"Selfishness and greed have toppled many great empires in the past," Southern Poverty Law Center co-founder Morris Dees told a Bates audience on May 8. Unless fairness for all people prevails, he said, frustration among the disadvantaged here could rise to a tragic degree. "One day, there may not be one skyscraper left in this nation."

The Brooks Quimby Debate Council recently sent six Bates College debaters to the American Parliamentary Debate Association's national tournament at MIT, where teammates Brendan Jarboe '08 of Acton, Mass., and Matt Marienthal of Chicago advanced to the tournament's octofinals.

Morris Dees, founder and chief trial counsel of the Southern Poverty Law Center, will deliver a keynote address, "With Justice for All in Our Multicultural Nation," at 4 p.m. May 8 in the Bates College Chapel. Hosted by Bates College President Elaine Tuttle Hansen, this second annual Presidential Symposium on "Unswerving Values, Changing Times" is free and open to the public.

Scientist and playwright Hassan Abdulrazzak, a Mellon Learning Associate at Bates College, will discuss his critically acclaimed play, Baghdad Wedding, at 7 p.m. Tuesday, May 6, in Chase Hall Lounge, 56 Campus Ave. The public is invited to attend free of charge.

Award-winning poets Pamela Alexander '70 and X. J. Kennedy P'86 and '94 read from their work in celebration of the inauguration of the John Tagliabue Poetry Fund at 3 p.m. Sunday, May 4, in the Edmund S. Muskie Archives, 70 Campus Ave., Bates College. A book signing and reception will immediately follow the reading, and the public is invited to attend at no charge.

Bates College seniors and alumni who applied to law schools for matriculation in autumn 2007 enjoyed a 74 percent acceptance rate, vs. the national average of 66 percent.

Jennifer-Kate Linton, a Bates senior from West Redding, Conn., has achieved a rare distinction: She has been accepted by seven different postgraduate programs in veterinary medicine, including five in the United States.

Yellow "Bates Field Day" T-shirts could be seen bouncing all over the Bates campus on Sunday, brightening a mostly overcast and slightly drizzly spring day. Brighter still were the smiles on the faces of some 200 local children and 100 Bates student-athletes, who clearly had a ball playing an array of games together for an afternoon.

Spring has sprung at Bates College, and students are taking advantage of the weather by flinging Frisbees on the Quad, relaxing by the Puddle . . . or digging for bodies at three campus "crime scenes" during Bates' annual five-week Short Term. Short Term, an integral part of Bates tradition since 1966, began as a way to enable students to graduate in three years instead of four. But it quickly grew to become one of the most beloved times of campus life, effortlessly blending dynamic creativity with academic rigor.

The Bates College dance program hosts "Home and Away," a performance featuring dance program director Carol Dilley and colleagues from Portland and Boston, at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, April 26, in Bates' Marcy Plavin Studio Theater, on the second floor of Merrill Gymnasium, 141 Russell St.

Jessica Adelman, a Bates junior from Waban, Mass., is one of seven undergraduate students across the state to receive the Maine Campus Compact's 2008 Heart and Soul Award. The award, now in its seventh year, honors students who have demonstrated a commitment to using campus-based resources to address community needs.

Bates College awarded Androscoggin Scholarships for the 2007-08 academic year to four local students, including a U.S. Marine Corps veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Bates established the Androscoggin Scholarship in 2004 to increase financial support for its students from Lewiston, Auburn and surrounding Androscoggin County communities.

Spring's happy arrival after a long winter manifests itself in myriad ways, which is one way to explain the giddy reactions to the new dining Commons, open since Feb. 24. As one smitten student blogger noted, "If it were legal to marry an inanimate object I clearly would have tied the knot by now."

A plan by three Bates students to offer Tanzanian street children a survival alternative to a pervasive sex-for-food trade has won a $10,000 award from the 100 Projects for Peace program.

Many members of the Bates and local communities came to Pettengill Hall on March 28 to view and enjoy the sixth annual Mount David Summit.

Seven studio art majors at Bates College show work from their yearlong thesis projects in the annual Senior Exhibition, which opens with a reception at 7 p.m. Friday, April 4, in the Bates College Museum of Art, 75 Russell St. The exhibition runs through May 24 in the museum's Bates Gallery. Opening at the same time is "The Kimono and Traditional Japanese Culture: Investigating Kimono through Ukiyo-e in the Bates College Art Museum Collection," which runs through July 19 in the museum's Synergy Seminar Gallery.

Curated by a Bates senior, an exhibition of woodblock prints highlighting the roles, variety and importance of kimono patterns in the Japanese genre called "ukiyo-e" opens with a public reception at 7 p.m. Friday, April 4, at the Bates College Museum of Art, 75 Russell St.

A Bates graduate from Chicago is one of 49 students across the country to receive a 2008 Thomas J. Watson Fellowship, a $25,000 grant that supports a year of independent research abroad. Jordan Williams, who graduated from Bates in December 2007, will use the award to research the graffiti cultures in Germany, Brazil and South Africa.

Student choreographers will put their work to the test of public performance in Bates College Modern Dance Company concerts at 7:30 p.m. Friday, March 28; 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, March 29 and 30; and 7:30 p.m. Monday, March 31. The company has assembled two distinct programs and will perform each of them twice. The four performances take place in Schaeffer Theatre, 305 College St.

The seventh Mount David Summit, Bates College's annual celebration of student academic achievement, begins with festivities at 2:30 p.m. Friday, March 28, in Perry Atrium, Pettengill Hall, 4 Andrews Road (Alumni Walk).

The 76-voice Bates College Choir, accompanied by a 21-piece orchestra and directed by John Corrie, presents the second and third parts of Handel's popular oratorio "Messiah" in performances at 8 p.m. Friday, March 28, and Sunday, March 30, in Olin Arts Center Concert Hall, 75 Russell St.

Barbara Brown Taylor, Butman Professor of Religion at Piedmont College, will give a presentation titled "Sabbath: Self-Care or the Mending of the World?" at 7 p.m. Wednesday, April 2, in the Bates College Chapel.

The Harward Center for Community Partnerships has awarded three Publicly Engaged Academic Project grants to Bates faculty members, the first of two rounds of awards for 2007-08

Members of Bates College's award-winning Brooks Quimby Debate Council present a lively public discussion about censorship and First Amendment rights at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 19, at 7:30 p.m. in the college's Olin Arts Center Concert Hall.

The Institute for Responsible Citizenship has selected Anthony Phillips, Bates Class of 2009, as one of 24 young men to participate in its summer leadership program in Washington, D.C.

The Right Rev. Steven Charleston, president and dean of Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass., recently visited Bates College to speak and present the annual William Stringfellow Awards in Justice and Peace.

Jonathan Adler '00, who researches intersections between psychotherapy, personal identity and the stories we tell about ourselves, offers a lecture on his work at 4 p.m. Tuesday, March 18, in Bates College's Pettengill Hall, Keck Classroom (G52), 4 Andrews Road (Alumni Walk).

George W. Cole, formerly a top executive in the field of interactive voice technology and now head of a boat service supporting a Maine island community, has joined the Bates College Board of Trustees.

The Bates College Office of Multicultural Affairs presents "LOVE," an exhibition, lecture and reception featuring Arturo Lindsay, professor of art and art history at Atlanta's Spelman College.

Amandla!, the African American student organization at Bates College, presents its seventh annual Black Campus Conference on Saturday, March 15.

Bates senior Noah Gauthier claimed first place in the men's weight throw Friday at the NCAA Division III Indoor Track & Field Championships, winning his first national championship and the first by a Bates athlete since 2006.

Ruth Charney, vice president of the American Mathematical Society, presents two lectures at Bates on Friday, March 14. Charney gives a talk titled "The Large Scale Geometry of Groups" at 4:30 p.m. in Room 104, Hathorn Hall, 3 Andrews Road (Alumni Walk). In the college's annual Richard W. Sampson Lecture, she addresses the topic "From Robotics to Geometry: Building Models with Cubes" at 7:30 p.m. in the Keck Classroom (G52), Pettengill Hall, 4 Andrews Road.

About a year after visiting Bates to see how the college is making itself more sustainable, U.S. Rep. Michael Michaud returned on March 7 for lunch and a tour of Bates' new, "green" dining Commons.

At Bates, a new group of male students, faculty and staff of African and Latino descent take their name — the Mays Men — from the revered Morehouse College president Benjamin Elijah Mays '20, a mentor to Martin Luther King Jr.

"I like to meet people where they're at," says roots musician Corey Harris '91. At the moment, Harris is talking about how he will teach his master class the next day. But the quote also does a good job describing how Harris' week as a Bates learning associate played out.

About 1,000 Bates people put the new dining Commons to the test over dinner on Monday, Feb. 25, Dining Services director Christine Schwartz estimated the following day. It was the first dinner served at the facility with the entire campus community back from winter break. (The Commons had served the first board plan meal Sunday night and offered a limited menu during break week.) Schwartz was pleased — and her staff, she said, loves their new workplace.

For the second year in a row, the Corporation for National and Community Service named Bates College to the President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll with Distinction for exemplary service efforts and service to disadvantaged youth.

Martin Andrucki, Dana Professor of Theater at Bates, directs the college theater department production of "Measure for Measure," William Shakespeare's dark comedy about sex, public morality and private hypocrisy.

With the theme "Musical Legacies of South and Southeast Asia," Bates College students and faculty, as well as internationally esteemed performers, present the college's World Music Week from March 5 through March 15.

F. Sherwood "Sherry" Rowland, who shared a 1995 Nobel Prize for his ozone-layer research, discusses his work in atmospheric chemistry and environmental advocacy in a Bates College event at 4:15 p.m. Wednesday, March 12, in the Edmund S. Muskie Archives, 70 Campus Ave.

Jeffrey Brown, a senior correspondent for PBS's NewsHour, discusses his work and the state of the media in a Bates College presentation at 7 p.m. Wednesday, March 5, in Chase Hall Lounge, 56 Campus Ave.

Musician Corey Harris, who played a key role in Martin Scorsese's 2003 PBS television series The Blues, performs at Bates at 8 p.m. Friday, Feb. 29, in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall, 75 Russell St.

The Harward Center for Community Partnerships hosts the third and final installment of its Civic Forum series at 7:30 p.m., Wednesday, Feb. 27, in the Edmund S. Muskie Archives with a panel titled " Reimagining the North Woods: The Changing Environment of Maine."

The Bates College men's squash team defeated the University of Rochester Sunday at Harvard for their their first Hoehn Cup and the No. 9 final ranking in the College Squash Association. Meanwhile Ricky Weisskopf '08 earned college squash's highest individual honor, the Skillman Award.

Stephen Lattanzi, a Bates College senior from Winchester, Mass., is one of two winners of a regional competition in the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival, held Jan. 29- Feb. 3 at Fitchburg State College in Fitchburg, Mass.

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. The Performance Food Group semi backed into the Commons' truck bay, on Central Avenue, shortly after dawn as an overnight snowfall tapered off.

The 2008 Martin Luther King Jr. Day observance at Bates College focused on "Modernizing King: Old Roots, New Struggle." Each year, Bates observes King's birthday by suspending regular classes and focusing community attention on special programming throughout the day.

In winning the 2008 Kroepsch Award for Excellence in Teaching, writer-in-residence Robert Farnsworth won praise from current and former students, including two alums who are prizewinning poets themselves. Farnsworth will deliver the Kroepsch address, "Psst!: Poems Teach Themselves," on Feb. 13.

The Bates Energy Action Movement and the Sierra Student Coalition, the student chapter of the Sierra Club, co-sponsor the Maine State Climate Summit at Bates College from Friday, Feb. 8, through Sunday, Feb. 10. Students attending high schools, colleges and universities in Maine are invited to take advantage of this opportunity to discuss and act on issues and ideas, ranging from wind power to eco-art, that pertain to climate change.

Bates College presents Harry Allen, a New York jazzman whose tenor sax work was called "nothing less than perfect" by guitarist John Pizzarelli, in concert at 8 p.m. Friday, Feb. 8, in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall, 75 Russell St.

Paul D. Miller, the musician, essayist and media artist also known as DJ Spooky, presents a live performance of his internationally renowned multimedia project "Rebirth of a Nation" at 8 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 2, at Lewiston Middle School, 75 Central Ave.

Michael Hyde, winner of the 2005 Katherine Ann Porter Prize in Short Fiction for his short story collection What Are You Afraid Of? (University of North Texas Press, 2005), reads from his work at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 6, in Skelton Lounge, Chase Hall.

The Bates College Office of Multicultural Affairs presents a lecture and panel discussion titled "Does Your Identity Fit Your Genes?" at 7 p.m. Monday, Feb. 4, in the Edmund S. Muskie Archive.

Bates College has been awarded $1 million to enhance the integration of scholarship and research into the lives of the college's 180 faculty members. The grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation of New York City will be used specifically to support year-long sabbaticals. Given the intense focus on teaching and collegial service at Bates, these leaves for research are essential to the scholarly vitality of the faculty.

To expand dialogue among Bates College students about Palestinian-Israeli relationships, the Office of the Multifaith Chaplaincy announces a two-week series of events, "Art and Alterity: Beyond the Other as Enemy in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict."

In recent weeks we've learned what Dining Services director Christine Schwartz likes about the new dining Commons. Now it's the turn of Paul Farnsworth, Bates' project manager for the building.

A Bates consensus emerged after the January 1998 ice storm. "It takes a true sense of community to survive a disaster such as this one," in the words of the editors of the 1998 Mirror.

A slide show reviews 2007 at Bates

The Rev. Lawrence Edward Carter Sr., Morehouse College professor of religion, is the keynote speaker for the 2008 Martin Luther King Jr. Day observances at Bates College. Classes at the college are canceled and special programming is scheduled throughout the day with an emphasis on the theme "Modernizing King: Old Roots, New Struggles."

The Harward Center for Community Partnerships hosts the second installation of its Civic Forum series at 7:30 p.m., Wednesday, Jan. 16, in the Edmund S. Muskie Archives, 70 Campus Ave., with a panel titled " Reimagining Globalism: Maine in the World's Economy."

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. All that will change when the new Commons opens in February.

Due to deteriorating road conditions caused by the ongoing snow storm, the administrative offices of the college will close at 1 p.m. today, Jan. 14.

The Brooks Quimby Debate Council hosts an American Parliamentary Debate Association Tournament at Bates College, Jan. 18 and 19.