divinity School (Bates Theological Seminary) and Nichols Latin School departments of the College were discontinued under President Chase. His successor was Clifton Daggett Gray, a clergyman and former editor of The Standard, a Baptist periodical published in Chicago. Gray saw Bates through an era marked by vibrant growth and modernization, but also through the years of the Great Depression and World War II. On campus, renovations were completed on Libbey Forum and the Hedge Science Laboratory, and the Clifton Daggett Gray Athletic Building and Alumni Gymnasium were constructed. In the 1940s, when male students abandoned college campuses to enlist in the armed forces, Gray established a V-12 Naval Training 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. Charles Franklin Phillips was a professor at Colgate University and a leading economist before coming to Bates as the College's 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. Thomas Hedley Reynolds assumed the presidency in 1967. 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 became Bates' seventh president in 2002. Her immediate goals included securing resources for financial aid, competitive faculty and staff salaries, increased diversity of the faculty and student body, technological advances, and new curricular initiatives. Central to Hansen's vision is an in-depth master plan, launched as "The Campaign for Bates: Endowing Our Values" in 2004.
 
Academic year prices for full-time, first-time undergraduate students
Tuition and Fees2007-20082006-20072005-2006
In-State------------
Out of State------------
Books and Supplies$ 800$ 800$ 800
On-Campus
Room and board------------
Other Expenses$ 1,250$ 1,250$ 1,250
Off Campus
Room and board------------
Other Expenses------------
Off Campus w/ family
Other Expenses------------

Financial aid 2005-2006

Financial aid to full-time, first-time undergraduate students

Type of AidPercentage of students receiving aidAverage amount of aid they received
Federal Grants (scholarship/fellowship) 8% $ 2,666
State/Local grants (scholarship/fellowship) 5% $ 785
Institutional grants (scholarship/fellowship) 36% $ 23,720
Loans to students 30% $ 3,303
 
End of file for Bates College.