\u201cI\u2019ll have a chance to do science that I couldn\u2019t do otherwise.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Ultracold environments are required to study phenomena such as superconductivity, superfluidity and Bose-Einstein condensates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019ll have a chance to do science that I couldn\u2019t do otherwise,” said Lundblad, the only physicist selected from an undergraduate liberal arts college. “I\u2019m excited for my students, that they\u2019ll have opportunities to do research at this level. And it raises the profile of science at liberal arts colleges like Bates to be able to participate in work like this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Cold Atom Lab will be deployed to the space station in 2016.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"Assistant](\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2014\/06\/W-140228_Nathan_Lundblad_41.jpg\")
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2. Debate champs strike a blow for the amateur ideal<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The team of Jac Stewart \u201914 of Keene, N.H., and Taylor Blackburn \u201915 of Atherton, Calif., won the U.S. Universities Debating Championship at Purdue University in April.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Totally cool.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And what’s amazing is that the Brooks Quimby Debate Council remains one of the few elite debate teams that accepts and trains all<\/em> interested students, regardless of prior experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After the October announcement of the $11.5 million Catalyst Fund, given by current and former Bates trustees, the college threw a celebration party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And what better venue to celebrate a big gift than where it all began, so to speak: in the historic Bates Mill in downtown Lewiston, built in the mid-19th century by Benjamin Bates, whose philanthropy gave the college its firm foundation, not to mention its name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Prior to dinner in an elegantly restored mill space, attendees toured Museum L-A. Also located in the Bates Mill building, the museum chronicles the history of work and community in Lewiston and Auburn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Catalyst Fund will, over the next five years, support strategic college initiatives. “The fund sends a clear message that we are forward-looking and that we have powerful, compelling answers to the challenges that face Bates and higher education,” said Mike Bonney ’80, chair of the Board of Trustees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bates was again named a \u201ctop producer\u201d of Fulbright U.S. Student grants in 2013-14.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The college’s Fulbright pipeline has key people at each turn, says Matthew Auer, vice president for academic affairs and dean of the faculty. These professors and advisers “help discover strong student candidates early in their college careers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhen you have talented teacher-scholars mentoring very bright, internationally oriented students, you get great results in the fellowship arena,\u201d Auer says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Selected to the Australian Olympic team, Emily Bamford \u201915 of Melbourne became the 11th Bobcat, first alpine skier and first current Bates student to appear in the Olympics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Seniors Bethel Kifle of Chicago and Jourdan Fanning of Memphis, Tenn., teamed up to co-direct this year’s Sankofa production, a demanding student project that presents an array of artistic interpretations of the African diaspora.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A month before the January production, Kifle’s brother died. She left campus immediately to be with her family, “leaving Sankofa and the rest of the planning process to Jourdan,” Kifle said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In this early January photo, just 11 days before showtime, Kifle, at left, reaches out to Fanning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I realized,” she said, “that despite my return to campus, he continued to shoulder the heavy weight that comes with planning the production. I wanted to take a moment to remind him that he is not alone, I and others can help. I believed in us, and Sankofa would be amazing because we tried our very best.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n At a presidential event in Boston in March, President Clayton Spencer and Al Filreis P’16, the Kelly Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania, talked the liberal arts and the rise of massive open online courses, or MOOCs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Along the way, Spencer put to rest rumors that the days of Short Term are numbered. However, she said, \u201cmy feeling is that we have to optimize Short Term as a site for experimentation,\u201d which neatly leads into moment No. 8, below.<\/p>\n\n\n Reflecting two key college initiatives, the Engaged Liberal Arts<\/a> and Purposeful Work<\/a>, Bates deployed nine experimental courses during Short Term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Four were “practitioner-taught” courses led by experts, all alumni this time around, in the fields of graphic design, healthcare administration, social-change organizing and digital entrepreneurship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The other five courses, known as “course redesign,” gave students the chance to team up with a professor to rework an existing semester course or create a whole new one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The five refreshed courses will be deployed during the coming fall and winter semesters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The big takeaway is that \u201cwe\u2019re all about a continuous process of renewal,\u201d says President Spencer. New and revised courses \u201ccreate new oxygen for the curriculum.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Commencement speakers like to cozy up to their audience with a few well-researched bon mots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Pulitizer Prize-winning journalist Isabel Wilkerson, this year’s Bates Commencement speaker, did better than most with her research on Bates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wilkerson looked all the way back to 1879 to quote one of Bates’ earliest black graduates, Thomas James Bollin. In an article written for The Bates Student <\/em>about equality, Bollin wrote that “social equality is the brotherhood of man in every condition.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Quoting Bollin, Wilkerson said that his is a \u201cbeautiful definition of equality.” We agree!<\/p>\n\n\n\n During an AESOP trip last year, co-leaders Sophie Pellegrini ’15 of Potomac, Md., and Bobby Lankin \u201915 of West Hartford, Conn., made the kind of simple but smart decision that underscores why the college’s outdoor program for entering students, AESOP, is not only a great success, but a great success as a student-led program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On Aug. 28, while high on Mount Katahdin with rain clouds gathering, the co-leaders decided to turn their group, the “Baxter Bushwackers,” back down the trail to avoid getting caught above the tree line in a storm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Created in 1914 to add some pizazz to an early Bates Reunion, the inaugural Alumni Parade featured \u201ccostumes, movements and performances [that] awakened universal enthusiasm and great merriment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not only is the tradition going strong, but it apparently has a strong feeder system, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n OK, so this is two moments wrapped into one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2013-14, President Spencer joined 13 college and university presidents for the launch of the Presidential Innovation Lab, a project organized by the American Council on Education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The lab is an effort to examine how various technology-driven models for teaching and learning (such as massive open online courses, or MOOCs) can boost the number of Americans able to earn a college degree.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In January, Spencer joined another select group of college leaders at the White House for a summit on college opportunity hosted by President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The two gigs reflected a key Bates theme of 2013-14: How can the college most effectively engage the various forces now changing the face of U.S. higher education?<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I knew we were talented enough to do it, and we really are 34 guys playing as one,” said head coach Mike Leonard after Bates secured a berth in the NESCAC Championship tournament with a late-season win over Colby.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I think overall the biggest key to the success we’ve been having is guys buying into the team concept.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n The NESCAC berth was the first for Bates baseball since the inception of the conference tournament in 2001. In the double-elimination tourney, Bobcat losses to Wesleyan and Tufts were sandwiched around a victory over Amherst.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Bates parody of Ylvis’ “What Does the Fox Say” racked up 24,000 views during its run in November.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It’s OK to try such a parody, said Joe Kuffner of the blog Social Media for Colleges. <\/em>“But you damn well better do a fantastic job.\u201d Among the many \u201cFox\u201d parody videos, he said, the Bates version \u201cmight be the best<\/em> one!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/a>
\n\n\n\n3. The Catalyst Fund gives a nod to Lewiston and ‘Bates’ philanthropy<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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\n\n\n\n4. Bates named a Fulbright ‘top producer’ yet again<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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\n\n\n\n5. Emily Bamford ’15 makes Australian Olympic team<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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\n\n\n\n6. Testing the strength of a creative partnership<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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\n\n\n\n7. Clayton Spencer’s take on Short Term<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n8. Experimental courses ‘create new oxygen for the curriculum’<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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\n\n\n\n9. From Bates’ past comes a ‘beautiful definition of equality’ on Commencement Day<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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\n\n\n\n10. The ‘Baxter Bushwackers’ decide to turn back<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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\n\n\n\n11. The Alumni Parade turns 100<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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\n\n\n\n12. President Spencer goes from the lab to the White House<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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\n\n\n\n13. Bates advances to first-ever NESCAC Championship tournament<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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\n\n\n\n14. What Does the
Fox<\/del> Bobcat Say?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n