• President, Henry T. Geng ’13
• Vice President, Jen Crawford ’01
• Secretary, Ben Hughes ’12
• Treasurer, Donald McDade ’74
• Staff Liaison, Stephanie Dumont, Associate Director of Alumni Engagement
• Advisor, Marianne Cowan ’92, Associate Director, Bates Center for Purposeful Work

• Annual membership is on a calendar fiscal year (January 1^st – December 31^st ). 
• State of ME annual report and IRS 990-N have been filed and are up to date.
• All financial information for TCK, a 501 (c)(3) organization, is stored in QuickBooks.
• Total income in 2021 was $11,886.62. While contributions may vary from year to year, this achievement is significant and more in keeping with pre-pandemic levels. Gifts enable TCK to manage funds well and support Bates students/programs. We distributed $2,500 to Purposeful Work. Our operating expenses were $702.93. Our net gain for the year was $8,683.69.

Global crises impact us all and will be with us well into 2023 and the years ahead.  Thank you for your meaningful College Key gifts in response to dues appeals via newsletters and by social media.  On behalf of students and the programs we support, thank you.  Please send your dues/gifts each year.

Sincerely,
Donald W. McDade ’74
Treasurer, The College Key

In March 2022, the College Key welcomed Chris Tiné ‘96 as our 2022 Distinguished Alumnus in Residence. Chris is an Emmy-award-winning product and media executive who has had a remarkable career across the television, publishing, and education sectors. Chris is currently Chief Product Officer at Richardson Sales Performance, and he has held prior roles at Macmillan, BBC, PBS, and NBC News, where his team earned four Emmy nominations and an Emmy Award for their digital work. Chris graduated cum laude from Bates College with a BA in Rhetoric and holds a Master’s of Philosophy from the University of Cambridge and an MBA from Columbia Business School.

In his presentation, “It’s Never a Straight Line: Adventures in Media and Business,” Chris described his career trajectory from majoring in Rhetoric at Bates to becoming an award-winning leader in the fields of television, publishing, and education. In addition to a formative experience with Professor Bob Brahnam where he was unexpectedly recruited into the debate team during his time at Bates, Chris noted the importance of finding your true north – learning about yourself, understanding what drives you, and knowing the value you bring into an organization – and how that can help you succeed in a world where careers are rarely linear.

We were honored to hear Chris’s words and beyond proud to have him as the 2022 Distinguished Alumnus in Residence.

Annually, the College Key is proud to host the Distinguished Alumni in Residence (DAIR) program which brings together students and alumni to learn from impactful stories from remarkable Bates alumni. Recent DAIR honorees include US Marine veteran Stephanie Smith ‘87, Hubspot’s Chief People Officer Katie Burke ’03, Editor at The Boston Globe Brian McGrory ’84, U.S. Congressman Jared Golden ’11, and Microsoft’s Senior Researcher Susan Dumais ’75. If you have a potential nominee for a future DAIR, please email thecollegekey@bates.edu with information including the nominee’s name, class year, and a brief summary of the nominee’s qualifications for consideration.

Since 1993, the College Key has annually presented during Reunion Weekend the Distinguished Service Award in recognition of the dedication and excellence offered to the Bates community by truly distinguished members of the faculty and staff.  

In June, the College Key was proud to present the 2022 Distinguished Service Award to Professor Michael Murray, the Charles Franklin Phillips Professor of Economics.  For 35 years, Michael has been a mentor and friend to countless Bates students, passionate about the teaching, advising and scholarship that is the centerpiece to a Bates education. 

Michael’s own scholarship encompasses impressive contributions in a stunning number of fields: urban economics, development, public economics, and economic pedagogy, just to name a few. Beloved by students, he was the 2017 winner of the Kroepsch Award for Teaching Excellence, an honor that recognizes faculty for their outstanding performance as teachers.  He has served as a Visiting Scholar with The World Bank and Harvard University and was a Visiting Professor LUISS Guido Carli University, Rome, Italy.  He has authored 3 books and 55 publications, including Econometrics: A Modern Introduction.  Michael has just walked in last college commencement as the Mace Bearer who is the senior member of the Bates faculty, noting, “I’m graduating with the class of 2022.”  Outside his incredible scholarly work and teaching, Professor Murray is an amateur actor who has appeared in numerous Bates productions.

However, Michael’s most important contribution has been the impact he has had on colleagues and students for more than three decades.  Often praised for his enthusiasm in the classroom, he has been described as the “econ version of Dead Poets Society.” His colleagues remember his generosity as a friend and a mentor who was always gracious in reading their papers and offering advice on their work with suggestions that have been incredibly constructive and appreciated. Students have reflected that the tools he has given them are valuable regardless of what they eventually do in their professional lives.  His impact reaches well beyond the classroom and lasts far beyond their time at Bates. Michael noted during the Distinguished Service Award ceremony that, “In my academic career, the best thing that has ever happened to me was to come to Bates.  It has just been a fabulous place for me. The students and colleagues I have had have made it a wonderful way to spend my life.”  Our community could not be more grateful that Michael chose Bates, and we wish him a heartfelt congratulations to him for his decades of dedication to Bates College.

The College Key was formed in 1992 by the merger of the College Club, which was founded in 1891, and the Bates Key, established in 1936. 

The purpose of the College Key is to recognize outstanding Bates alumni(ae); encourage and recognize student academic and extracurricular achievement; support academics, student life, and campus improvement; provide student aid including scholarships and other kinds of financial assistance; and contribute to the general welfare of the College. 

This year, we continued this tradition with the induction of 20 new alumni(ae) and 28 members of the Class of 2022 into the College Key. 

Current juniors and members of the graduating class can be nominated for induction by Bates faculty and staff. Inductees from the Class of 2022 were welcomed as part of their Commencement Weekend celebrations on May 27, 2022.

Alumni can be nominated by fellow alumni, staff, and faculty through the College Key’s online nominations form. For the 2022 cohort, the Alumni nomination committee was composed of Sally Ehrenfried ’89, Gretchen Shorter Davis ’61, Teddy Rube ’16, and Flora Chan ’11. Alumni nominees are considered by the College Key selection committee based on their continued service to the College, leadership in the community, success in a chosen field, and character. Alumni inductees for 2022 were welcomed during the College Key Annual Meeting on June 10, 2022. 

2022 Alumni Inductees

Class of 2022 Inductees