Latin: Academia Batesina | |
Motto | Amore Ac Studio (Latin) |
---|---|
Motto in English
|
With Ardor and Devotion by Charles Sumner |
Type | Private |
Established | March 16, 1855 |
Endowment | $251.0 million (2016) |
Chairman | Michael Bonney |
President | Clayton Spencer |
Academic staff
|
204 (Fall 2015) |
Undergraduates | 1,792 (Fall 2015) |
Location |
Lewiston, Maine, U.S. 44°6′20″N 70°12′15″W / 44.10556°N 70.20417°WCoordinates: 44°6′20″N 70°12′15″W / 44.10556°N 70.20417°W |
Campus |
Main campus: 133 acres (Rural/Suburban) Bates Mountain: 600 acres (Mountainous) Coastal Center: 80 acres (Coastal/Marine) Total holdings: 813 acres |
Newspaper | The Bates Student |
Colors | Garnet |
Athletics |
|
Nickname | Bobcats |
Affiliations | |
Website | Bates |
University rankings | |
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National | |
Forbes | 52 |
Liberal arts colleges | |
U.S. News & World Report | 27 |
Washington Monthly | 23 |
Bates College (/ˈbeɪts/ BAYTS) is a private liberal arts college in Lewiston, Maine. The college was founded by abolitionist statesmen and established with funds from textile tycoon, Benjamin Bates. Founded by Oren Burbank Cheney in 1855, it was one the only colleges in the U.S. to admit black students before the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment. It is also the oldest coeducational university in New England, and the first to award a degree to a woman in New England.
Bates provides undergraduate instruction in the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, and engineering. It currently enrolls 1,792 students, 200 of whom study abroad each semester, making it the smallest in its athletic conference. Students may enroll at other universities such as Dartmouth College and Columbia University, to pursue their respective engineering programs, as a part of the college's academic program. While the university is governed by the Bates Corporation, each department's faculty oversees its curriculum and degree programs. The central campus is rural/suburban and is located near the Androscoggin River in Lewiston, Maine, centering on the Historic Quad. Along with the main campus, Bates maintains an 80-acre coastal center on Atkins Bay and a 600-acre nature preserve, the Bates-Morse Mountain near Campbell Island. Bates is located in a former mill town that has a large French Canadian ethnic presence due to migration from Québec and Nova Scotia in the 19th century.