Dear members of the Bates community,

As we all begin the work of a new academic year, I want to share some thoughts on Batesʼ plans and priorities for the months ahead. 

New Faces

It has been wonderful to see the campus fill once more with students and faculty, rejoining those colleagues who were busy on campus throughout the summer months. The new Class of 2029 comes to us from 23 different countries and 44 states, plus Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico. You can read more about the class here. We also welcome a strong cohort of 10 transfer students this year. 

We have 42 new faculty members joining 22 departments this academic year, 17 of whom are tenure-track faculty. And among our new staff colleagues are several key campus leaders who began their work with us this summer. They include Joanne Roberts, vice president for academic affairs and dean of the faculty; Carrie Cushman, director of the Bates College Museum of Art; and Stacey Bunting, director of athletics. Additionally, Leigh Weisenburger, who previously served as vice president for enrollment and dean of admission and financial aid, is now vice president for institutional affairs and secretary to the Board of Trustees. She succeeds Mike Hussey, who now serves as senior advisor to the president in a part-time capacity. As I recently reported, we have launched our search for Leighʼs permanent successor; meanwhile, Mark Hatch ʼ87 is overseeing Admission and Student Financial Services in an interim capacity.

Ongoing Work

Joanne Roberts, our new vice president for academic affairs and dean of the faculty, will work with colleagues to continue to support faculty development and the curriculum. We will be managing another year of significant faculty hiring, as well as working on ensuring that the expectations for promotion from associate professor to full professor are clear, well-known, and well-supported. We will also be moving forward with faculty recognition efforts that we have already initiated or identified, and we will be examining ways of strengthening faculty retention and support. On the curricular side, we will be taking a close look at our requirements and how we support our students through their academic journeys. 

We will be examining key areas of the student experience beyond academics as well, including assessing retention efforts, supporting international students, and preparing to welcome our first QuestBridge Scholars, who will enroll at Bates in Fall 2026. And we were pleased to announce, earlier this week, that we will waive the application fee for all applicants to Bates, beginning with those applying this fall.

We will continue our efforts to enhance the athletics platform at Bates, building on progress in fundraising, facility improvements, and internal operations, and proudly celebrating our many wins. Continued fundraising and planning for a new Fitness and Well-Being Center will be the primary facilities priority this year, and we will also seek to make progress on other projects as well, such as turfing Lafayette Street Field (softball) and completing the second phase of work (of three) at Leahey Field (baseball). And we will celebrate the opening of the new Bates Athletics Hall of Fame and the induction of its inaugural class during Back to Bates Weekend (October 3-4), as well as marking the 150th anniversary of Bates Football, as we did last week — capped by a thrilling season-opener win over Amherst. 

As I reported to you a few weeks ago, we will aim this year to implement recommendations made by the Employee Engagement Initiative working groups during 2024-25. Those we will focus on this year include:

• Launch a comprehensive supervisor professional development program this fall
• Enhance the performance development process, reviewing position descriptions, clarifying job responsibilities, and outlining measurable goals
• Structure consistent opportunities for networking, peer learning, and the sharing of best practices
• Expand the Ombuds Program to better support all employees
• Create a formal recognition program that celebrates employee achievement
• Introduce a wellness ambassador program

Other recommendations specific to staff-faculty relationships are undergoing further review and feedback before we announce additional initiatives related to that work.

Charting the Future

A major project for the coming year will be the continuation of the strategic planning process that launched in 2024-25. As I shared in a message to campus last week, we formed five working committees for strategic planning over the summer, each one organized around a broad area of focus developed by the steering committee. 

In the months ahead, and in consultation with a broad swath of the campus community, the working committees will generate the ideas that will form the substance of the strategic plan: identifying where Bates can build on strengths, where we should set new priorities, and what choices we might have to make. Their recommendations will be submitted to the steering committee in April 2026, but the steering committee will receive regular updates from the working committees throughout the year as well. Opportunities to participate in the strategic planning dialogue will be shared via Bates Now and Bates Today.

Additionally, and as a key component of our planning effort, we will soon receive the findings of the market positioning study that we launched last year. These findings, which we plan to share with the campus community in February, will inform not only our strategic planning but our broader communications and marketing approach, especially with regard to admission.

In all of our planning work, we will not wait for the formal process to officially conclude before moving forward in ways that make sense for Bates. We will implement good ideas and marshal resources as opportunities arise, and as they are feasible.

Batesʼ Many Endowments

As I said the first moment I visited campus after being appointed president, back in March 2023, I was drawn to Bates for many reasons, including its distinctive history, the vibrancy of the education it offers, and a culture that is grounded in care for one another, in inclusion and belonging, in civic responsibility, in sustainability, and in egalitarianism. 

In the past two years, I have continued to learn more and think deeply about this special Bates culture — how it works, what it means, where we can grow. I find myself focusing on three key ideas: collaboration, innovation, and abundance. I spoke about the first two of these in my inaugural address in 2024. Let me return to those two concepts here for a moment.

Collaboration: Bates people work together extremely well and at high degrees of functionality and effectiveness. But even here, it can be too easy for us to become siloed within our own offices and divisions. We know we do more, and better, when we work together, but we don’t always take advantage of the strengths and efficiencies we might find in collaboration. I think we will all benefit — and the college will benefit — if we make an extra effort to collaborate.

Innovation: Just as we need to be open to new partnerships and teamwork, we need to be open to new ways of doing things and improving or expanding how we deliver a Bates education. The ideas that emerge from strategic planning will certainly include some important innovations. But we won’t wait for strategic planning to seize opportunities and explore compelling new ideas. Now is the time for us to take a look at where innovation might mean transformation — in positive directions that benefit the college now and in the future.

The good news is that collaboration and innovation are qualities that Bates already has in abundance! While our financial endowment is making gains and yet still has room to grow compared to some of our closest academic peers — and while we must certainly continue to prioritize raising additional financial resources to grow it — I think it is also important to remember that Bates is extremely well positioned and rich in many resources. Our mission-critical powers of collaboration and innovation are just two of these. I would add our exceptional faculty and staff, our creativity, and our strong sense of community (collectively our human and cultural endowment), our tradition of academic excellence and strong brand (our reputational endowment), and our beautiful campus (our physical endowment), among others, all of which are first-in-class. 

Bates is strong in so many ways — and I think we will be even stronger if we center more on our assets and strengths. I worry that it is too easy, sometimes, for us to fall into an unhelpful scarcity mindset — one that limits cooperation, flexibility, and experimentation; one that can be too tentative about change because it too readily equates change with loss. It will always be vital for us to be deliberate, thoughtful, and realistic, especially when it comes to our resources. But this shouldn’t limit our aspirations or our desire to work energetically toward them. 

A Place Worth Fighting For

We have so much to be proud of at Bates. To put it another way, as Professor Rebecca Herzig reminded us so eloquently at Opening Convocation, Bates is a place worth fighting for: as an institution, as a community, as an idea, as an ideal. And I look forward to working with all of you to advance this place that is so important to so many — this college that has so much to offer. 

Warmly,

   Garry