Kate Strum, from Ridgewood, New Jersey – “I was on the phone with a friend of mine who is graduating from somewhere else and I was like, ‘Oh, I have to go, I have to go to this trustees’ luncheon.’ And she was like ‘you have to go to what? What did you DO?’ You know, as if I was the key speaker, the only student who would be invited to such a function. She has never seen a trustee and isn’t involved with faculty or staff where she goes to school. Just like all these students here today, this wasn’t sort of an intimidating thing to come to. It was just another one of those things where you are invited to talk to the faculty, talk to the staff, talk to alumni. And I think that’s something that Bates does really well.”