![\"web-140830_BBQ_Lunch_Deans_pgj_0042\"](\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2015\/08\/web-140830_BBQ_Lunch_Deans_pgj_0042.jpg\")
<\/a>A campus barbecue for new students and their families will be a midday treat on Opening Day, Monday, Aug. 31. This was the scene in 2014. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n
Soon after Opening Day<\/a>, though, the journey to becoming a bona fide Bates College student begins with Orientation, a heady, weeklong mix of conversations, activities, and academic programming, and concludes with Convocation on Sept. 8 and the start of classes the next day.<\/p>\n In addition to introducing new students to the people, places, and programs at Bates, Orientation also aims to arm first-years with the knowledge and skills necessary for a successful and safe transition from high school grad to fully independent college student.<\/p>\n \u201cOur focus is on creating a sense of community and connection among the first-year students,\u201d said Josh McIntosh, the college\u2019s vice president for student affairs and dean of students. \u201cWe\u2019re creating opportunities to interact and talk with them about topics that are relevant to succeeding as a Bates College student.\u201d<\/p>\n Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of Students Josh McIntosh (left) talks with parent John Goldberg during last year’s Orientation. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n For longtime observers of Opening Day at Bates, this year\u2019s version has a few enhancements designed to support that mission-driven idea of community and connection.<\/p>\n This year, all new students and families will arrive on a single day, rather than the past years’ format that saw three arrivals, of students going on multi-day, outdoor AESOP trips; students playing varsity sports; and then the balance of the class.<\/p>\n The class will spend time together on campus before embarking on their student-led trips in Maine, known as AESOP.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a much more inclusive schedule,\u201d McIntosh says.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd instead of the weekend arrivals of the past, having the arrival day on a Monday, when the campus is really lit up with faculty and staff and student Orientation leaders, will be a great experience for us all.\u201d<\/p>\n The Class of 2019 was selected from a record-setting pool: 5,636 applicants, a 12 percent increase over the previous year.<\/p>\n Bates accepted just 22 percent of those who applied \u2014 the strongest rate of selectivity yet. Forty-one percent of accepted students chose to enroll, among the strongest \u201cyield\u201d rates as well, according to Johanna Seltzer \u201903, interim director of admission.<\/p>\n Some numbers:<\/p>\n Behind the numbers, of course, are real people \u2014 young adults with a variety of aspirations, skills, and talents.<\/p>\n The Class of 2019 includes New England\u2019s third-ranked fiddler, a 2014 Olympic qualifier in alpine skiing, and a patent holder for a running shoe. A member of Pakistan\u2019s under-19 national cricket team and the top-ranked biology student in Rwanda are also among this year\u2019s first-years, as is a nationally recognized ceramicist.<\/p>\n Both book and author have a central role in Orientation: the book as the Common Reading and the author as the featured speaker at Convocation, where she will address the academic community on the topic of creating a community with shared values and expectations.<\/p>\n A close, philosophical reading of the Declaration of Independence, Allen\u2019s book reveals how the concept of equality is the underpinning of that foundational document, and how the Declaration serves, in effect, as a blueprint for building a democratic society based on its shared principles and values.<\/p>\n During Orientation, the work of joining and creating community begins right off the bat. Junior Advisors \u2014 upperclass students trained as a resident peer advisers to groups of up to 20 first-years in their residences \u2014 are a constant presence in the lives of the new Bates students. Backing them up and supporting all students is McIntosh’s staff in Student Affairs<\/a>.<\/p>\n Junior Advisors, upperclass students who serve as trained resident peers to support groups of up to 20 first-years in their residences, are a constant presence for new students. In this photo from 2014, Robert Ibarra ’17, a Junior Advisor from Los Angeles, speaks with his first-year students in a lounge in their residence, Parker Hall. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n \u201cThe Junior Advisors are the ones taking their first-year students to educational events and programs,\u201d explains McIntosh, \u201cAnd, in many cases, they are leading these conversations, too, and bringing various topics and issues back to their residential communities.\u201d<\/p>\n As students discuss Allen\u2019s book in their First-Year Centers, they will talk about how they want to live and how they want to live together in the Bates community, says Erin Foster Zsiga, the college\u2019s associate dean of students for residence life and health education.<\/p>\n \u201cHow do they choose to do that?\u201d Foster Zsiga said. \u201cHow are these values manifested in their centers and their residential community?\u201d<\/p>\n This year, every First-Year Center will create its own declaration, she says.<\/p>\n A range of Bates people have joined the conversation <\/a>about the Class of 2019’s Common Reading, <\/em>Our Declaration. President Spencer responds to Allen’s idea that the Declaration is about the “co-creation of a shared world.”An inclusive start, right from the start<\/h3>\n
<\/a>Class of 2019 by the numbers<\/h3>\n
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Orientation and the Common Reading<\/h3>\n
The work of helping this diverse group of students blend into a cohesive class has already begun with this year\u2019s Common Reading<\/a>, Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality<\/em>, by Danielle Allen.<\/p>\n<\/a>
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