Impact
The endowment is an essential element of the funding of a Bates education. For Bates, making an endowed gift is among the most powerful ways to ensure the college’s enduring strength, make a durable impact, and create a lasting legacy for donors. The following stories share the impact of endowed funds on the student experience.
“To me, endowment support means supporting Bates for the long term. The endowment is the bedrock foundation, furthering our faculty, staff and students who make Bates the special place that it is today, and will be for future generations.”
John Gillespie ’80, P’13, P’18
Unrestricted Endowed Funds
Unrestricted endowed funds give Bates the flexibility to address emerging and ongoing priorities, ensuring the college can respond dynamically to opportunities and challenges.
By filling gaps in funding for programs such as community-based learning, climate change education, entrepreneurial initiatives, diverse faculty recruitment, hiring, mental health resources, and campus-wide digital innovation, unrestricted endowments empower Bates to uphold its mission and adapt to the evolving needs of its community. Unrestricted endowments allow the college to be responsive to emerging needs, pressing matters, or timely opportunities as they arise.
Endowment in action: John R. Hester ’75 Endowment Fund
- Current Market Value: $2,852,487
- Amount Spent to Support Bates This Year: $147,250
Given by John R. Hester ’75 through an estate gift, the fund is a permanent, unrestricted endowment fund for the general purposes of the college.
Endowed Professorships
‘Support as a Scholar and Teacher’
Sonja Pieck is the Clark A. Griffith Professor of Environmental Studies. She is a human geographer who looks at how various forms of nature, such as cultural landscapes or biodiversity, are produced and how they become meaningful to different groups of people.
The endowed professorship that Pieck holds was created in 1996 by an alumnus with his own deep awareness of how nature creates meaning. Clark Griffith ’53 graduated from Bates with a degree in chemistry and returned to his family’s cranberry business in Carver, Mass., to become the third generation to run the farm. Under Griffith, the family cranberry bogs, which date to the 1860s, became part of the Ocean Spray cooperative.
“I love this land,” he said in 1995. “I grew up outdoors. My play area was the woods, swamps, and ponds.”
The endowment created by Clark Griffith supports the overall Program in Environmental Studies, ensuring that generations of future Bobcats will be able to cultivate a similar appreciation for the environment.
“Bates provides me the support, as a scholar and teacher, to explore multifaceted, synergistic approaches on which to base effective and just solutions,” Pieck says. “In the classroom, I hope to deepen students’ curiosity and empathy and cultivate in them a critical politics of care. It is an honor to help them become more engaged people and changemakers of their generation.”
Endowment in action: Clark A. Griffith Professorship in Environmental Studies
- FY24 Market Value: $1,670,578
- Amount Spent to Support the Program in Environmental Studies This Year: $86,238
Endowed Scholarships
Endowed scholarship funds are a vital part of Bates College’s need-based financial aid program, ensuring that all admitted students from all backgrounds receive aid that meets their demonstrated financial need.
Along with annual gifts from the Bates Fund, endowed scholarship funds help make a Bates education accessible to talented students from all backgrounds.
‘What You Can Only Imagine’
Among the thousands of Bates students who have been supported by scholarship endowments over the years is Ed Zuis ’24, who came to Bates from the rural town of Monmouth, Maine. During his time at Bates, he received the Gracie Hall ’46 and John W. Stone Scholarship.
He graduated with a double major in biological chemistry and mathematics, earning honors in biochemistry and membership in Phi Beta Kappa. He is now a scientist with Eurofins.
Gracie Hall Stone ’49, who died in 2017, created the fund through an estate gift. In 2003 when asked about her bequest intention, she said, “It’s a lot of fun to get enthused about what you can only imagine.”
At Bates, Stone majored in chemistry, graduating in three years with top grades. After Bates, she achieved professional prominence during a 35-year career at Uniroyal, helping to invent new products to support agriculture.
Named for her and her husband, John W. Stone, the fund supports financial aid for Maine students with preference for a student interested in pursuing a major in the sciences.
Endowment in action: Gracie Hall ’46 and John W. Stone Scholarship Fund
- FY24 Market Value: $112,713
- Amount Spent to Support Bates Students This Year: $5,818
Estate Giving
Planned gifts and bequests have been one of the largest sources of endowment support for Bates. They make a lasting impact supporting our students and programs far into the future while also meeting donors’ financial goals.
A Legacy Gift for STEM Education
In the early 1960s, Stuart Field ’65 joined a small cadre of Bates students mentored by Professor of Chemistry Walter Lawrance to conduct summertime water testing and pollution mitigation along the Androscoggin River from Rumford to Lewiston and Auburn.
The formative experience put Field on the path toward a career — and inspired him to give back to Bates through a planned gift that will fund a scholarship for Bates science students from Maine.
Field’s career in the paper industry, one that would last more than 30 years, put his chemistry major to good use as manager of environmental health and safety at International Paper’s mill in Corinth, N.Y.
A longtime annual donor to the Bates Fund, Field realized that an estate gift, through a Charitable Remainder Unitrust, could benefit his family while eventually supporting Bates.
“My daughter has needs that are unique, and this kind of gift will provide an income stream to her,” Field explained. “It’s a really good fit between that part of my personal planning and my desire to do something for Bates.”
Stuart’s gift will establish an endowed scholarship fund for Bates students in the sciences with a preference for students from Maine. His commitment to community and rigorous STEM education will have a lasting legacy.
Purposeful Work
Endowed support for the Bates Center for Purposeful Work empowers students to connect their academic experiences with meaningful career paths, fostering skills, resilience, and a sense of direction that align with their values and aspirations.
Entrepreneurial Expertise
The Chris G. Barbin ’93 Entrepreneurship Fund supports programs like Bobcat Ventures, practitioner-taught courses during Short Term, speaker series, student internships, and participation in off-campus conferences and workshops related to entrepreneurship.
Established by Chris G. Barbin ’93, a member of the Bates Board of Trustees, this fund supports the Purposeful Work program with a preference for curricular and co-curricular experiences that build entrepreneurial expertise for students.
From Spectators to Players
Ethan Chan ‘25 of Westborough, Mass., and Josephine Lao ‘25 of Changsha, China, had Purposeful Work internships in Boston with the firm Savills, one of the world’s leading real estate service providers, working with Nick Beati ‘20, an associate director.
“We really saw this opportunity to bolster our team with passionate, young researchers,” Beati says. “Ethan and Josephine immersed themselves quickly, taking full advantage of every opportunity.”
For Chan and Lao, the internship wasn’t just about analyzing data, but about stepping into the fast-paced world of strategy and decision-making.
For Lao, the experience was transformative. She compared her journey to watching a Red Sox game at Fenway Park. “As a first-year at Bates, I was like an audience member, observing and trying to understand the game,” she says. “Now, I feel like a player — I’m in it, actively contributing and making decisions.”
Chan echoed that sentiment, saying the experience strengthened his confidence in his abilities. “I’ve learned to advocate for myself, recognize my strengths, and think more broadly about my future,” he says. He gained career skills, and more: “seeing the bigger picture of where I want to go.”
Endowment in action: The Chris G. Barbin ’93 Entrepreneurship Fund
- FY24 Market Value: $456,587
- Amount Spent to Support Bates Student Internships This Year: $23,569
Endowed Research Funds
Endowed support for Bates professors in their research and scholarly explorations not only contributes to academic excellence and global knowledge but benefits Bates students, who gain direct experience with scholars at the forefront of their fields.
The Bates Faculty Development Fund is the umbrella term for the various endowed funds that support scholarship, creative production, or other professional development.
In a typical year, the Bates Faculty Development Fund awards more than $200,000 to nearly 50 faculty members.
Rural Focus
Among professors to receive support from the Bates Faculty Development Fund in recent years is Associate Professor of Education Mara Tieken. Her funding draws from the endowed Roger C. Schmutz ’54 Faculty Research Fund, which supports postdoctoral faculty research including well-defined research projects intended for publication.
She received funding to support work on her forthcoming book Educated Out, which tells the stories of nine rural, first-generation students and their families to show how geography shapes college opportunities.
Considered one of the college’s most gifted teachers, Tieken began her research focus on rural education systems early in her career, when she taught in an elementary school in a small Tennessee town.
“As I was teaching, I was starting to realize how much education policy, and even guides on education practice, really didn’t have a rural context in mind,” Tieken says. “They were really created for some sort of urban or suburban context.”
Endowment in action: Roger C. Schmutz ’54 Faculty Research Fund
- FY24 Market Value: $1,300,148
- Amount Spent to Support Bates Professors This Year: $67,116
Endowed Support for Athletics
Endowed funds support the experience of Bates student-athletes by providing funding for expanded travel and training opportunities, better equipment, and stepped-up recruiting efforts — as well as support that’s more intangible, such as reaffirming the Bates culture of giving back.
There are currently six endowed funds that support Bates athletics and another is under development. Among these is the Timoll Family Endowment for Women’s Basketball. Established by Garth A.L. Timoll Sr. ’99 and other donors, the endowment supports the women’s basketball program by covering costs such as recruiting, travel, and assistant coaching salaries, offsetting expenses not included in the program’s annual operating budget. A complementary endowed fund created by the same gift supports the men’s basketball team.
Endowment in action: Timoll Family Endowment for Women’s Basketball
- FY24 Market Value: $109,147
- Amount Spent to Support Bates Students This Year: $5,621
Community Engagement
Endowed support from the Donald W. and Ann M. Harward Fund for Community Partnerships strengthens Bates’ commitment to civic action and social justice, helping students become responsible global leaders thanks to programming of the Harward Center for Community Partnerships.
As a history major with aspirations for law school, Peace Ekechukwu ’26 of Grand Prairie, Texas, is drawn to the power of storytelling — especially the kind that illuminates the past to shape a better future.
Last summer Ekechukwu was a Harward Center Summer Fellow at the Maine Museum of Innovation, Learning and Labor (Maine MILL) in downtown Lewiston, where Rachel Ferrante ’10 is the executive director.
Working with Bates students is both a personal and professional priority, Ferrante says. “As a Bates alum who engaged with the local community as a student, I know how transformative those experiences can be. And as a small museum, we rely on volunteers and interns like Peace to help carry out our mission.”
At Maine MILL, Ekechukwu contributed to research and exhibit development, helping tell the stories of the workers and industries that shaped Lewiston-Auburn and Maine at large.
“I’m from Africa, so learning about how people from Africa came here and were the backbone of this country, helping make this country what it is today — that’s when I really started to say, OK, this is interesting to me.”
By studying history, she adds, “you get to know about people who came before you and what they did,” she says. “It helps you also understand that, OK, maybe we shouldn’t do this or go this route in the future. You can learn from history to make a better future.”
The Harward Fund was given by Bates trustees, alumni, parents, and friends to honor the contributions of the college’s fifth president, Donald W. Harward, and his wife, Ann Harward.
Their spirited efforts inspired Bates to reach out beyond the campus to create partnerships and connections in the local community and the wider world. “We reaffirmed the notion that learning carries a responsibility to the outside world,” Don Harward said.
Endowment in action: The Donald W. and Ann M. Harward Fund for Community Partnerships
- FY24 Market Value: $2,731,990
- Amount Spent to Support Bates Community Engagement This Year: $140,978