Working document for discussion with trustees on May 10, and faculty, staff and students
on May 12 and 13, 2008
Bates College
Institutional Planning Process
Spring 2008
Introduction
This document is a synthesis of the findings of the four working groups, which were
organized according to the following themes: Clarifying and Communicating the Bates
Experience, Learning at Bates, Teaching and Scholarship at Bates, and Strengthening the
Bates Community. The document begins with a proposal to revise the College’s mission
statement, and calls for broad based campus discussions about its form and content. The
body of the document is organized around a statement of the College’s central values. In
Section III, we identify distinctive programs through which the College embodies its
principles. In Section IV, we identify key issues that emerged in the working group
discussions, and list recommendations about how to address them.
The working groups comprise more than forty faculty, staff and students, and this
document therefore contains the contributions of a sizable cross-section of the campus.
Nonetheless, we know that other members of the College community will have important
points to raise and additional concrete proposals to suggest. We look forward to
discussions with the Trustees on May 10, and with the larger campus community on May
12 and 13, and expect that the next iteration of this document will be greatly enriched as a
result.
After these meetings, the working group recommendations will be revised and then
conveyed to the President and Planning Steering Committee, who expects to bring a final
document forward to the campus community in September for additional comment before
submission to the Trustees at their October meeting.
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Working document for discussion with trustees on May 10, and faculty, staff and students
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I. Revising the Mission Statement
We offer the following as an example of a revised mission statement. We recommend
that the College establish a process for crafting a new mission statement to be adopted by
the trustees by May, 2009.
What is the College’s enduring purpose?
Bates College cultivates an intellectual community engaged in creating and
sharing knowledge. Through a rigorous curriculum and scholarly activity
extending across the disciplines and beyond the physical boundaries of the
College, Bates encourages individuals to develop as thinkers, nurture their
passions, and engage in principled action.
II. Proposed Statement of the College’s Guiding
Principles
We offer the following as an initial formulation of the College’s guiding principles. We
recommend that the College affirms a statement of its principles by May, 2009.
What core principles guide the College as it lives its mission?
The principles and ideals of an institution guide its work, direct its allocation of
resources, and serve as a reference as it assesses its performance. These principles should
be widely understood by members of the community and readily apparent in its
documents, communications, processes, and environment.
Principle 1: Bates is committed to creative, adventurous, and rigorous inquiry in a
mutually supportive community of teaching, learning, and scholarship. A Bates
education fosters:
• Engagement. We seek to stimulate students’ imaginations and encourage their
exploration of ideas, places and relationships as they define their interests and
forge a pathway into adult life.
• Creativity. We seek to challenge students to explore new ways of understanding
the world through innovative programs and guided risks that open the possibility
of transformative experiences.
• Rigor. We seek to develop students’ powers of independent thought, critical
analysis, rational argumentation, and aesthetic understanding.
• Scholarship. We seek to support students and faculty in projects of inquiry that
advance understanding of the world.
• Integrity. We seek to maintain the highest standards of academic and personal
integrity and honorable conduct.
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Working document for discussion with trustees on May 10, and faculty, staff and students
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Principle 2: Building on its history, Bates aspires to be a pluralistic and egalitarian
community in the sense that we strive to be:
• Inclusive. We are committed to assuring equal access to the opportunities made
available at the College, and to the active inclusion of all members in the life of
the College.
• Diverse. We are committed to supporting a pluralistic community whose multiple
forms of difference enrich the College, and are a source of knowledge and
principled action.
• Respectful. We cultivate attitudes of respect for all participants in the life of the
College, and we are committed to incorporating the voice and agency of all
members of the community.
• Collaborative. We foster a culture of collaboration and consultation that reaches
across differences in institutional role and authority.
• Open. We aspire to be a welcoming community that makes a place for
newcomers, recognizing that human variety enhances our community.
Principle 3: Bates affirms that community life and civic engagement on campus and
beyond are vital dimensions of teaching, learning, and research at the College. Bates is
committed to:
• Locating liberal arts education in social contexts that are local, regional, national
and global.
• Fostering student contributions to a just society achieved by principled action
with human dignity and environmental sustainability as central concerns.
• Valuing the local community as a resource, setting, and partner for the Bates
education, meeting its civic responsibilities as an institutional citizen.
• Supporting residential life as an avenue for learning and developing personal
responsibility.
Principle 4: Bates is committed to ongoing, critical, and constructive reflection on how
we practice the values that we profess, and we seek creative ways to realize those
principles more fully in action.
Principle 5: Bates is committed to open communication as a necessary condition for
creating shared knowledge, deepening understanding, facilitating new experiences, and
living according to its principles.
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Working document for discussion with trustees on May 10, and faculty, staff and students
on May 12 and 13, 2008
III. Distinctive Programs that Embody the Bates
Principles
This section of the report highlights the many elements of a Bates College education that
embody its principles, and enumerates some of the reasons that faculty, staff, students and
trustees can take pride in the quality of a Bates education. As we focus on the
recommendations to follow in Section IV, these features of a Bates education deserve our
continuing attention and support. To build from this solid tradition of excellence, we
must ensure that we maintain it carefully.
This list of distinctive programs is organized to illustrate the connections between them
and the guiding principles. We recognize that many of these programs embody more than
one of the College’s guiding principles. We welcome additional contributions to this list,
particularly under Principles Four and Five which were articulated late in the working
group deliberations.
Principle 1: Intellectual Community
Access to an excellent faculty in a nationally recognized academic program
•
Teacher-scholars are committed to working closely with undergraduates through
scholarship and research, supporting and challenging them to seek their highest
potentials.
•
Learning Associates in diverse fields come to campus for extended visits,
including master classes, lectures, performances and significant informal
interaction with students.
•
Students master academic standards and conventions in their chosen field in order
to identify problems and create new knowledge.
•
A broad array of integrated concentrations exposes students to interdisciplinary
study.
•
A carefully chosen selection of courses develops powers of critical assessment,
scientific reasoning, quantitative and laboratory skills, written expression,
aesthetic sensibility and independent thought.
•
Diverse pedagogies include deep discussions, genuine group work in which all
members receive the same evaluation for the project, and problem based labs
designed around open-ended questions and experimental design
A coherent education from orientation to commencement
•
The First-Year Seminar fosters an early immersion into the world of scholarship
where no more than 15 students study with a teacher who is also their academic
advisor.
•
During the innovative five-week spring Short Term, students take only one course
and have the flexibility to go into the field, the archives, and the community in
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Working document for discussion with trustees on May 10, and faculty, staff and students
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ways constrained by the traditional schedule.
•
For the senior capstone project — which requires both synthesis and reflection —
most students completes an individual, original project in his or her major field
and under the supportive supervision of a major advisor. In addition, nearly one in
ten seniors develop a more rigorous, year-long honors thesis and defends the
result to a panel of examiners including a scholar from another institution.
Self-directed learning programs
•
Self designed majors and independent study courses create opportunity and
flexibility for students to pursue interests in novel combinations with the support
and guidance of faculty.
•
Students are encouraged to produce independent work for outside audiences
through the Mt. David Summit where students present their academic and creative
work to the community.
•
With faculty advice and guidance, more than two-thirds of Bates alumni/ae begin
graduate or professional programs within six years of graduation.
Principle 2: Pluralistic and Egalitarian Community, and
Principle 3: Engagement with Wider Communities
A dynamic community of people and place
•
Bates is inspired by longstanding values of inclusion and integrity. People of
diverse perspectives interact respectfully in the classroom and the residence halls,
in organizations and teams, and with the greater L/A community.
•
In a tradition of collaborative learning, students work with each other to advance
their understanding, including such programs as the Mathematics and Statistic
Workshop, the Peer Assisted Learning Program, and the Hughes Summer
Scholars Program.
•
Students develop body, mind, and spirit through a spectrum of co-curricular
opportunities in government, the arts, athletics, an extensive program of physical
education courses, and a broad array of programming by the multi-faith
chaplaincy.
•
The Benjamin Mays Initiative articulates a coherent set of institutional projects
that aims to deepen Bates' diversity, broadly defined, and prepare all our students
both to learn from the complexity of difference, and to recognize their
responsibilities as ethical leaders and global citizens.
Civic engagement and service learning
•
Vibrant partnerships flourish between the Bates’ residential community and the
increasingly diverse, historic small city of Lewiston, all within an hour of
Portland, the mountains, and Maine's midcoast region.
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Working document for discussion with trustees on May 10, and faculty, staff and students
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•
The Harward Center for Community Partnerships and renowned service learning
program provides extraordinary support for connecting academic study and the
real world, including engagement with the region’s Franco-American and Somali
communities. Bates is one of 68 institutions nationally and three New England
liberal arts colleges to be awarded the Carnegie classifications of Outreach and
Community Partnerships, and Curricular Engagement.
Off-campus study and summer research
•
Opportunity to explore the world through off-campus study, including regional,
national, and international learning.
•
Internships in the region and across the globe.
•
An extensive summer research program supports students conducting full-time
research with Bates faculty or at other research facilities around the world.
Life after Bates
•
Recent graduates--with help from academic departments and the Office of Career
Services--work in a range of professions including health care, law, social
services, finance, the arts, and academic careers.
•
The Alumni connection helps Bates graduates with job networking.
Principle 4: Ongoing Critical Reflection and Action
Culture of ongoing and formal and informal reflection about living our values
•
A longstanding practice of student evaluation of teaching.
•
A robust institutional research office that guides Bates participation in national
data collecting activities and assists in the design of institution specific research
projects.
•
A current writing assessment project evaluating the impact of first year seminars
on student writing.
•
Persistent and ultimately successful faculty revision of the general education
curriculum.
•
Current review by the faculty of its governance structure.
•
Establishment of the Master Planning Committee.
•
Inclusive institutional planning project.
•
Decanal NEASC self-study.
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Working document for discussion with trustees on May 10, and faculty, staff and students
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•
Campus climate report.
•
Facilities Renovation report.
•
Communications audit.
Principle 5: Open Communication
(Enumeration of programs that fit here remains to be done)
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Working document for discussion with trustees on May 10, and faculty, staff and students
on May 12 and 13, 2008
IV: Issues for Continuing Discussion and Proposals to
Address Them
Preface
The working groups have not yet had time to synthesize the four sets of recommendations
thoughtfully into one unified document. As a result, the reader will note commonalities
among the four separate sets of recommendations that follow, a noteworthy finding in
itself. The work of synthesizing these four reports into one unified section will be
integrated with the revisions suggested by the feedback from the open meetings.
Furthermore, the decision to propose Principle 5, Open Communication, quite literally
occurred on the day before this report was compiled as Working Group 1 finalized the
classification of its recommendations within the four principles and discovered that one
of its main ideas did not fit. Consequently, no other group has had the opportunity to
consider if and how any of its issues might fit under Principle 5.
Working Group 1: Extending and Communicating the Bates Experience
Principle 1: Intellectual Community
Extend the academic experience into an online environment
Extend the Bates education into a lifelong experience for our extended communities
Bring together academic, research, professional, social, and community
contributions, from people across the Bates lifespan, into a single context
based on common academic interests
Develop an award-winning online environment that extends Bates' academic model
worldwide
Provide a context that reinforces features of the core Bates experience
Integrate with other online services, such as social networks, via open
standards
Make online Bates ultimately portable, so that people can participate from
anywhere, anytime
Create a flexible, responsive structure that allows easy and timely adaptation
to ongoing technological changes, and that maintains the new on-line
collaborative environment in perpetuity.
From the outset, ensure that the new integrated, online environment is
situated, staffed, and financed through an organizational structure that
transcends current bureaucratic divisions of the College.
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Working document for discussion with trustees on May 10, and faculty, staff and students
on May 12 and 13, 2008
Principle 2: Pluralistic and Egalitarian Community
Well designed structures enhance communication.
Reinforce the importance of Bates principles in planning and implementing new
facilities and renovations, especially throughout the master planning process.
Reiterate and articulate the diversity of the campus community and cultivating
an inclusive institutional culture as an essential element of Bates' excellence,
at all levels of campus operations
Make sure all facilities project the affirming tone of a welcoming
community, by reflecting the demographic diversity we seek. (See the
Multicultural Center walls, furnishings, and shelves as an example.)
Make sure sustainability is addressed at all levels of campus
operations, such as more appealing, creatively adorned recycling bins
paired with trash receptacles across campus
Increase the College’s fundraising and endowment for full pursuit of
the diversity and inclusion goals outlined in the Benjamin Mays
Initiative.
Aspire to universal access to all facilities for people of all physical abilities.
For example, make the campus more welcoming through benches placed in
more locations
Provide wayfinding signage that provides context for campus visitors.
Create a welcoming central space, a gateway or crossroads, where on-campus people,
neighbors, prospective students and parents, community partners, conference
participants, and other friends can learn about Bates and about each other.
Recognize that Chase Hall, which provided a central communications
function, is now closed. Identify the role Chase will play in the near future,
including the possibilities of fitness, music performance, and art studio
facilities. Verify that a gateway center is in the master plan, and that it
represents core values.
Create spaces that weave together formal and informal learning, for the on-campus
community as well as neighbors and other visitors. Encourage intellectual affinity
groups to use the space to grow and thrive.
Create a central campus learning commons to facilitate stimulating
conversation and dialogue, leisure and entertainment, study-group space, and
corners for thoughtful reflection.
Create spaces in all buildings, like the successful lounges in Pettengill, for informal
communications among faculty and students across departments and programs and
make sure such spaces are identified in renovations and new construction. Make the
spaces aesthetically-pleasing, comfortable, welcoming, and cozy.
Adorn our spaces with appealing visual elements — art, photography, posters
— that reflect our values
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Working document for discussion with trustees on May 10, and faculty, staff and students
on May 12 and 13, 2008
Principle 3: Engagement with Wider Communities
Engage in dialog about local, regional and global issues
Persuade constituents of the value of engaging in open dialogue about major global
and local issues — such as diversity and sustainability — which are greater than, yet
significant to, the institution.
Reinforce Bates' role as an institutional citizen in the world, practicing its
values, by conducting central dialogue on important issues of our time.
Collaborative online environment
Draw Bates constituents and friends into a satisfying, engaging, and deepening
experience of the Bates by deploying a sustainable, integrated online environment
that increases access to Bates people and knowledge, and reflects and expresses Bates
values.
Deploy a single system that simplifies all online collaborations between Bates
people, groups, and off-campus partners — both public and restricted —
including Web content, e-mail lists, discussion forums, event notifications,
and personalized RSS content subscriptions
Provide a simple, intuitive way to contribute many stories and voices to the
body of knowledge about the Bates experience.
Integrate all types of information and knowledge — scholarship, research,
narratives, profiles, multimedia, events, places, theme, and organizations —
into a common experience that can be dynamically annotated and
personalized by all community members throughout their lifetimes.
Provide an interactive environment that supports Bates people who are
producing persuasive public content, delivering up-to-date information,
providing services to Bates people, and conducting business transactions
Marketing to our key external constituencies
Develop and implement a campus-wide, integrated marketing strategy and multi-year
plan to coordinate the work of all people who are charged with persuading on- and
off-campus constituents to support Bates with their participation and financial
contributions
Assess and implement key recommendations of the external marketing report
from September 2007
Conduct actionable research—formal and anecdotal—to understand
perceptions of Bates core values and distinctive programs among key
constituencies
Conduct actionable research about the lifelong outcomes of a Bates education.
Build on research results to produce — and measure the success of —
engaging presentations about Bates core values and distinctive programs that
will persuade targeted prospective students, employees, and philanthropists to
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Working document for discussion with trustees on May 10, and faculty, staff and students
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commit their time and financial support.
Principle 4: Ongoing Critical Reflection and Action
Interpersonal communications
Develop processes for coming together to actively, frankly, and respectfully
understand the tensions that naturally accompany differences in perspectives in a
community of learning.
Convene periodic town meetings with both programmed agendas and
explorations of emerging current issues
Develop programming for the weekly campus-wide meeting hour
Promote campus facilitation processes for small groups
Strengthen events planning to enhance rituals, traditions, and events that support the
educational experience and mark significant transitions between distinctive phases of
the Bates experience.
Manage scheduling, planning, and communications for campus events,
including conferences more intentionally; communicate a clear rationale why
each event is important, and use varied media to attract audiences for the
events
Principle 5: Open Communication
Reinforce the importance of sharing and respecting personal interests, experiences,
and knowledge — including anecdotal narratives and formal research— as key facets
of the Bates experience for all members of our communities.
Achieve institutional support for open communications as a core
competency
Work to change behaviors and expectations so that faculty, staff and
students reach across existing boundaries as a matter of course to
communicate about projects of joint interest, and enlist partners.
Create and implement a plan that addresses all forms of College
communications: interpersonal, persuasive, structural and online
collaboration.
Create a new communications organizational structure that bridges all
sectors of the College and is situated, staffed and financed so that
communications work transcends current bureaucratic divisions of the
College.
Integrate current formal communications work now done by OCMR,
Admissions, Advancement and other sectors of the College into a unified
communications function.
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Working document for discussion with trustees on May 10, and faculty, staff and students
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Identify and support specific ways to reallocate time and funding to make
such communications an integral part of the normal scope of work and
play.
Increase technical research support for grant writers, especially
regarding alumni outcomes.
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Working document for discussion with trustees on May 10, and faculty, staff and students
on May 12 and 13, 2008
Working Group 2: Learning
Principle 1: Intellectual Community
1. Since the mid 1980s the grade distribution has changed quite dramatically.
Recommendation:
The College should undertake a study framed by the following questions about trends in
the assessment of student work:
• Are we setting academic standards and then not holding ourselves (students and
faculty) to them?
• Have the implicit assumptions about the meaning of the letter grades (A, B, C…)
evolved?
• Do the trends reflect improvements in the real performance of our students?
• Do students now have more opportunities to rewrite papers, for example, and as a
result achieve higher grades?
Principle 2: Pluralistic and Egalitarian Community
2. The new general education program and increased calls for fractional course credits
make this an opportune moment to consider whether our current course credit system is
best suited to our goals. The credit hour system used by most universities, and roughly
half of our peer colleges, might offer finer credit gradations and therefore be more
flexible. Might adopting it erode the sense that all courses at Bates are of equal value?
3. Modesty, Egalitarianism, and Excellence at Bates
• Disagreement exists about the meaning of these words
• A tension naturally exists between the concepts
o The tension can be constructive
o We need to acknowledge and openly discuss its less healthy effects
• Do our practices reflect the values we claim to espouse?
o Do we actually encourage excellence?
o Are we comfortable celebrating it when it is achieved?
4. We should endeavor to encourage and allow students, irrespective of differences in
their learning styles and educational backgrounds, to do their best work while at Bates
Recommendations:
1. We encourage support for faculty and staff development to better equip those
working with students to accommodate their varied learning styles.
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Working document for discussion with trustees on May 10, and faculty, staff and students
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2. The College should consider grid modifications that accommodate untimed
exams.
Principle 3. Engagement with the Wider Communities to which the College Belongs
1. We should endeavor to foster academic and intellectual discussions/experience outside
of the classroom, extending academics beyond the classroom and including civic
engagement and community based research. This will equip students for their pursuits
after graduation in a wide variety of environments. At present there is an abundance of
opportunities to foster discussions, but the programs use so many different manners of
communication to reach the same audience that the campus audience is fatigued and not
responsive. There is a lack of coordination and an effective communication system. For
example the Arts at Bates put out various calendars, cards, and announcements; a unified
communication system would benefit all.
Recommendations:
Consolidate communications.
• Solicit Communications and Media Relations to create a campus wide
communication system.
• Hire a consultant to critique current communication structures and suggest more
efficient system.
• Create a calendaring system that unifies campus activities communication. For
example a) anchor each year around specific major events like MLK and Otis,
b) limit redundancies c) create formal process for inviting visiting lecturers to
campus.
• Make better connections between faculty and campus clubs/organizations
• Add more academic content to orientation
• Professional training for faculty to make connections outside classroom
• Better understanding and appreciation of differences by establishing alternate
means of communication to a variety of audiences (publications in Spanish, web
page access and blogs, etc.)
Immediate Steps:
• We request to formally include members of the Dean of Student’s office on
faculty committees.
• We offer the following model for consideration. Make Short Term a 3-week unit
before the autumn semester. Classes on campus would be limited to academically
rigorous and demanding courses for first year students and seniors embarking on
thesis research. Faculty could also offer off-campus units to allow study abroad
opportunities or field research. These off-campus units could be linked to courses
offered during the academic year at the discretion of the faculty. Additionally,
faculty development opportunities could be provided during this period. Finally,
this model would allow for an extension of the length of the semesters.
• We ask the community and the college’s Administrative Officers to make the
funding of a center that coordinates support for student learning and research and
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Working document for discussion with trustees on May 10, and faculty, staff and students
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•
•
•
•
faculty teaching, development and research (the Learning Commons) at Bates a
priority in its strategic planning and fund raising efforts.
We ask the DOS and representatives of the relevant non-curricular activities to
create a daily grid for co-curricular and extra-curricular activities.
We ask ILS, the Registrar and the President’s Office to upgrade our current r25
system so that it works as effectively as a calendar as it does as a room reservation
system.
We ask the community and the college’s Administrative Officers to be mindful of
the College’s continuing commitment to upgrade and improve residential
facilities. We ask that this commitment not simply be to the necessary physical
structures, but also to programming within those structures that would support the
College’s mission as a residential community of learners.
We ask the community and the college’s Administrative Officers to make the
improvement of Garcelon Field and expanded athletics field space a priority in its
strategic planning and fund raising efforts.
Future Aspirations:
• Build a cultural center for the Arts. The arts are a key component to connecting
classroom to campus and currently the Arts are balkanized and not able to provide
the programming of our peer schools.
• A new calendaring system that greatly expands R25 to include daily and weekly
listings and can be accessed through website, Facebook, meetingmaker, and
PDA’s.
Organize campus discussions of the following topics:
• How can Bates best take advantage of the opportunities for learning presented by
a residential college system.
• Should Bates adopt an alternative to our present Academic Calendar?
• Should Bates adopt some version of a House system to organize residential life?
• Should Bates create a formal Campus Governance Structure to treat campus wide
issues?
• Should Bates revise its daily grid?
• Should Bates allow more time reserved specifically for meetings and all campus
discussion?
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Working document for discussion with trustees on May 10, and faculty, staff and students
on May 12 and 13, 2008
Working Group 3: Teaching and Scholarship at Bates
Principle 1: Intellectual Community
1. Small classes are one of the features that make residential liberal arts colleges
appealing to students and their parents
(http://chronicle.com/daily/2008/02/1536n.htm).
A 10:1 student: faculty ratio remains appropriate for Bates. However, that ratio is
unevenly distributed across courses, and the “lived experience” not reflected in the
ratio is that students often find themselves in large introductory courses where they
feel invisible and isolated.
Recommendation: Ensure student access to small courses throughout their career
at Bates
• Use the course enrollment data from the NIFTE group to target specific
areas where students are likely to experience a preponderance of large
enrollment classes
• Reduce the size of Introductory courses
• Redistribute faculty workload
• strategically add one net addition per five years
2. The thesis/capstone is required of all Bates students. Our curriculum offers a
variety of stages at which students develop their intellectual and research skills
leading to the thesis/capstone.
Recommendation: Increase flexibility in the distribution of faculty workload
• Courses are the scaffold on which we frame our curriculum, but we
recognize the many learning opportunities that take place outside of the
classroom and course structure. Faculty workload should more reflect
their time spent in these other types of teaching. For example,
o An enhancement of the method by which thesis supervision is
counted
o teaching credit for summer pedagogical work with students
Recommendation: Endow funding for student/faculty research
• $5000 for student stipends, room and board for summer work
• stipends for faculty (unless they are receiving teaching credit)
Recommendation: Endow funds for supplies and travel for student thesis work
Recommendation: consider the impact of adding more academic support staff
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Working document for discussion with trustees on May 10, and faculty, staff and students
on May 12 and 13, 2008
3. Bates faculty work at the intersections of teaching and scholarship. While faculty often
are not teaching the specific content of their scholarship, their teaching is always
influenced by their lives as active scholars. We therefore need stronger support for
faculty scholarship.
Recommendation: We need to continue and to expand support for grant writing.
Recommendation: We need to streamline post-award processes
• Particularly within the social sciences and in community based research,
financial compensation for human participants is a major expense of
scholarship. The current accounting structure places severe constraints on
this work
• Procedures need to be communicated in ways that are clear, transparent,
and readily accessible
• Procedures need to be applied consistently
Recommendation: Staff need clarity about what their roles are in support of
faculty and student/faculty scholarship. And Staff need acknowledgment of their
own work as scholars.
Recommendation: Time is one of the most important factors in moving one’s
scholarship forward.
• The recent enhancement of sabbatical program to offer a full year at 80%
pay has been important in this regard. Further support for opportunities to
apply for a one to two course release for scholarship would also be
important. Strategic increases in the availability of replacement courses
would aid this effort.
• Decrease committee work.
o CCG did a survey on this. We need to make use of the results of
that survey.
o If the number of committees cannot be reduced, then at least the
number of people per committee should be.
o Are committees more effective when they include staff?
Recommendation: We need a college wide system for compiling and reporting
information about scholarly and creative work at the college.
4. Scholarship is vital to our mission as educators. What is our model for scholarship and
creative work, a model that celebrates our strengths but does not undermine our teaching?
What models of scholarship allow us to acknowledge and value the wide range of
scholarly and creative work that goes on at Bates? How do we communicate, to ourselves
and others, the positive aspects of scholarship within the context of the liberal arts and
sciences? The outward focus demanded by scholarship and creative work, and their
requirements for external dissemination and peer review, can strengthen Bates and be a
model for students.
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Working document for discussion with trustees on May 10, and faculty, staff and students
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Recommendation: The college should hold campus-wide discussion of the many
and changing definitions of scholarship
5. Humans learn in different ways (which is an issue both in Principle 1 and 2)
Recommendation: Support faculty development of pedagogies that accommodate
different learning styles.
• Develop a Teaching and Research Center
6. Facilities can enhance the educational environment.
Recommendation: Planning for new buildings should continue to keep the
academic mission of the college central
• A new science building would enhance interdisciplinary teaching and
research and provide more space to include students in faculty research
• A unified approach to the arts would enhance programming and
communication with external audiences
• Need additional spaces for group study
• Need flexible classroom space, and space that supports classroom
discussion
Principle 2: Pluralistic and Egalitarian Community
1. Equal access to all college programs has been a principle of Bates College since
our founding. People do not arrive at Bates with a common set of experiences or
the same set of talents and skills. Therefore, a one-approach-fits-all curriculum or
social programs will not afford equal access.
Recommendation: Endow the Summer Scholars Program
• Recruiting to Bates and retention in science and math of students from
underrepresented groups
Recommendation: Create a structurally and financially sustainable system of
mentoring and advising
• Early and honest appraisal of student progress in a course
• Faculty should be aware of what other courses a student is taking, and work
together and with staff to foster success (each semester each student is being
taught by at least four faculty but the faculty often do not know what other
courses the student is taking, and rarely work together in helping the student
develop strategies for success)
• Enhanced advising for summer opportunities and graduate schools
• Engage alumni as career mentors
• Strengthen the Office of Career Services; hire staff who are from
underrepresented groups
18
Working document for discussion with trustees on May 10, and faculty, staff and students
on May 12 and 13, 2008
Recommendation: Move forward as quickly as possible with planning for a
Learning Center
Recommendation: Establish a faculty development grant program to fund
innovative uses of technology and new media to develop broad-based pedagogical
approaches across the curriculum to help realize institutional commitment to
diversity; enhance learning and teaching; and provide professional development
as well as research opportunities for faculty (publication of scholarly articles on
pedagogy, adaptive learning, etc).
• Faculty and academic support staff (including technologists) will propose
projects and receive grants in the form of teaching reductions, pay, and
expenses to initiate projects, test and refine the projects, and report on their
success/failure to Bates Educators as a whole. Where possible, these projects
should be constructed with extensibility and cross-curricular application in
mind, so that they enrich the entire Bates pedagogical community.
2. A high, and increasing, percentage of our students come with a variety of
documented learning differences, physical disabilities and medical concerns.
Legally, and to live up to our principles of inclusion,
Recommendation: Endow a pool of money for technology that supports students
with disabilities and learning differences
• Training for faculty and tutors in how to use these technologies
3. It is a faculty and staff responsibility to develop a baseline knowledge of cultural,
medical, and psychological factors that impede access. While there is a an
achievement gap for certain groups of students as measured by GPA, there is an
even greater gap by measures that involve nomination or selection by faculty
(summer research opportunities, Teaching assistantships, research assistantships,
etc.)
Recommendation: Continued involvement of Bates College in CHAS (the
Consortium for High Achievement and Success)
• Continued financial support for faculty and staff to travel to the meetings
put on by CHAS
• We need to be more aware of the interplay between diversity of learning
styles and cultural diversity.
• We need to become more aware of our own biases in choosing people we
think will be successful
Recommendation: Establish a Teaching and Research Center where faculty and
staff can
• learn inclusive pedagogies
• be a resource for each other
• as with # 1 above, faculty could work together to help individual students find
ways to succeed
19
Working document for discussion with trustees on May 10, and faculty, staff and students
on May 12 and 13, 2008
Recommendation: create an Office of Diversity and Academic Excellence to work
in cooperation with a Center for Teaching and Research to assess and do research
on what campus experiences promote or hinder the achievement of academic
potential by all.
4. Recruitment and retention of a more diverse faculty and staff are supported by
policies that value people.
Recommendation: Create a village around Bates College, without walling Bates
off from the Lewiston community. We value the residential life as a learning
environment for students. That learning environment is enhanced by the presence
of more faculty and staff at college events after 4 PM.
• In addition to helping people settle in at Bates, such a program will enhance
the scholastic life of Bates by creating a larger community around the college.
• An additional benefit is to enhance Bates’ role in the community by bringing
more of its educators into Lewiston. Educators then have a vested interest in
Lewiston because it is their home.
• Start a two pronged effort: Help faculty/staff with the execution of home
purchases including no cost loans for down payments for houses purchased in
proximity to Bates. Second, buy homes that come for sale in Lewiston and
Auburn with the express purpose of selling them to faculty/staff when they
come to Bates.
Recommendation: organize vanpooling opportunities for people who do not live
in Lewiston/Auburn
• We are in favor of the vanpool to and from Portland that started recently.
Recommendation: Provide Childcare options to reduce conflict between family
life and academic life. Many recent studies on employment satisfaction point to
childcare as a major factor (see for example, “Addressing the Major Challenge for
Women in Academia: “Its Proximate Childcare, Stupid”, American Society for
Cell Biology April 2008 Newsletter)
• We support the efforts recently initiated by the Human Resources
Department.
• Provide a system of students, possibly involving the Harward Center, the
Education Department and the work-study program, for childcare at late
afternoon and evening events and on K-12 school snow days.
5. Staff are part of the educational mission of the college. Human Resources
conducts periodic salary equity studies, and is developing Performance
Development standards that include supporting the mission of the college.
Recommendation: We need to be mindful of salary equity issues.
Recommendation: Staff value opportunities for professional development.
20
Working document for discussion with trustees on May 10, and faculty, staff and students
on May 12 and 13, 2008
6. Great progress has been made in making faculty compensation nationally
competitive and we need to continue these efforts.
• Salary, sabbatical, start-up, travel funds, internal opportunities for faculty
development grants are all important
7. A department or program whose curricular needs mandate a new position may
prioritize recruitment by bringing to Bates diverse scholars with unrepresented or
underrepresented perspectives.
Principle 3. Engagement with the wider communities to which the college belongs
1. Part of the repeated call for campus discussion about the definition of scholarship is
that Community Based Learning and Community-based Participatory research (CBPR)
are not seen as being equal to other forms of scholarship. This situation exists despite
National Science Foundation requirement for “broader impact” statements in every grant
proposal, and NIH is emphasizing CBPR.
Principle 4. Ongoing Critical Reflection and Action
1. Master Planning must take into account the deferred maintenance and renovation needs
of our existing buildings.
• The Report of the Facilities Renewal Group needs to be melded into the work of
the Master Planning, and the combined entity should be renamed as Facilities
Planning.
2. No new studies should be done without a report on the outcomes from all previous
reports on the subject.
• Establish a practice of annual reporting about outcomes from significant
studies or projects.
21
Working document for discussion with trustees on May 10, and faculty, staff and students
on May 12 and 13, 2008
Working Group 4: Enhancing Bates Community
Principle 1: Intellectual Community
1. First year seminars and senior thesis mark common intellectual rights of passage at the
beginning and end of students’ experience at Bates. Can we create shared experiences
along the way, as Cultural Heritage once did?
Recommendation: Establish a second Mount David Summit that would take
place early in the Fall Semester and that would feature student presentations on
(1) learning experiences during JYA and JSA, and (2) the results of summer
research whether on-campus or off-campus.
2. A great deal of generative intellectual exchange takes place in relatively informal
settings where conversation ranges across disciplines and draws freely on the interests,
enthusiasms, and curiosity of the participants. What can the College do to promote these
contexts of conversation in which we think together and learn from each other in ways
that are exploratory, informal, and perhaps playful?
Recommendation: Provide support (both financial and logistical) for a
proliferation of informal discussions in a variety of formats. For example, there
might be regular Thursday noon discussions open to all students, faculty, and staff
addressing, e.g., topics proposed by any member of the College community or
issues in the news of the week. Lunch in Commons would be free to attendees.
3. The configuration of physical space has significant effects on how people interact with
each other. The College needs to design spaces that contribute to an atmosphere of
intellectual conviviality.
Recommendation: Provide more places where people can meet and converse over
food and drink. Community often forms “around the water cooler” where
informal interaction helps to knit people together and make connections. The
College needs to design into its facilities more places for coffee and conversation.
Recommendation: Include in the design of renovated or new academic buildings
spaces that serve as a hub of student and faculty interaction. These spaces might
combine in various ways the functions of studies/computer rooms/lounges/coffee
break rooms.
4. Internet access, network design, web spaces, and electronic media are obviously
important in facilitating the exchange of ideas.
Recommendations: (1) Improve web design and networking opportunities (e.g.,
for on-line discussions, user groups, blogging, and so on). (2) Explore expanded
and more creative uses of Bates College radio and television.
22
Working document for discussion with trustees on May 10, and faculty, staff and students
on May 12 and 13, 2008
5. Bates has a vigorous arts culture that could be given higher visibility and would
benefit from enhanced coordination and communication of its activities.
Recommendations: Create a Task Force on the Arts that will examine the state of
the arts at Bates, look at best practices elsewhere, and make recommendations for
extending the reach and effectiveness of arts programming at the College.
6. The College needs to sustain and advance efforts to provide support for students in
dealing with learning differences, disparities in preparation for college, and core areas of
skill development (e.g., in mathematics/statistics; writing; research). A key challenge is
to provide this support without making particular groups of students feel labeled or
stigmatized or marginalized.
Recommendation: Seek funds to continue the Hughes Summer Scholars
Program, and assess the feasibility of starting a comparable program that focuses
on writing and research skills.
Recommendation: Establish a Learning Center that would coordinate the
College’s currently fragmentary and multiple efforts to support student learning,
including the Peer Assisted Learning Group (PALG) program, the departmental
peer tutor program, peer writing tutor programs, and study skills and time
management assistance.
Principle 2: Pluralistic and Egalitarian Community
1. Bates seeks to recruit and retain students from a wide variety of backgrounds spanning
differences, for example, in economic circumstance, race, ethnicity, geographical
location, and family educational history. This requires continuous evaluation of current
programs, experimentation with new initiatives, and sustained commitment of
institutional resources. There are many dimensions to this effort, some of which are
reflected in recommendation 6 above and 2 below. Here is an additional, and
fundamental, concern.
Recommendation: Increase the College’s endowment for the support of needbased student financial aid.
2. Bates aspires to be a supportive, inclusive, pluralistic community that fosters a culture
of mutual engagement and openness to diverse voices. What can we do to move closer to
the realization of this ideal?
Recommendation: Provide support for ongoing experimentation with programs
designed to facilitate learning in conversation across our differences. To this end,
the College should create multiple opportunities for students, faculty, and staff to
23
Working document for discussion with trustees on May 10, and faculty, staff and students
on May 12 and 13, 2008
hear one another’s stories. This storytelling model of mutual engagement has
been very successfully employed, for example, in the annual Multi-Faith Dinner.
Recommendation: Study the feasibility of a Community Fellows Program in
which students, faculty, and staff would have an opportunity (with access to
funding and/or release time) to initiate community engagement programs on and
off campus.
Recommendation: Reestablish a mentoring program for students that draws upon
both faculty and staff.
Recommendation: Create opportunities for students, faculty, and staff to gather in
social and recreational activities that invite us to step out of our institutional roles.
3. Because Bates is a residential college, student’s educational experience and sense of
community is deeply shaped by life in college housing and by extracurricular activities
on campus.
Recommendation: The Extracurricular Activities and Residential Life Committee
should be revived, and should anchor a partnership of staff, faculty, and students
in seeking to understand and enhance the character of Bates as a learning
environment that extends beyond the classroom.
4. A sense of community is cultivated in part through regular public events that recount
and celebrate the historic identity and central values of the institution.
Recommendation: Expand events that invite students, faculty, staff, and alumni
into discussion of Bates’ core values and identity. Martin Luther King Day
programming is a prime example here. Other examples include the annual rituals
of Convocation, Commencement,, and the springtime Founder’s Day event of
years past. Reunion and alumni events are of special importance in sustaining the
sense of connection to the College
Principle 3. Engagement with the Wider Communities to which the College Belongs
1. Liberal arts education at Bates has as one of its purposes the preparation of students for
responsible citizenship and civic engagement. Commitment to this ideal moves from
theory to practice when we think creatively about how the social location of the College
can be a resource for teaching, learning, and scholarship. The Harward Center for
Community Partnerships has a leading role in helping us explore the connections between
our projects of inquiry and the wider communities to which we belong.
24
Working document for discussion with trustees on May 10, and faculty, staff and students
on May 12 and 13, 2008
Recommendation: Continue support for service learning, community based
research, and community partnerships through the HCCP.
Recommendation: Explore the possibility of multi-year student Community
Engagement Scholarships that would support student leadership in community
partnerships and community based research.
Recommendation: Explore the possibility of establishing a program of
Lectureships in Community Practice that would invite community members to
teach or participate in instruction at Bates.
2. The relationship between the College and Lewiston-Auburn is a matter of perennial
importance and concern. There are many dimensions to this relationship, and it is on the
agenda of multiple offices of the College. We note here a few of the ideas that have
arisen in our planning discussion.
Recommendation: Prominently include consideration of community friendly
design in the campus planning process, especially in developing Phase II of the
Master Plan for Campus Ave. and Frye St.
Recommendation: Increase access and welcome to the Bates campus and
programs for Lewiston Auburn residents. The arts and athletics provide important
opportunities for College/community joint events (like the Field Day run by Bates
student athletes or the lakeside summer concerts). Summer programs like the
Sports Camp helped link the campus and community in the past, and might be
revived. Better signage on campus would help make visitors feel welcome on
campus.
Recommendation: Sustain and expand efforts to recruit Maine students, including
students from high schools in Lewiston-Auburn and nearby school districts.
25
Working document for discussion with trustees on May 10, and faculty, staff and students
on May 12 and 13, 2008
Principle 4: Ongoing Critical Reflectin and Action
1. The values we profess express our aspirations. They are available to every member
of the Bates community as standards by which to measure our performance and as
ideals at which we aim in new initiatives. We are bound together as a community in
part by our ongoing conversation about how well or badly these principles are
reflected in our practices, and about how they can more fully realized.
Recommendation: Provide multiple opportunities, both in large and small groups,
for discussion of particular aspects of our practices at Bates, and set these
discussions explicitly in the context of the publically declared values of the
College. In particular, consider the establishment of an annual series of Town
Hall Forums.
26