In the last few weeks, Bates College has received a considerable amount of national attention. The Princeton Review named Bates the “No. 1 Best Value” among American colleges and universities, a ranking that reflects high academic quality, high graduation rates and a generous financial aid program, including additional funds for study abroad, student research and other student initiatives. Bates also appeared on the Teagle Foundation’s list of 13 “overachieving” liberal arts colleges singled out for both high graduation rates and Ph.D. production, had its athletic program ranked No. 19 among 420 colleges in NCAA Division III, and was included on an unranked list of 81 U.S. “colleges with a conscience” by the Princeton Review and Campus Compact.
We accept all these honors as a polite person might receive a lavish compliment: Publicly we respond with grace and enthusiasm, while privately we aim to stay grounded.
While we take great pride in being labeled American’s “No. 1 Best Value” as an educational institution, we are more concerned about sustaining our “values” – the beliefs and ideals that inspire what we do – than about the rankings.
And as we also begin celebrating the sesquicentennial of the college this year, we are particularly proud of how long these values have lasted and served, and how much they owe to our distinctive locale and heritage.
On May 2, I traveled to Augusta to accept official recognition of the 150th anniversary of the state’s approval of Bates’ charter. Gov. Baldacci offered a proclamation recognizing “Bates College Day,” and Sen. Peggy Rotundo read a joint resolution from the Maine Legislature. These documents reflect our living legacy as an institution born and bred in this part of Maine, with modest but idealistic beginnings.
When reformers led by Oren Cheney founded Bates in 1855, the decision to build in Lewiston reflected mutual values and partnership: each wanted, and needed, the other. Lewiston’s leaders courted Oren Cheney’s school because they wisely desired, in the words of a Lewiston Journal editorial, “solid and attractive machinery for the growth and the culture of the mind” to complement the manufacturing machinery within the mills rising along the banks of the Androscoggin. And Cheney sought a community whose leaders envisioned the benefit of embracing a school that would reach out to men and women, regardless of their race or social background.
This was a radical idea in 1855, and few communities might have accepted it so readily. As one of our graduating senior history majors, Tim Larson of Newport, R.I., explained in his honors thesis, Cheney’s ideas ensured a difficult road to success. “If Oren Cheney had attempted to model Bates after any other popular New England college at the time, he would have likely tried to appeal to a white, all-male, and well-to-do applicant pool. Courageously, early Bates leaders did not seem to obsess over the loss of prestige that may have resulted from the school’s egalitarian policies.”
At this moment in time, the rankings suggest that we do not have to worry about our prestige. In fact, by the end of the 20th century almost all other colleges have followed our lead, opening their doors to women and students of different racial, national, religious and socio-economic backgrounds.
Bates is also seen as a leader today in demonstrating the values of collaboration and partnership between colleges and communities through our community-based learning programs. In the words of the joint resolution, “Bates College celebrates its presence in Lewiston and Auburn, communities that help to inspire the academic lives of both students and professors. Through Bates College programs that integrate service into the intellectual life of the college and bring campus and community closer together, service-learning students give more than 40,000 hours annually to 120 community agencies, schools and institutions.”
Other deep-seated habits like Yankee frugality and inclusiveness have further helped this little college in a small city to “over-achieve.” There have never been fraternities or sororities on campus, and we have always boasted fewer trappings of wealth or social standing than at peer colleges. We are still not as wealthy (as measured by our permanent endowments or expendable resources) as the other selective private colleges with whom we compete for students and faculty. But as the “best value” moniker attests, we keep our priorities straight, and with a smaller operating budget than our peers, a higher percentage goes to financial aid, so that we can offer need-based scholarships to at least as great a percentage of students as richer institutions do.
Similarly, we have always prized dedication and hard work. In the early years of the college, almost all Bates students were employed, usually as teachers, to pay for their tuition, and one of our early women graduates supported herself by working in the mills. Now Bates people – students, faculty and staff – still give their all. The fact that a physics professor comes in from home on the weekend to meet a prospective student impresses the family. So does the dining services worker who tells the first-year parents from California or Bangladesh, “Don’t worry. We take good care of them.”
In earlier years, Bates graduates most often became intellectual and spiritual guides – teachers and preachers who advanced exemplary social, civil and spiritual values. Today, our graduates go into every field of human endeavor, following their passions, but not leaving behind ethical principles and a commitment to doing work that benefits society. We know they have received good value on their four-year investment when we see how their lives are grounded in the college’s enduring values, our sturdy and principled roots.
Elaine Tuttle Hansen is the president of Bates College.
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