In 2005, Bates celebrates its sesquicentennial, honoring a 150-year history that has, from its very earliest years, been marked by innovation and opportunity, while at the same time valuing deeply the traditions of the liberal arts and their critical role in a just and civil society.

Bates was founded in 1855 by people who believed strongly in freedom, civil rights, and the importance of a higher education for all who could benefit from it. Bates has always admitted students without regard to race, religion, or national origin. Great efforts were made in designing the institution to ensure that no qualified student would be turned away because he or she could not afford the cost of a Bates education. Although they met with considerable criticism from other regional colleges, the founders held fast to their commitment to admit both men and women: Bates was New England's first coeducational college. The inclusive nature of the College's admissions philosophy has guided, enriched and strengthened the institution for 150 years.

As with many New England institutions, religion played a vital role in the College's founding. The Reverend Oren Burbank Cheney is honored as the founder and first president of Bates. He was a Freewill Baptist minister, a teacher, and a former Maine legislator. Cheney steered through the Maine Legislature a bill creating a corporation for educational purposes initially called the Maine State Seminary, located in Lewiston, Maine's fastest-growing industrial and commercial center. Cheney assembled a six-person faculty dedicated to teaching the classics and moral philosophy to both men and women. In 1863 he received a collegiate charter, and obtained financial support for an expansion from the city of Lewiston and from Benjamin E. Bates, the Boston financier and manufacturer whose mills dominated the Lewiston riverfront. In 1864 the Maine State Seminary became Bates College. The College consisted of Hathorn and Parker halls and a student body of fewer than 100. By the end of Cheney's tenure, in 1894, the campus had expanded to fifty acres and six buildings. Bates was already known for its inclusive admissions practices, classical curriculum, and commitment to preparing future teachers for Maine's public schools.

A former philosophy professor and academic dean at the College of Wooster, Donald West Harward's began his service as sixth president of Bates in 1989 and his presidency was distinguished by intellectual rigor, institutional self-examination, and commitment to civic engagement. His leadership was inspired by the notion that "learning is a moral activity that carries responsibility beyond the self." He challenged students and faculty to see how the College's traditional values of egalitarianism, service, and social justice created a moral imperative to connect intellectual life to the world beyond Bates.

Under Harward, Bates for the first time in many years reached out institutionally into the community of Lewiston-Auburn. Bates students and faculty built relationships in the community through one of the most active service-learning programs in the country. Harward helped Bates provide a national model of ways in which colleges and universities can maintain academic excellence and intellectual autonomy while they engage with and support local communities.

Harward worked to diversify both the faculty and its curricular offerings. He oversaw the development of a number of new academic programs, including eight in areas of interdisciplinary study.

Elaine Tuttle Hansen became the College's seventh president in July 2002.  She seeks to sustain and enhance the traditional strengths of Bates: open and intense intellectual inquiry; individualized student and faculty interactions in a historic residential setting; and a diverse community unified by the ethical principles of integrity, egalitarianism, and social responsibility. Her immediate goals include securing resources for financial aid, competitive faculty and staff salaries, increased diversity of the faculty and student body, technological advances, and new curricular initiatives. Central to Hansen's vision is an in-depth master plan, a process of assessment and strategic forward thinking that will help the College chart a course for many years to come.

In their academic work Bates students are encouraged to explore broadly and deeply, to cross disciplines, and to grow as independent thinkers. The College offers thirty-eight fields of study (with thirty-two majors and twenty-four secondary concentrations) as well as opportunities for guided interdisciplinary study.

Bates has long understood that the privilege of education carries with it responsibility to others. Learning at Bates has always been connected to action, a connection expressed by the extraordinary level of participation by students in service activities and by graduates in their choice of careers and dedication to volunteer activities and community leadership. Many faculty members routinely incorporate service-learning components into their courses, and about half of Bates students are involved in a wide variety of community-based projects with more than 140 public and private agencies.

Bates is committed to its home communities of Lewiston and Auburn, which together form Maine's second-largest metropolitan area, with about 60,000 people. The College intends that its many forms of engagement beyond campus be true partnerships, advancing mutual yet independent interests and honoring the integrity of all partners. The Donald W. and Ann M. Harward Center for Community Partnerships provides an institutional hub for service-learning, community-based research by students and faculty, collaborations with local schools and nonprofits, and participation in major community development initiatives.

Bates is located on a 109-acre traditional New England campus. Primary academic resources on campus include the George and Helen Ladd Library; the Edmund S. Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library, which holds the papers of the former U.S. senator and secretary of state (and member of the Class of 1936); and the Olin Arts Center, which houses a concert hall and the Bates College Museum of Art. The College also holds access to the 574-acre Bates-Morse Mountain Conservation Area, in Phippsburg, Maine, which preserves one of the few remaining undeveloped barrier beaches on the Atlantic coast; and the neighboring Bates College Coastal Center at Shortridge, which includes an eighty-acre woodland and freshwater habitat, scientific field station, and retreat center.