Those were a few of the topics some 60 parents raised in a conversation with President Elaine Tuttle Hansen and a handful of senior staff early on Parents & Family Saturday.

Hansen opened the session with an overview of the state of Bates that ranged, as she put it, from “parents to peppers” (the latter referring to a vegetable garden that’s helping to supply Commons).

She began her overview with a theme from Sandra Steingraber, the biologist whose Otis Lecture at Bates on Oct. 4 explored chemical pollutants’ effects on human health. Steingraber says that parents have two primary responsibilities: protecting their children and planning for their future.

Thinking of a better future is the way to let in hope.

There’s so much, it seems, to protect them from — “many reasons for despair in the world,” Hansen said. But if there’s always trouble at the door, thinking of a better future is the way to let in hope. In a sense, that better future shows up at Bates at the end of every summer, as students new and established arrive on campus.

And Hansen, citing a series of buoying encounters early in this academic year, noted that the consensus among faculty and staff is that the Class of 2014 is distinctively “engaged, participatory, enthusiastic and focused.”

She described the two major planning efforts that will shape both the Bates education and the physical campus in the years to come. One is Choices for Bates, a collaboratively developed strategy for Bates academics that is re-emphasizing three programming areas: the Bates Arts Collaborative; a natural sciences and mathematics initiative; and ideas, such as a Learning Commons resource center, that will advance learning in the residential liberal arts setting.

The other planning effort resulted in the recently updated Campus Facilities Master Plan. The first phase is wrapping up with the renovations of Hedge and Roger Williams halls, and now the College is looking ahead, into the next decade, to new residences in the Garcelon Field area; a “Main Street” assemblage of facilities and residences with an inviting urban vibe to Campus Avenue; and a new math and science center at the corner of Campus and College Street.

The guiding principle for all these developments, Hansen explained, was a distributed model of facilities planning that “weaves together formal and informal learning and living.”

More than a dozen parents had questions for Hansen and the members of the senior staff. To the person who inquired about Chase Hall, Hansen replied that in the current thinking, this beloved but problematic building will be “edited,” as the architects say — some parts renovated, some parts removed — to fit into the Main Street mixed-use development.

Despite a couple of high-profile contretemps between students and local police during the past six months, Dean of Students Tedd Goundie said that relations between the College and the Lewiston Police Department were good, and that, compared with town-gown situations at other schools, “I’m pretty happy with where we are.”

Cable showcased the College’s newly revitalized career services office.

Nancy Cable, the College’s vice president for enrollment and external affairs, added that the college’s robust programs in community-based learning and volunteerism make the town-gown bond much stronger. A different questioner, curious about career support for students after graduation, gave Cable the opportunity to showcase the College’s newly revitalized career services office — now known as the Bates Career Development Center.

What about that “stocked with jocks” thing (a timely query with the Bobcats’ first game on the newly refurbed Garcelon Field just hours away)? Newsweek mashed up some numbers: how many students play sports and how many sports are offered (intramural, club, varsity); the quality of facilities and interest in sports; and how much money is spent on athletics. Said Goundie, “There’s no jock vs. nerd split at Bates because so many students play a sport.” (The same ranking also noted that “with its Peace Corps–friendly student body and 21 percent of its federal work-study funds spent on community service, Bates ranks as the sixth most service-minded school.”)

A couple of questions about the eternal tension between goals and financial resources led Hansen to spotlight how Bates has been able, even in the current economic doldrums, to better support the faculty and maintain its longstanding level of financial aid.

But Vice President for College Advancement Kelly Kerner also pointed out, to appreciative laughter, that after decades of living by the mantra of “doing more with less,” Bates is “working on doing more with more.”

1. Restructuring enhances Bates’ commitment to diversity and inclusion
2. Chemistry major wins top award at international conference
3. Bates Fund flourishes in 2009-2010 fiscal year
4. Campus Construction Update
5. Museum of Art offers summer retrospective by noted painter Nicoletti
6. With Young Dancers Workshop, festival bridges gap in dance education
7. Save the date: Parents & Family Weekend Oct. 8-10
8. Bates in the News

Readers, please note: The schedule of performances has been changed since the concerts were first publicized. A show Friday, Oct. 2, has been canceled and the Sunday show added.

These Parents & Family Weekend events are open to the public at no charge.

On the program: students in the course “Studio Dance: Advanced Jazz Repertory” with several new works; a modernist piece choreographed by dance program director Carol Dilley; and work in a variety of styles choreographed and performed by Bates students.

For more information, please call 207-786-8294.

Bates symbolically broke ground Oct. 7 during Parents & Family Weekend for a new dining Commons scheduled to open in January 2008. The new Commons will occupy space between Garcelon Field and Alumni Gym, bordering Central Avenue.

President Elaine Tuttle Hansen and trustee Michael Bonney ’80, P’09 and co-chair of the Bates Parents & Family Association along with his wife, Alison Grott Bonney ’80, P’09, took turns wielding a special spade first used in 1925 to break ground for the Clifton Daggett Gray Alumni Gymnasium; in 1930 for Smith Hall; and in 1997 for Pettengill Hall. The groundbreaking was symbolic, since earth-moving equipment had actually begun work behind a fenced barrier several weeks ago.

Bonney called the $30 million project “a key priority” of the recently concluded Campaign for Bates: Endowing our Values, a comprehensive campaign that raised almost $121 million for the College endowment, scholarships, academic programs and faculty and new facilities, including the new Commons.

The new Commons is the result of years of planning by staff, faculty and students, as well as consultants Sasaki Associates of Watertown, Mass., and San Francisco, who were hired in 2003 to help develop a comprehensive facilities Master Plan for the campus.

“One of the key priorities that emerged from this strategic process was the need to build a new dining hall,” Bonney said.

The dining facilities in Chase Hall, added to the structure in 1950, are outdated, inefficient and undersized to serve the Bates community today and in the future. Currently, the badly designed space of the dining Commons means that students have to struggle with the inevitable lack of seating, and staff have to work in cramped conditions. Furthermore, food storage and freezer space is so small that the College can order food for only one day at a time. Built in 1920, Chase has been added to numerous times, creating an untamed structure of eight different levels that is too difficult to renovate and maintain as a suitable dining Commons.

“Commons is the place on campus where all students come together face to face as members of one community,” President Hansen said. “Whether students are discussing a theory learned in class, engaging in disagreement about current events, or finding out what happened at the weekend party, Commons facilitates important learning by providing students with a vital, informal forum to express themselves. In many ways an extension of the classroom, Commons is a place where students feel liberated to share ideas, test assumptions, and challenge one another.

“Dining together in one central facility has been an intrinsic part of the Bates experience since the College’s founding,” she said. “In fact, a student wrote in the June 1887 issue of the student newspaper, ‘It is so common a thing for students to meet three times a day at their meals, that it has been overlooked.  But common things have the greatest molding influence. The uncommon may startle, but rarely produces any lasting change…’ This sentiment still holds true.”

The Office of College Advancement has a fundraising goal of $20 million in gifts from individuals. More than $12 million has already been received from 102 donors during the recently concluded comprehensive fundraising campaign. The balance of the $30 million cost will be financed through low-interest borrowing through the state of Maine.

Over the past two years, Sasaki Associates, Inc., developed plans for the facility working with the Dining Commons Steering Committee and the Infrastructure Committee of the Board of Trustees.

Read more about the new dining Commons.