1. Novice debaters win championship
Led by Ryan Creighton of Lyme, N.H., and Mike Neville-O'Neill of Rowley, Mass., Bates debaters swept the 2003 American Parliamentary Debate Association's Novice Championships, held Sept. 12 and 13 at Columbia University. As Bates steamrolled through a field of approximately 20 teams from 82 universities, including those of Yale, Columbia and the University of Pennsylvania, Creighton and Neville-O'Neill, both members of the class of 2007, defeated Johns Hopkins in the final round to win the tournament's first-place team standing. www.bates.edu/x43116.xml

2. Reflections by recent grads
Just before each Commencement, Bates trustees invite a number of graduating seniors to a luncheon. They are asked to for some impromptu reflections on their time at Bates. Here is a sampling from the latest graduates. www.bates.edu/senior-trustee.xml

3. "Ultracool" physicist to discuss Nobel-winning research
William D. Phillips, whose work in using lasers to "ultracool" and trap atoms won him and two other researchers the 1997 Nobel Prize in physics, visits Bates to describe that work Oct. 2. Phillips is leader of the Laser Cooling and Trapping Group at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, Md. In a lecture titled "Almost Absolute Zero: The Story of Laser Cooling and Trapping," he will tell a Bates audience about research that has revolutionized atomic physics during the past decade.

4. Parents and Families Weekend Oct. 31 - Nov. 2
Bates welcomes parents and family members to campus for a beautiful autumn weekend of celebrating student and faculty scholarship, athletic contests against Bowdoin College, creativity on stage and in the Museum of Art, and much more. www.bates.edu/parentsweekend-bates.xml

5. Did you know?
Bates ranks 22nd out of all small-sized colleges and universities in the nation for the number of alumni currently serving as Peace Corps volunteers. The 14 Bates graduates are providing business counsel in the Philippines, Senegal and Haiti; agricultural extension services in Madagascar; urban planning in Bolivia; and English education in Romania, Georgia, Guinea and Uzbekistan. (Source: U.S. Peace Corps)

6. Senior Year Kickoff Banquet
On Sept. 14 the Class of 2004 gathered for the Senior Year Kickoff Banquet, an annual dinner for seniors that previews the coming year and what they can expect as Bates alumni. The Senior Banquet culminates Jumpstart, a day-long series of life-after-Bates seminars sponsored by the Office of Career Services. Michael Jeresaty '85, co-founder and executive vice president for sales and marketing of Garnet Health Systems, spoke at Jumpstart and was a keynote speaker at the Senior Banquet.

For further information on Jumpstart or other career services offered by Bates, contact ckovacs@bates.edu.

7. A hopeful homecoming
At its dedication ceremony on Homecoming Weekend, the new Morgan W. McDuffee '02 Memorial Scoreboard attracted long, pensive looks -- not for any winning score enumerated in its amber lights, but for its promise to become a campus symbol of loss turned to hope. "Sacred spaces are often places of special memories," Bates President Elaine Tuttle Hansen told the audience of several hundred Bates and Lewiston-Auburn community members who attended the event at the Campus Avenue Field. "We hope this place becomes a sacred space at Bates, a place that carries memories of Morgan McDuffee, a place to remember, think of, and honor Morgan." www.bates.edu/x43164.xml

8. BatesStudent.com returns
The last time that The Bates Student, the independent student-run newspaper, was available online, today's first-year students were in eighth grade. This year's Bates Student editors are bringing it back to the Web. Online editions will come out Tuesday afternoons at 2 p.m. You can check it out at: www.batesstudent.com.

9. Bates People in the News
Professor of Economics Anne Williams, a nationally known authority on jigsaw puzzles, joins Public Broadcasting's "History Detectives" to identify a rare Underwood puzzle nearly a century old; first-year student Michelle Stillwell-Parvensky shares with thousands of Denver Post readers her summer of revelations, personal and moral; and in an article about the decline of sportsmanship, sports ethicist and Trustee Dan Doyle '72 tells Cleveland's Plain Dealer: "Winning feels so much better when there's no taint to it." www.bates.edu/bates-in-the-news.xml

10. The price is right, says Federal Reserve governor
Asking his version of a politician's favorite stump-speech question -- "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?" -- Federal Reserve Board governor Edward M. Gramlich suggested during a Bates talk Sept. 24 that consumers easily tolerate modest price inflation in the economy. A guest of the Department of Economics, Gramlich also contrasted two worldwide approaches to battling inflation during his Pettengill Hall talk. Given the Fed's particular success at achieving U.S. price stability since the 1980s ("We fought inflation and won," Gramlich says), it wasn't surprising that he championed the home team's approach. www.bates.edu/x43244.xml

11. Alumni Council approves new method of choosing alumni trustees
Bates Alumni Council members voted unanimously at their Sept. 20 meeting to approve a change in the Alumni Association bylaws regarding the selection of Alumni Trustees. The bylaw change will replace the system of an election among four candidates with a thorough nomination and evaluation process by the Alumni Council, which will nominate two Alumni Trustees to the board for approval. www.bates.edu/x31246.xml