LEWISTON – After years of activism, service-learning and community outreach, Bates College has been named one of the most socially conscious schools in the country.
As a result of the honor, Bates received a two-page spread in The Princeton Review’s newest guide, “Colleges with a Conscience: 81 Great Schools with Outstanding Community Involvement.”
“We were informed we were going to be part of the book but we were told nothing about it,” said Peggy Rotundo, director of the Center for Service-Learning, who saw the book for the first time this week. “I’m very proud. In recognizing the college, they’re really recognizing the community.”
The Princeton Review, known for ranking everything from colleges’ value to their cafeteria food, created “Colleges with a Conscience” after editors noticed how popular community service has become. High schools started putting kids in the community a decade ago, said Princeton Review spokesman Robert Franek. “Now students are demanding that colleges provide that kind of access.”
The Princeton Review, which is based in New York City, first considered 900 private and public colleges for inclusion in the guide. It then pared those to three to five schools in each state.
Using surveys from students and faculty members, editors learned which four-year colleges provided extraordinary opportunities for students to move from the classroom to the community. Unlike The Princeton Review’s other guides, the one for socially conscious schools doesn’t rank the colleges. Instead, editors chose the best – in this case, 81 colleges – and listed them in alphabetical order.
Bates won a spot for its eight-year-old service learning center, which coordinates hundreds of community service projects, from tutoring elementary students to helping Lewiston plan its best snowplow routes. It was also honored for giving money to students who do community service in the summer and for the school’s atmosphere of activism, with extracurricular groups ranging from Friends of Fair Labor to the Environmental Coalition.
About half of Bates’ 1,700 students are involved in the community. Last year, they logged about 50,000 hours volunteering for their own pleasure or as part of a class.
Bates students routinely help out in local schools and hospitals, with environmental groups and for political causes. Student petitions and demonstrations are fairly common.
In the guide, anonymous students call the opportunities “endless,” “inspiring” and “very powerful.”
Others in “Colleges with a Conscience” include Harvard College in Massachusetts and Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. Bates was the only Maine college to be included in the book.
Rotundo said she was delighted but not surprised that Bates made it.
“This is the very best community you can be in for service learning,” she said. “The city doesn’t just open its doors; it opens its heart.”
Bates College has been listed so often in past guides that some Princeton Review people now recognize it simply by the mention “Lewiston, Maine.” Most recently, Bates made the list of America’s Best Value Colleges.
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