This multimedia presentation features what has become a dynamic tradition at Bates: the annual Mount David Summit, held this year on April 3. An eagerly anticipated presentation of student scholarship, service-learning and creative work, the summit unfurls a panorama of the rich life of the student mind at Bates. Produced by Phyllis Graber Jensen.

Then, midway through Ken’s first semester, his dad lost his job. But Ken didn’t lose out. “Bates really came through for me,” he recalls. “I received grants and loans, and I did campus work. The Bates philosophy was, ‘We have you here. We want you to stay here.’”

Spalding had reason to reminisce after attending the Mount David Society Scholarship Luncheon on April 3, where supporters of Bates financial aid met current students who benefit from their generosity.

Currently, about 37 percent of Bates students receive more than $20 million in scholarship grant aid. A few of them spoke at the April luncheon, held in the Jarnryd Room of the new dining Commons on the day of the annual Mount David Summit.

“It makes it gratifying to give and compelling to give more.”Rising from her seat, Nicole Svirsky ’09 of Newburyport, Mass., talked about her senior thesis combining political economy and law. She examined the transnational barriers that inhibit effective child-labor policies, scrutinizing ideological differences between the International Labour Organization and the World Trade Organization and doing comparative case studies of Pakistan and Brazil.

At Bates, “I have learned and matured as a person and a scholar,” she concluded. “I have made friends here that I will keep in touch with for the rest of my life. The Bates community is fantastic, and we are all fortunate to be a part of it.”

Another speaker, Oscar Cancio ’08 of Los Angeles, talked about his unlikely hockey career at Bates as a metaphor for opportunity.

“That’s what gets to me,” says Spalding, the Maine woods project coordinator for RESTORE: The North Woods, a conservation organization. “Given the opportunity to attend Bates, these students have accomplished so much, and they appreciate the support they’ve been given. It makes it gratifying to give and compelling to give more.”

As some Bates students (and alums) look back on their experience, members of a younger cohort — high school seniors — are now deciding where they’ll attend college. About half of all incoming Bates students typically apply to six or more schools, and April is when students compare the colleges that accept them.

Financial aid is part of the comparison.

“After acceptance letters go out, it takes about a week before we hear questions from families,” says Wendy Glass, director of Student Financial Services. “They spend time looking carefully at all of the offers they’ve received from colleges. They are being cautious and realistic about this financial commitment.”

When families do start asking questions, an increasingly common one reflects the current U.S. recession. “Families are concerned about moving forward, about what they can expect if their circumstances change,” says Glass.

Do you have questions about the Bates financial aid program? Contact the Office of Student Financial Services.

The answer hasn’t changed much since Ken Spalding was a student. Bates still meets the demonstrated need of all matriculated students, for better or worse.

“We will strive to make decisions that are consistent and equitable from one year to the next.”"Paying for a Bates education is a collaborative effort among parents, students, and Bates,” Glass explains. (That hasn’t changed, either: as a student, Spalding worked two summer jobs at 70-plus hours at week.) “When parents ask about the future, we try to paint a realistic picture of how an aid package might change if circumstances change. We reassure families that we will strive to make decisions that are consistent and equitable from one year to the next.”

Glass and her staff field many concerns and outright complaints, but she makes sure not to forget the happy words from families just beginning their Bates relationship.

It might be just a handwritten note added to a financial form: “Our daughter is absolutely thrilled to be coming to Bates. We are committed to doing what we can to make this happen, and we deeply appreciate the aid you’ve provided to our family.”

Shawna-Kaye Lester '08

Shawna-Kaye Lester of St. Catherine, Jamaica, a 2008 graduate of Bates College, has won a prestigious and lucrative graduate scholarship from the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation.

A double major in biological chemistry and Spanish at Bates, Lester will use her award to pursue an ambitious sequence of graduate programs to hone her leadership skills in healthcare management. Her multiyear Cooke scholarship is worth up to $50,000 annually for up to six years.

One of just 35 Jack Kent Cooke scholars chosen from 957 nominated students, Lester graduated from Bates as a published chemist, accomplished dancer and musician and, having studied abroad extensively, an experienced cultural observer.

She is the third Bates graduate to win a Cooke graduate scholarship in the program’s seven years.

Lester has mapped a nine-year graduate journey that starts with master’s studies at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. She then hopes to study epidemiology at the University of Oxford and conclude with integrated medical and business studies.

Lester’s deep reservoir of ambition and talent is well-known at Bates.

“Shawna-Kaye Lester is among the strongest and most promising 10 students in my 30 years at Bates,” wrote longtime Bates dean, teacher and vice president William C. Hiss ’66 in recommending Lester. “She has intellectual gifts and discipline…and is a global citizen with stunningly broad talents across widely different fields.”

At Bates, she was known for her “integrity of character, sympathy for those in need, leadership, physical strength and energy,” he added.

In 2007, Lester used a Phillips Student Fellowship to follow the Ndere dance troupe of Uganda from Brooklyn, N.Y., back to its homeland, learning along the way how traditional dance can inspire the present. For her Spanish senior thesis, she focused on the Afro-Peruvian community from the 1950s to today.

Early in her Bates academic career, she worked in the lab of Tom Wenzel, Charles A. Dana Professor of Chemistry, an experience that yielded Lester’s coauthorship, with Wenzel, of an article in Tetrahedron: Asymmetry. For her senior biochemistry thesis, she researched RNA interference biotechnology, a project inspired in part by her mother, an asthmatic.

As a first-year student, Lester was named a Dana Scholar for her academic promise; as a graduating senior, she was elected to the College Key, the honorary Bates alumni organization for service and leadership.

A Christian, Lester likens the Cooke scholarship to a “divine trust fund.” Through the Bates Christian Fellowship, she volunteered with the UrbanPromise ministry in Camden, N.J., with Students International in Guatemala and with the Maine-based Rural Community Action Ministry. In 2005 she founded Eagles Breakaway, an aspirational program that brings together young people worldwide to share stories about education’s liberating power.

She danced competitively with the Bates Ballroom Dance Society, played the upright bass in the orchestra and was active in Bates Student Government and Amandla!, the Bates student organization focusing on the experiences of African American and African-descent students.

Bates’ two previous Cooke scholars are Matteo Pangallo, a 2003 alumnus who studied Shakespeare at the Globe Theater and King’s College in London; and Jason Rafferty, a 2005 graduate who is studying medicine and public health at Harvard Medical School.

Now in its seventh year, the Jack Kent Cooke graduate scholarship program is among the most generous of its kind. The 2008 scholars intend to study in a range of fields in the natural sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities, including medicine, philosophy, law, landscape architecture, social work and creative writing.

The Jack Kent Cooke Foundation is a private, independent foundation established by Jack Kent Cooke to help young people of exceptional promise reach their full potential through education. Launched in 2000, the Foundation focuses in particular on students with financial need.