Dear Members of the Bates Community,

Now that the fall semester is well underway, I thought I would share some thoughts on plans and priorities for our work together this year.

As I wrote in August, 2023–24 was an extraordinary year for Bates, full of moments of both celebration and challenge, community-building and collaboration. We have started the 2024–25 academic year on strong footing: with the wonderful new Class of 2028, some incredible Maine weather, and outstanding efforts in our classrooms and at our athletic facilities.

Moving forward, here’s where I see us placing our attention and energy in the months ahead.

Institutional strategy and positioning: Bates conducted a comprehensive strategic planning process from 2014 to 2016, resulting in the adoption of the Institutional Plan in the fall of 2016. It was an ambitious plan that both elevated existing initiatives and identified new priorities for the subsequent five to eight years at Bates. The Institutional Plan became the basis for the specific goals of the record-setting Bates Campaign. While several priorities from the 2016 plan remain important areas of focus, it is time for Bates to reassess and collectively develop its next strategic plan. We begin this work in earnest this year, developing a planning structure and project timeline. Then, a steering committee comprising faculty and senior administrators will be formed to guide this effort and will begin its work in the winter of 2025. Working committees of additional faculty, staff, and students will help to articulate institutional priorities. These committees will be formed in the spring of 2025 and will begin their work in earnest in the fall of 2025. Once underway, the strategic planning process will be broadly consultative and collaborative, with opportunities for all members of the campus community to help craft the roadmap for the next chapter in Bates’ storied history. And it will help us determine the priorities for Bates’ next fundraising campaign.

As a core part of this work, we have engaged a consultant to conduct an institutional strategy and positioning study. This will help us better understand how Bates is perceived in the higher education landscape and how our strategic priorities may resonate with prospective students and their families. These findings will also be used to inform our strategic planning work.

We will share more details about these planning efforts as they come into focus.

And while much of our focus this year will be on developing the path forward for Bates, we will also take stock of our progress over the past five years as we develop the required interim report to our accreditor, the New England Commission of Higher Education (NECHE), which is due in August 2025. Institutions must “report on changes and improvements … since the last self-study” as part of NECHE’s review of our current accreditation status. (Colleges like Bates undergo review for accreditation every ten years, with Bates’ last comprehensive review occurring in 2020.) The coordinating team that led the 2020 10-year self-study process will lead this important assessment, including Professor of Biology and Associate Dean of the Faculty Don Dearborn as the faculty chair and Assistant Dean of Strategy and Analysis Matt Duvall as the staff lead.

Supporting the student experience: Student Financial Services will continue to partner this year with colleagues from Advancement, Equity and Inclusion, Finance, Information & Library Services, and Student Affairs to make progress on equalizing the Bates experience. They will look to see what is most needed and feasible to help us ensure that all aspects of the Bates experience are available to all students (this might include raising funds for technology, emergencies, graduate school applications, etc.), as well as strengthening the foundational elements of our financial aid packaging.

As you heard me mention at Opening Convocation and elsewhere, another area we will give significant attention in the coming year is on strengthening the campus climate around civil discourse and civic engagement and exploring long-term programmatic models/initiatives to center and sustain this work. The local, national, and international context for this fall includes numerous opportunities for the campus community to continue to engage in challenging conversations and critical discourse, and the college’s mission statement offers a framework for approaching these conversations. Priorities for the year forward, which are already fully underway, include:

• Engaging the Student Affairs team and additional campus partners to infuse values of civic engagement, compassionate dialogue, and participating in discussions of challenging current events. 
• Actively discussing the importance of freedom of speech while vehemently condemning antisemitic, anti-Arab, and other behaviors that contribute to a hostile environment.
• Learning about successful initiatives at peer institutions through Bates’ participation in the national collaboration College Presidents for Civic Preparedness.

These goals are being accomplished by:

• Our series of programs to engage and educate the community leading up to the November presidential election.
• Constructive dialogue practices being adapted into the Bates Leads student leadership program and additional trainings for specific student leadership roles.
• Pilot program to provide students with additional spiritual support from Rabbi Sruli Dresdner.
• Studying additional program/intervention models that might be developed or strengthened over the next several years.

We are also working this year to strengthen the student code of conduct, with the aim of integrating restorative practices for more cases and building in more flexibility where possible. This work will be undertaken by the Conduct Review Committee and student, staff, and faculty members of the Student Affairs Committee and the Student Conduct Committee.

Strengthening the academic experience: Over the past several years, a spate of retirements and the addition of new faculty lines has created a moment of major turnover and intense recruitment of permanent, tenure-track faculty at Bates. We have hired 56 new faculty over the past five years, and are scheduled to hire at least 16 more this year. This will mean that over 40 percent of our permanent faculty will soon have been on our campus for six years or less, presenting an opportunity and a challenge as we think about mentorship and leadership.

The faculty took a survey last spring to assess their career satisfaction, administered by the Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education (COACHE). We are engaged in a review of the results to help us chart a course for our work in the years ahead.

Meanwhile, we are increasing our focus on celebrating the important scholarship and creative production of Bates faculty. We are doing so in a number of ways, from highlighting achievements in public settings to extending occasions such as the endowed chair celebration and to considering new mechanisms to celebrate the incredible work our faculty do throughout the year.

Continued progress on equity and inclusion: Led by the Office of Equity and Inclusion, we are continuing to work on formalizing and implementing best practices for inclusive hiring. This will require socializing these best practices across campus and working closely with Human Resources and the Office of the Dean of Faculty to ensure that all those involved in hiring and retention have the necessary tools and understanding. This work will be informed by feedback from the COACHE survey, mentioned above, as well as the Employee Engagement Survey, particularly with regard to colleagues from historically marginalized groups.

I’ll also note that the Office of Equity and Inclusion now has a new member, Nate Menifield, who fills a long-held vacancy for a program manager. And—as I hope you have noticed by now—the Office of Intercultural Education is now known as the Student Center for Belonging and Community. The rebranding came out of a broadly consultative process undertaken in 2023–24 and is designed to more accurately reflect the work of the center and the needs of our students. 

Continued progress on the Bates Athletics Action Plan: Bates has made important improvements to our Athletics program in the past year: among them renovating the swim team locker rooms, turfing the Russell Street Field, strengthening coaching resources and positions, and right-sizing the operational budget of the department.

We’ve done a lot—all of which goes under the umbrella of the Bates Athletics Action Plan—but we have more to do to keep up with our peer schools and make Athletics, Recreation, and Wellness a genuine priority and a continuing source of pride at Bates.

Looking ahead, our strategic investments in Athletics, Recreation, and Wellness will continue. We recently announced that with the help of philanthropic support, the infield of Leahey Field will be converted from grass to turf, with the turf installation starting next week. In addition, upgrades to the Lafayette Street Field (softball) are underway, with improvements to dugouts, drainage, fencing, foul poles, batting cages, and the scoreboard. We are also pursuing plans to convert this field to artificial turf, ideally in the summer of 2026, with donor and college support. Additionally, we intend to move the long-simmering interest in a new Fitness and Well-Being Center from concept to concrete planning and fundraising. 

Employee Engagement Initiative: As many of you know, in the spring of 2023, the college conducted a comprehensive staff engagement and well-being survey. The survey was administered earlier this year and more than two-thirds of eligible participants completed it. The high-level results were shared with the community in May, and division-level results have been shared with each senior leader. At the college-wide level, we will target three main areas for improvement this year: supervisor development, career advancement, and staff/faculty relationships. Under the leadership of Human Resources, three strategic committees of faculty and staff are being formed to develop a plan for each of the three priorities. In addition, each division will also identify up to three specific goals to strengthen the division.

Senior leadership of the college: We recently welcomed a new Vice President for Communications and Marketing, Kristen Lainsbury, to Bates, and we will welcome a new Vice President for Student Affairs, Rosanna Ferro, in early December. 

Additionally, as we have announced to the campus community, this year will be Malcolm Hill’s last as Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Faculty. In November, we will work to form a search committee and secure a consultant to help guide our national search (open to internal and external candidates). The consulting partner and the search committee will hold open sessions for the community to offer input on Bates’ needs in its next VPAA/DOF. We will call for search committee nominations and self-nominations in the coming days.

Taken together, these comings and goings represent a moment of significant transition among the senior leadership of the college—and a moment of real opportunity and possibility.

Indeed, “opportunity” and “possibility” are the watchwords for the year ahead (and, really, always) here at Bates. Working together, we will be thoughtful and deliberate about moving the college forward—but we will also keep our eyes open to unexpected new paths, chances to embrace challenge and joy alike, and the moments that bring us closer as a community and help each of us, as individuals, to thrive.

I’m excited to continue doing this work with each and every one of you.

Warmly,

   Garry