{"id":2821,"date":"2022-06-22T09:40:38","date_gmt":"2022-06-22T13:40:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/president\/?p=2821"},"modified":"2023-08-03T16:33:29","modified_gmt":"2023-08-03T20:33:29","slug":"message-bates-community-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/clayton-spencer\/2022\/06\/22\/message-bates-community-2023\/","title":{"rendered":"A Message to the Bates Community"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Dear Members of the Bates Community,<br><br>I write to share with you that earlier this week, I informed the Board of Trustees of my decision that the upcoming academic year will be my last as president of Bates. When I step down on June 30, 2023, I will have had the profound honor of serving the college in this role for 11 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I have loved my time at Bates. On my first trip to campus&nbsp;in December 2011, when I was introduced to the Bates community, I was so impressed by the students I met and thrilled to get a sense, firsthand, of the beautiful work our faculty and staff do every day to make Bates the extraordinary place it is. I have felt so lucky to be part of this community, and I am proud of all that we have accomplished together.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-css-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><em>BatesNews<\/em>&nbsp;story: &#8220;<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2022\/06\/22\/bates-college-president-clayton-spencer-step-down-june-30-2023\/\" target=\"_blank\">Clayton Spencer to step down as Bates president on June 30, 2023<\/a>&#8220;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-css-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>Of course, these past two and a half years COVID has put us through our paces, and I am deeply grateful to everyone who has worked so hard to position our students and the college to come through the pandemic in strong form. I very much hope that in the coming year COVID will begin to recede as a factor in our lives and psyches, to be managed as one among other health issues. I hope, as well, that opportunities to experience the joy that comes from being together in three dimensions will become, once again, an expected and treasured part of our lives and work on campus.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I spend a lot of time thinking and talking with students about how one constructs a life, one decision at a time. I am not at all sure what this next chapter will bring for me, but I am excited to explore new interests and ways of being. There is also much to be accomplished here in the year ahead, and I am grateful that I will have the joy of continuing to work with all of you who make Bates possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With gratitude,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Clayton&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I write to share with you that earlier this week, I informed the Board of Trustees of my decision that the upcoming academic year will be my last as president of Bates. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"categories":[8887,8888],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-office-of-the-president","category-speeches-and-statements"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/clayton-spencer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/clayton-spencer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/clayton-spencer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/clayton-spencer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/clayton-spencer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2821"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/clayton-spencer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2821\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3741,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/clayton-spencer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2821\/revisions\/3741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/clayton-spencer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/clayton-spencer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/clayton-spencer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}