Published on Description

Saturday

March 1, 2008
2:53 pm

Dinner Time

About 1,000 diners gave the College’s new Commons its first major test on the evening of Feb. 25 during the first dinner served to the entire campus community in the new space.

Wednesday

February 13, 2008
12:40 pm

Bates opens state-of-the art dining facility

After nearly 17 months of construction, Bates College opens its new dining facility on Sunday, Feb. 24.

Friday

February 8, 2008
10:23 am

Campus construction update: Week of Feb. 4

With the official opening just weeks away, the new dining Commons passed a milestone early on Feb. 7: the arrival of its first truckload of food.

Tuesday

January 8, 2008
2:13 pm

Campus construction update: Week of Jan. 7

A student serving on a food advisory committee once told Christine Schwartz, Dining Services’ director, that anticipating a meal at the current Memorial Commons is like getting psyched up for battle. “You pretty much have to fight your way through Commons now” because of the way the space is arranged, Schwartz said. New arrivals at mealtime, still burdened with coats and backpacks, immediately find themselves in a confusion of food stations and fellow diners pressing in all directions. All that will change when the new Commons opens in February.

Friday

December 14, 2007
11:05 am

Campus construction update: Week of Dec. 10

If the schedule holds, in about 10 weeks Dining Services will serve the first meals in the new Commons. “It’s going to be a fabulous facility,” Dining Services director Christine Schwartz told Campus Construction Update during a conversation about the transition from old to new.

Friday

November 30, 2007
12:34 pm

Campus construction update: Week of Nov. 26

Just a few months ago, new construction projects at Bates were transforming a swath of campus that extended from Mount David to Merrill Gym. Now, like a Hollywood crane shot where the camera swoops down from lofty to intimate, the focus of construction at Bates is closing in on the interior of the new dining Commons.

Thursday

October 25, 2007
10:48 am

Campus construction update: Week of Oct. 22

The project isn’t inspiring like Alumni Walk, magnificent like the new dining Commons or heartwarming like the new student housing. But a new parking lot behind Merrill Gymnasium that should open around Thanksgiving will come in handy, easing the squeeze that Bates motorists have felt the past six months.

Thursday

October 25, 2007
9:45 am

Campus construction update: Week of Nov. 5

The new dining Commons should be open for business when students return from break on Feb. 25, project manager Paul Farnsworth reported. And it’s hoped that construction work will be complete about a month prior to the opening.

Friday

October 12, 2007
12:41 pm

Campus construction update: Week of Oct. 8

Oct. 8 was a red-letter day at 280 College St., as the outdoor gas grill at the new student residence was fired up for the first time. Residence coordinators Jenn Linton ’08 and Matt Lopez ’08 hosted an inaugural cookout that had been delayed a couple weeks while shipping damage to the grill was fixed.

Friday

September 28, 2007
2:11 pm

Campus construction update: Week of Sept. 24

An afternoon thunderstorm on Sept. 27 occasioned an Alumni Walk first: emergency vehicles entering in response to a campus alarm. Although there was no fire, lightning caused a power surge in the fire detection system, frying a computer chip and setting off an alarm in Hathorn Hall.