• President, Henry T. Geng ’13
• Vice President, Jen Crawford ’01
• Secretary, Ben Hughes ’12
• Treasurer, Susan Peillet Yule ’78
• Past President, Karen L. Finocchio ’92
• Staff Liaison, Justin Fortier, Assistant Director of Alumni Engagement
• Advisor, Marianne Cowan ’92, Associate Director, Bates Center for Purposeful Work

Evelyn K. Dillon Award 

Funds given by the College Key provide two annual awards, one to a woman in field hockey and one to a woman in basketball. These awards recognize superior athleticism, leadership and dedication, and overall contributions to each respective sport, to be administered by the Athletics Department.

The 2023 recipients of the Evelyn K. Dillon Award are Paige C. ’23, recognized for her accomplishments in field hockey, and Meghan G. ’23, acknowledged for her achievements in basketball.

Paige C. ’23, of Wolfeboro, N.H., graduated from Bates with a psychology major. She was one of 92 student-athletes to receive the Senior Scholar Award for maintaining a cumulative grade point average of 3.50 or better while participating in varsity sports for four years. In addition to her contributions to the field hockey team, Paige participated in Special Olympics for all four years at Bates and volunteered for Habitat for Humanity.

Meghan G. ’23, hailing from South Portland, Maine, served as the women’s basketball team captain for the past two years. She achieved notable milestones, including surpassing 1,000 career points, being named the NESCAC Player of the Year, and earning first-team All-NESCAC honors. 

The College Key Music Award

Given by the College Key to provide one or more annual music awards to the man or woman in the senior class whose services to musical organizations at the College have been the most outstanding.

The College Key Music Award was not awarded in 2022-2023. Income from the fund has been carried forward into the fiscal year 2024, and we look forward to reporting on it.

College Key Leigh P. Campbell ‘64 Scholarship Fund

Provides financial aid for a student or students who demonstrate loyalty, campus leadership, and potential for future service to Bates College, with preference for a student member of the College Key or a child of a College Key member. This fund was renamed in honor of Leigh Campbell ’64, a late College Key member, former director of financial aid, and recipient of the 2016 Helen A. Papaioanou ’49 Distinguished Alumni Service Award, one of the College’s most prestigious honors.

Edmund Z.‘24, from Monmouth, Maine, is pursuing dual majors in Biological Chemistry and Mathematics at Bates College. He is passionate about organic chemistry and enjoys working on his biochemistry thesis this year. Edmund, a movie enthusiast and board game lover, has found friends at Bates who share his interests.

He appreciates the opportunities at Bates to engage in serious research, a chance that friends at larger universities often find difficult to obtain. Inspired by his grandfather’s curiosity, Edmund strives to make him proud in everything he does.

The Mabel Eaton Bates Key Scholarship Fund 

Given by members of the Bates Key in honor of Mabel Eaton ‘10, founder of the Bates Key, who was the College’s librarian from 1921 to 1957. For an undergraduate student who works in the George and Helen Ladd Library. Added to by the College Key.

Sloan P. ’25, from Evergreen, Colorado, is an intended Biological Chemistry major. She loves chemistry and biology and spent the past summer working in a neuroimmunology lab at Johns Hopkins, which she found rewarding. Sloan also enjoys sewing and crafting and is excited for the Trashion Show this year.

• Annual membership is on a calendar fiscal year (January 1st – December 31st).
• The State of Maine annual report and IRS 990-N have been filed and are up to date.
• All financial information for Bates College Key, a 501 (c)(3) organization, is stored in Little Green Light, our CRM database.
• Per the Treasurer’s 2023 Fiscal Year report submitted at the June 2024 Annual Meeting, the total income in 2023 was $22,389.89. While contributions vary yearly, this achievement is significant; Alumni gifts enable the College Key to support Bates students/programs. In 2023, we distributed $25,390.00 to the Purposeful Work/Internship Travel, College Key Scholarship, Music Award, Mabel Eaton Scholarship Award, and Music Award programs. Our operating expenses were $1,144.38. Our year-end showed a deficit of $4,144.49.
• As we head into the final weeks of 2024, we continue to plan for the rest of this academic year and to distribute meaningful funds from the College Key. As an active member of the College Key, you continue to help Bates students through your annual member dues of $30.00. We can now accept dues from College Key members through our online link or regular mail. On behalf of the Bates Community, a sincere “thank you” for making these responses to the immediate needs of Bates students possible. If you are unsure if your College Key membership dues are current, please contact me. Please help a Bates student and keep your membership active!

Sincerely,

Susan Peillet Yule ’78 
Treasurer, The College Key 

The College Key has adopted a new financial reserves policy to ensure our organization’s financial stability and maximize support for Bates College. 

Based on an analysis by immediate past Treasurer Don McDade indicating that at least $10,000 is needed to cover annual operating expenses and allow for continued grantmaking during potential fundraising stoppages, the Key will maintain a minimum reserve of $10,000 at all times. 

Additionally, by the end of each grantmaking cycle, the College Key will endeavor to spend down to this reserve level of $10,000, directing as many member dues and gifts as possible to the College while maintaining sufficient funds for year-to-year stability.

Please contact President Henry Geng ‘13 or Treasurer Susan Yule ‘78 at thecollegekey@gmail.com if you have any questions about this new policy.

In March, the College Key was honored to welcome Hollywood animator Norton Virgien ’74, a veteran, award-winning producer, and director as this year’s Distinguished Alumni in Residence.  Norton earned two Emmy awards for his work on the animated series “Rugrats” and a third for “Tutenstein.”  During his campus visit, Noron met and talked with students about his forty-nine-year run in Hollywood and his experiences as an independent artist. “Pretty much my career has alternated between projects that I’ve loved and time looking for the next project that I’m going to love,” he said.  “There are often breaks, and that makes it an adventure financially, however well you did while you were busy.”

Norton, who celebrated his 50^th reunion this year, headed to Hollywood after graduation to pursue his passion for art, starting as a draftsman back when animation was hand-drawn, and each character movement required numerous drawings to reflect those changes on screen.  Norton paid tribute to the Bates art program and his professor, Don Lent, who encouraged Norton and his classmates in their art and allowed them to discover their own direction.

However, today, animation is often done using computer programs.  “We used to be able to identify certain animator’s work just by the style of it.  Now it gets homogenized by the computer process a bit,” Norton reflected.  “But as a director, you have more control when you don’t have to ask someone to redraw a hundred drawings. You can do more tweaking and less reinventing.”  

Norton has also worked on productions such as “The Ren & Stimpy Show,” “Curious George 2: Follow that Monkey!,” “Doc McStuffins,” and “The Penguins of Madagascar.”  He also made movie history in 1998 when “The Rugrats Movie,” which he co-directed, became the first non-Disney animated feature to gross $100 million. Now 50 years after graduating from Bates, Norton continues to tell his stories through animation.  In his most recent work, he was a co-creator of a series set in prehistoric times about a young girl who invented the first wheel and other useful tools.  Titled “Eureka!,” it earned a nomination for Outstanding Animated Series at the 2023 NAACP Image Awards and can be seen through streaming on Disney+.  

Norton’s audience in March included many students interested in his work and fellow alumni. We were honored to hear from Norton about his successes, experiences, and the impact of his Bates education, and we are beyond proud to have him as the 2024 Distinguished Alumnus in Residence.

Annually, the College Key is proud to host the Distinguished Alumni in Residence program, which brings together students and alumni to learn from the impactful stories of 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@gmail.com with information, including the nominee’s name, class year, and a brief summary of the nominee’s qualifications for consideration.

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 by inviting four new alumni(ae) and twenty-six members of the Class of 2024 into the College Key.

Current juniors and members of the graduating class can be nominated by Bates faculty and staff. Inductees from the Class of 2024 were welcomed as part of their Commencement Weekend celebrations on May 24, 2024.

Alumni can be nominated by fellow alumni, staff, and faculty through the College Key’s online nominations form. For the 2024 cohort, the Alumni nomination committee was composed of Casey Andersen ’12, Roland Davis ’92, and Benjamin Hughes ’12. The College Key selection committee considers alumni nominees based on their continued service to the College, leadership in the community, success in a chosen field, and character. Alumni inductees were welcomed during the College Key Annual Meeting on June 7, 2024. 

2024 Alumni Inductees

Class of 2024 Inductees

With Hank’s term as President and Ben’s term as Secretary concluding this fall, we are now searching for candidates to step into Vice President and Secretary of the College Key.

If you’re open to making an impact by contributing your time and passion to the Key and joining in either of these positions, or you have suggestions of College Key members who may be interested, please email thecollegekey@gmail.com to learn more about the roles. 

The Executive Committee values your input and ideas as we strive to impact Bates students and Key members more. Don’t hesitate to contact the Executive Committee members—we’re eager to hear from you.