LEWISTON – The author of a book exploring community involvement will open the 150th academic year at Bates College.

Paul Rogat Loeb will give a convocation address titled “The Impossible Will Take a Little While: Hope in a Time of Fear” at 4:10 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 8, on the main quadrangle. The rain site is the Alumni Gymnasium. Loeb’s “Soul of a Citizen: Living with Conviction in a Cynical Time” examines what it takes to lead a life of social commitment.

Loeb is an affiliate scholar at Seattle’s Center for Ethical Leadership. Born in California in 1952, he attended Stanford University and New York’s New School for Social Research, and worked in both places to help end the Vietnam War. For more than 30 years, he has researched and written about citizen responsibility and empowerment, asking why some people choose civic activism and involvement while others abstain.