1. Join the Bates Online Community
Find old friends, review and post photos, make new contacts, improve your career. Stay in touch through Bates' Online Community. This password-protected Web site was created by Alumni & Parent Programs so that individual members can post and update their information, share it with others, and find and contact classmates and friends. The Online Community is open only to Bates alumni, parents, friends, faculty and staff.

To login, click here: http://community.bates.edu. Please note that the Bates Online Community replaces BatesNet, and the usernames and passwords of registered BatesNet users are still valid.

New users should click here: http://community.bates.edu/firsttimelogin and enter your last name and your Bates ID number, the nine-digit number at the top of the mailing label on Bates Magazine and other Bates mailings. If you can't find any mailings, e-mail us at community@bates.edu and we'll send you your number. This may take a few days, so please be patient.

2. Ground broken for $30 million dining Commons
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 be located between Garcelon Field and Alumni Gym, bordering Central Avenue. www.bates.edu/x150567.xml

3. President Hansen on NBC "Today Show"
About seven million Americans saw President Hansen and representatives of Princeton, Washington University at St. Louis and UCLA in two segments of NBC's Oct. 20 "Today Show." The four panelists, representing top public and private colleges and universities, were invited to provide anxious parents with advice on how their children might get into the best schools possible. While Bates was unable to secure permission from NBC News to post the "Today Show" segments on the Bates Web site, we did receive permission from ABC News to post an Oct. 8 "World News" story that focused on Bates at: www.bates.edu/x150430.xml

4. Parents & Family Weekend slideshow
Our families, friends, and visitors made this a memorable event! See the slideshow of the 2006 Parents & Family Weekend: www.bates.edu/x151660.xml

5. Summertime math, science courses offered to incoming students
The new Hughes Summer Scholars Program offers math and science courses to 10 entering first-year students. Having taken two courses before the fall semester begins gives Summer Scholars more flexibility in their academic schedule during their first year, and introduces them to math and science at Bates in a low-enrollment, seminar setting. www.bates.edu/summer-scholars.xml

6. Web site created for pandemic preparedness
Pandemic flu might become a threat in our lifetime; it may not. But, if it does, it could be serious. Bates is working diligently with federal, state and local governments to be prepared, and the College has created a Web site devoted to pandemic preparedness. Please visit the site for simple things that you can do to prepare and help ease the hardship of living through a global pandemic. If you have a son or daughter who is a current student, please review how having a plan can make a big difference if a pandemic ever happens. www.bates.edu/pandemicplan

7. Bates Magazine query: How do they do that?
Do you have a long-held but never-answered question about Bates? Like, how does a professor create a new course? What percentage of alumni are married to fellow alums? Who chooses the Commencement honorary degree recipients? How does Physical Plant remove snow from the turf field? Does Trivia Night still exist? Shoot us an e-mail at magazine@bates.edu, and we'll find the best person to answer the question and then quote your answer in the Spring 2007 issue of Bates Magazine.

8. Bates Museum of Art shows Hewitt print retrospective
A retrospective of prints by Charlie Hewitt, a Maine artist of national stature, is now showing at the Bates College Museum of Art, 75 Russell St. "Scrape, Cut, Gouge, Bite, Print . . . The Graphic Work of Charlie Hewitt 1976-2006" offers a comprehensive look at Hewitt's printmaking, the field for which this dynamic artist is best-known. Pieces in the show include site-specific work created for the occasion and images selected from the holdings of the museum, which is the repository for Hewitt's prints. The exhibition remains on view until March 18, 2007. www.bates.edu/x151549.xml

9. Unusual mix of jazz, Mongolian music opens Bates Concert Series
A jazz trombonist playing with a Mongolian band, famed jazz pianist Marcus Roberts and two distinctive classical concerts are featured in the 2006-07 Bates College Concert Series. The series starts on Nov. 2 with trombonist Roswell Rudd and the Mongolian Buryat Band. Pianist Gayle Martin Henry and oboist Gerard Reuter pick up the series on Jan. 13 with a memorable program of transcriptions from opera. A trio led by Roberts performs on March 3, and the duo of Steven Lubin, pianist, and baritone Thomas Meglioranza concludes the series with an all-Schubert concert on March 9. www.bates.edu/x151545.xml

10. Bates People in the News
On that anxiety-inducing topic of college admissions, President Elaine Tuttle Hansen appearing twice on network TV in October (see above) while Dean of Admissions Wylie Mitchell was interviewed by the Pittsburgh Post Gazette on the increasing number of selective colleges with SAT-optional policies. Jonathan Adler '00, who co-wrote a Newsweek letter to the editor published in August, got a second missive into the Oct. 2 New Yorker. Adler, a psychology major and theater minor at Bates, responded to a New Yorker article about stage fright with the observation that a little performance anxiety may help actors in long-running shows keep things interesting. www.bates.edu/bates-in-the-news.xml