Dear Members of the Bates Community,

We are very pleased to write with two important pieces of news about the Bates presidential search: the membership of the search committee and a new online resource for information about the search process.

The full search committee roster can be found below. The members of the committee — faculty, staff, students, and trustees, including eight who are alumni and four who are Bates parents — bring a broad spectrum of experience, expertise, and perspective to the work of searching for Bates’ ninth president. We look forward to working with them over the coming months, and thank them for their willingness to serve the college in this important capacity.  

We also want to thank the Committee on Faculty Governance for their work to help identify faculty to serve on the search committee, the leaders of Bates College Student Government for consulting on student representation, and all members of the staff who volunteered to serve or nominated others as potential candidates. We had far more compelling options for committee members than we had spots on the committee — a true sign of the depth of talent and engagement in the Bates community.

We have created a website to provide a comprehensive overview of the presidential search process, which is available here. The website has additional information about search committee members as well as other information related to the search. It will be updated throughout the process, and we will also send additional updates via email as appropriate.

While the search committee will take the lead in identifying Bates’ next president, the success of the process is very much dependent on the perspectives of all members of the Bates community as we consider what will matter most to the college in the years ahead and what qualities we should look for in our next president. Many of you have taken part in listening sessions with our search partners at Isaacson, Miller, and we hope that many more of you who are on campus will be able to join one of the in-person sessions taking place today and tomorrow. We also encourage you to share your thoughts via this survey or by writing to presidentialsearch@bates.edu. Your input will inform development of the leadership profile (position description), which we will share once it is complete.

Thank you once again to those who have agreed to serve on the Presidential Search Committee and to all of you who have shared, or will share, your thoughts about Bates’ next president. 

Sincerely,

Andrea Conklin Bueschel ’90 
Gregory Ehret ’91, P’23 
Co-Chairs of the Presidential Search Committee

Presidential Search Committee Members:

Andrea Conklin Bueschel ’90 (co-chair)
Trustee

Gregory Ehret ’91, P’23 (co-chair)
Trustee

John Baughman
Associate Professor of Politics

Geri FitzGerald ’75
Trustee Emerita

Aydan Gedeon-Hope ’25 
Student

John Gillespie ’80, P’13, P’18
Chair, Board of Trustees

Evelynn Hammonds, L.H.D. ’11
Trustee

Faith Hauger
Administrative Coordinator for Student Affairs

David Longdon ’14 
Trustee

Alexandra Manning ’23 
Student

Lance Matthiesen ’85 
Trustee

Charles Nero
Benjamin E. Mays ’20 Distinguished Professor of Rhetoric, Film, and Screen Studies

Katy Ott
Associate Professor of Mathematics

Stacey Rizza P’20
Trustee

Michelle Rosenberg ’94 
Trustee

Christine Schwartz
Associate Vice President for Dining, Conferences, and Campus Events

Anelise Shrout
Assistant Professor of Digital and Computational Studies

Darryl Uy
Director of Admission

Jean Wilson ’81, P’05, P’13
Vice Chair, Board of Trustees

Special advisor to the committee:

Scott Bierman ’77, Trustee Emeritus and President of Beloit College