By Graham Veysey
Staff Writer

Roughly seventeen hundred students, two hundred members of the faculty, forty trustees, twenty thousand Alums, five hundred members of the staff, and one president: Elaine Tuttle Hansen. In its almost 150-year history, Bates has had only seven presidents. As times have changed, the student body has shifted from coming to campus with a suitcase to moving in with duffle-bags, skis, televisions, DVD players and the old family sofa. Throughout, we have seen a change in presidents, from those who were focused on creating Bates to the one now in office who is ensuring a healthy future where the objectives of a residential college are carried out to the fullest.

In 1855, Oren Burbank Cheney founded Bates College as the Maine State Seminary. Yes, we have all heard that on the tour, but what is not mentioned is that although Cheney was an abolitionist, he was also a prohibitionist and probably turns over in his grave every time a bottle is opened on campus. More recently, there was Thomas Hedley Reynolds, the College's fifth president, who was a Tank Unit Commander and had a reputation akin to his former position and lastly there was our philosopher-king, Don Harward. Each had a tenure that symbolized a transition. A move from a regional college to one recognized nationally, a change where women and men finally dined together, a place where first-years were liberated from wearing beanies, a population ever-expanding.

As we approach our sesquicentennial anniversary, we are still a place of planning and with planning comes great possibility. As President Hansen said last year in her inaugural address, “Bates is and always has been a place of possibility because our purview is education, and the essence of education is to create the conditions under which each individual can realize his or her highest potential.” However, to reach our highest potential, there needs to be an environment conducive to education where resources are available for us to optimize our learning.

In searching for the seventh president of Bates, the committee charged with the task was looking for someone who could ensure a healthy future and increase the College’s capacity for learning by expanding diversity and enhancing resources that are vital for sustaining the quality of the institution. Since arriving, President Hansen has sought to identify the real needs of the College and has helped facilitate a master planning effort while making connections with all the College constituents.

For students, these connections have come in a variety of forms. For Hansen, “Students are our most important resource.” Last year, she went to residential buildings to continue the discussion of the Bates After Dark Forum. This year she has sat down on many occasions with students in Commons for lunchtime discussions and serves as the faculty liaison to the swim team along with being a devoted fan of all the collegiate sports teams. Through these connections she has come to know that there is “not one model to being a successful happy Bates student…” but that students are all “connected to the quality of openness to variety ways of being.”

Through these conversations Hansen has identified real needs. The planning effort has had salient findings about both the physical and the social structures of the College. These findings reinforce Bates as a place of possibility. Some things that have been reported have been known for a long time: students and faculty come to Bates because of the people who make up the community and the ideas that help shape it.

Yet, structures need to house that community and because of the planning effort, Hansen says that “We now have a set of priorities. There is so much to do.” In the eighteen months since coming here she has identified real needs in an attempt to get a handle on what we have known and what we are discovering with the help of a professional planning firm. Through this process, the concept of building a student center has changed. As Hansen stated, “We are now moving from planning for a student center to planning for a student-centered campus.” The real needs have been identified and there has been a realization that one building would not be the best way to accommodate those needs.

Hansen’s review of the physical place shows a reflection of the social space that we all inhabit. The Physical Plant of the College has a nineteemth-century core that is still vital and aesthetically stunning but not yet fully extended to the periphery. This holds true to our social structure and nineteenth-century abolitionist founding principle of egalitarianism. This falls under what Hansen calls “access, achievement, and affordability.” Hansen discusses the ability for us to have a diverse campus where no matter what race, nationality, or socio-economic class, everyone at Bates benefits. In this endeavor we have not yet come close to the periphery, but Hansen identifies it as priority and recognizes it as an opportunity to enter a new phase with renewed pride based on the College’s positive foundation.
She admits, “There’s a lot to do. We have to be patient and by the time we are finished we will be somewhere else.” But she points out Bates’ virtues of self-awareness, self-discipline, creativity and energy, and acknowledges that we will be able to answer the questions now being asked.


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