As we announced in November 2024, ŔÖ˛Ą´«Ă˝ has begun an intensive and broadly collaborative process of strategic planning. A steering committee began its work last semester, and over the summer—after soliciting nominations and expressions of interest from the campus community—we developed five working committees. Their leadership and rosters are as follows:

Liberal Arts for the Future Working Committee 

• Clarisa PĂ©rez-Armendáriz, Professor of Politics (Committee Co-Chair)
• Joanne Roberts, Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Faculty (Committee Co-Chair)
• Matt Duvall, Assistant Dean of Strategy and Analysis (Committee Staffer)

• Cat Balco, Professor of Art & Visual Culture
• Molly Brown, Admission Counselor
• Eric Foushee P’22, P’26, Vice President for College Advancement
• Lindsey Hamilton ’05, Director of the Center for Inclusive Teaching & Learning and Visiting Lecturer
• Morgan Kinney, Associate Director of Community-Engaged Research and Learning
• Geneva Laurita, Associate Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry
• Barry Lawson, Colony Family Professor of Digital and Computational Studies (Steering Committee liaison)
• Thomas McGuinness, Director of Institutional Research, Analysis, and Planning
• Ben Peck ’05, Associate College Librarian for Research Services
• Michael Sargent, Associate Professor of Psychology
• Beverly Vari, Associate Director for Employer Engagement and Internships
• Student Members TBD (Fall 2025)

Strengthening Community & Well-Being Working Committee

• Rosanna Ferro, Vice President for Student Affairs (Committee Co-Chair)
• Michael Rocque, Associate Dean of Faculty and Professor of Sociology (Committee Co-Chair)
• Nora Molloy, Assistant to the Vice President for Student Affairs (Committee Staffer)

• Tonya Bailey, Associate Dean and Director of the Student Center for Belonging and Community
• Sandy Brooks, Custodian
• Stacey Bunting P’29, Director of Athletics
• Brenna Callahan ’15, Director of Health Services and Student Wellbeing
• Yun Garrison, Assistant Professor of Psychology
• Dri Huber, Senior Associate Dean of Students and Director of Operations
• Kristen Lainsbury, Vice President for Communications and Marketing (Steering Committee liaison)
• Todd McCollough, Assistant Catering Manager and Campus Life Liaison
• Michael Milliken, Manager of Community Wellness & Coordinator of Club Sports
• Andrew Mountcastle, Associate Professor of Biology
• Patty Rooney, Assistant Vice President for Human Resources
• Chris Streifel, Director of Capital Planning and Construction
  Student Members TBD (Fall 2025)

Place, Partnerships & Purpose Working Committee

• Alexandre Dauge-Roth, Professor of French and Francophone Studies (Committee Co-Chair)
• Patricia Schoknecht, Vice President for Information and Library Services (Committee Co-Chair)
• Nate Menifield, Equity and Inclusion Program Manager (Committee Staffer)

• Andee Bucciarelli, Assistant Dean of Community Standards & Deputy Title IX Coordinator
• Sarah Cameron, Senior Director of Alumni Engagement
• Allen Delong, Senior Associate Dean and Director of the Center for Purposeful Work
  Darren Gallant, Associate Dean and Director of the Center for Global Education
• Justin Hulbert, Associate Professor of Neuroscience
• Elena Maker Castro, Assistant Professor of Psychology
• Darby Ray, Director of HCCP and Donald W. and Ann M. Harward Professor of Civic Engagement
• Samantha Sigmon, Assistant Curator
• Leigh Weisenburger, Vice President for Institutional Affairs and Secretary to the Board of Trustees (Steering Committee liaison)
• Rachel Wray, Senior Director of Corporate and Foundation Relations
• Student Members TBD (Fall 2025)

Advancing Access, Opportunity & Success Working Committee

• Leana Amáez, Vice President for Equity and Inclusion (Committee Co-Chair)
• Gwen Lexow, Associate Vice President for Title IX and Civil Rights Compliance (Committee Co-Chair)
• Krystie Wilfong, Associate College Librarian for Collections and Scholarly Communications (Committee Staffer)

• Misa Beltran-Guzman, Director of First-Generation Programs
• CeCe Camacho, Assistant Dean of Admission
• Wendy Glass P’20, Director of Student Financial Services
• April Horton, Wagener Family Professor of Equity and Inclusion in STEM (Steering Committee liaison)
• Danielle Miller, Associate Director of Residential Operations
• Ornella Nibasumba, Commons Associate Service
• Anamika Sen, Assistant Professor of Economics
• Adrienne Shibles ’91, P’26, Associate Director of Athletics
• Courtney Smith, Associate Professor of Theater
• Kika Stump, Assistant Director of Institutional Research
• Student Members TBD (Fall 2025)

Responsible Stewardship & Institutional Sustainability Working Committee

• Katy Ott, Professor of Mathematics and Thomas Sowell Professor of Economics and Mathematics (Committee Co-Chair)
• Geoffrey Swift P’28, Vice President for Finance and Administration and Treasurer (Committee Co-Chair, Steering Committee liaison)
• Nicholas O’Brien, Senior Director of Marketing Operations (Committee Staffer)

• Ryan Bavis P’28, Helen A. Papaioanou Professor of Biological Sciences
• John Harvey ’09, Leadership Gift Officer
• Tristan Koepke, Assistant Professor of Dance
• Scott Lehmann, Associate Director of Athletics
• Molly Newton ’11, Senior Associate Dean of Students
• Tim Pratt, Director of Facility Services Operations
• Christine Schwartz, Associate Vice President for Dining, Conferences and Campus Events
• Tom Twist, Assistant Director of Sustainability
• Darryl Uy, Director of Admission
• Student Members TBD (Fall 2025)

We are working with the BCSG Committee Selection Board to seat the student membership on each committee right now. As soon as student membership is known, we will share that news with the community.

Interest in the strategic planning process has been robust, which is tremendously encouraging—but also means that we were not able to include everyone who expressed a desire to participate in this capacity. We encourage you to stay engaged and to take part in the many opportunities for input and feedback that will be offered in the coming months. 

The working committees will commence their work immediately and will work through May of 2026—developing detailed plans, programs, and metrics, all in collaboration with colleagues across the institution.

Additionally, I wanted to let you know that there have been some membership changes on the Strategic Planning Steering Committee. Joanne Roberts and Barry Lawson have joined the committee, succeeding (respectively) Malcolm Hill and Tyler Harper. Carolina González Valencia has stepped down from the steering committee to focus on other pressing professional commitments. 

For more information about strategic planning, please visit the Strategic Planning Website. 

Thank you so much for your interest in this important institutional process. I am looking forward to working with all of you.

Warmly,

   Garry

Strategic Planning Steering Committee

• Garry Jenkins, President (Chair)

• Leana Amáez, Vice President for Equity and Inclusion
• Timothy Dugan, Associate Professor of Theater
• Erin Foster Zsiga, Associate Vice President and Dean of Students
• Carolina González Valencia, Associate Professor of Art and Visual Culture*
• April Horton, Wagener Family Professor of Equity and Inclusion in STEM
• Kristen Lainsbury, Vice President for Communications and Marketing
• Barry Lawson, Colony Family Professor of Digital and Computational Studies
• Joanne Roberts, Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Faculty 
• Michelle Rosenberg ’94, P’29, Trustee
• Geoffrey Swift P’28, Vice President for Finance and Administration and Treasurer
• Mara Tieken, Associate Professor of Education
• Leigh Weisenburger, Vice President for Institutional Affairs and Secretary to the Board of Trustees

*served on the Strategic Planning Steering Committee January – August 2025

I am pleased to announce the membership of a steering committee for ŔÖ˛Ą´«Ă˝â€™ next major strategic planning effort, which I announced in the fall community letter. The committee’s composition is listed below. I will chair the steering committee, which will begin its work this month. 

My thanks to faculty colleagues, who voted for their top choices for faculty representatives on the steering committee, and to CFG, for administering the election and collaborating in selecting the faculty members.

The steering committee will develop a strategic framework and identify 3 to 5 broad areas of focus for the plan. These will be informed by a market positioning study, happening concurrently, which the steering committee will oversee. 

After initial framing work by the steering committee, working committees comprising faculty, staff, and students will be formed around the areas of focus to help develop and articulate institutional priorities. These committees will begin their work in earnest in the fall of 2025. The strategic planning process will be broadly consultative and collaborative, with opportunities for all members of the campus community to inform the college’s priorities. The final strategic plan will then become the substantive basis for a fundraising campaign that will raise the necessary resources to support our shared aspirations.

Both Christina Estabrook and Jennifer Blanchard will be administrative resources for the project. If you have any questions, or would like to provide input at any point in the process, please send an email to strategicplanning@bates.edu. 

Warmly,
ĚýĚýĚýłŇ˛ą°ů°ů˛â

Strategic Planning Steering Committee

• Leana Amáez, Vice President for Equity and Inclusion
• Erin Foster Zsiga, Associate Vice President and Dean of Students
• Carolina González Valencia, Associate Professor of Art and Visual Culture
• Tyler Harper, Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies
• Malcolm Hill, Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Faculty (thru summer 2025)
• April Horton, Wagener Family Professor of Equity and Inclusion in STEM
• Garry Jenkins, President (chair)
• Kristen Lainsbury, Vice President for Communications and Marketing
• Michelle Rosenberg ’94, Trustee
• Geoffrey Swift, Vice President for Finance and Administration and Treasurer
• Mara Tieken, Associate Professor of Education
• Leigh Weisenburger, Vice President for Enrollment and Dean of Admission & Financial Aid

Now that the fall semester is well underway, I thought I would share some thoughts on plans and priorities for our work together this year.

As I wrote in August, 2023–24 was an extraordinary year for ŔÖ˛Ą´«Ă˝, full of moments of both celebration and challenge, community-building and collaboration. We have started the 2024–25 academic year on strong footing: with the wonderful new Class of 2028, some incredible Maine weather, and outstanding efforts in our classrooms and at our athletic facilities.

Moving forward, here’s where I see us placing our attention and energy in the months ahead.

Institutional strategy and positioning: ŔÖ˛Ą´«Ă˝ conducted a comprehensive strategic planning process from 2014 to 2016, resulting in the adoption of the Institutional Plan in the fall of 2016. It was an ambitious plan that both elevated existing initiatives and identified new priorities for the subsequent five to eight years at ŔÖ˛Ą´«Ă˝. The Institutional Plan became the basis for the specific goals of the record-setting ŔÖ˛Ą´«Ă˝ Campaign. While several priorities from the 2016 plan remain important areas of focus, it is time for ŔÖ˛Ą´«Ă˝ to reassess and collectively develop its next strategic plan. We begin this work in earnest this year, developing a planning structure and project timeline. Then, a steering committee comprising faculty and senior administrators will be formed to guide this effort and will begin its work in the winter of 2025. Working committees of additional faculty, staff, and students will help to articulate institutional priorities. These committees will be formed in the spring of 2025 and will begin their work in earnest in the fall of 2025. Once underway, the strategic planning process will be broadly consultative and collaborative, with opportunities for all members of the campus community to help craft the roadmap for the next chapter in ŔÖ˛Ą´«Ă˝â€™ storied history. And it will help us determine the priorities for ŔÖ˛Ą´«Ă˝â€™ next fundraising campaign.

As a core part of this work, we have engaged a consultant to conduct an institutional strategy and positioning study. This will help us better understand how ŔÖ˛Ą´«Ă˝ is perceived in the higher education landscape and how our strategic priorities may resonate with prospective students and their families. These findings will also be used to inform our strategic planning work.

We will share more details about these planning efforts as they come into focus.

And while much of our focus this year will be on developing the path forward for ŔÖ˛Ą´«Ă˝, we will also take stock of our progress over the past five years as we develop the required interim report to our accreditor, the New England Commission of Higher Education (NECHE), which is due in August 2025. Institutions must “report on changes and improvements … since the last self-study” as part of NECHE’s review of our current accreditation status. (Colleges like ŔÖ˛Ą´«Ă˝ undergo review for accreditation every ten years, with ŔÖ˛Ą´«Ă˝â€™ last comprehensive review occurring in 2020.) The coordinating team that led the 2020 10-year self-study process will lead this important assessment, including Professor of Biology and Associate Dean of the Faculty Don Dearborn as the faculty chair and Assistant Dean of Strategy and Analysis Matt Duvall as the staff lead.

Supporting the student experience: Student Financial Services will continue to partner this year with colleagues from Advancement, Equity and Inclusion, Finance, Information & Library Services, and Student Affairs to make progress on equalizing the ŔÖ˛Ą´«Ă˝ experience. They will look to see what is most needed and feasible to help us ensure that all aspects of the ŔÖ˛Ą´«Ă˝ experience are available to all students (this might include raising funds for technology, emergencies, graduate school applications, etc.), as well as strengthening the foundational elements of our financial aid packaging.

As you heard me mention at Opening Convocation and elsewhere, another area we will give significant attention in the coming year is on strengthening the campus climate around civil discourse and civic engagement and exploring long-term programmatic models/initiatives to center and sustain this work. The local, national, and international context for this fall includes numerous opportunities for the campus community to continue to engage in challenging conversations and critical discourse, and the college’s mission statement offers a framework for approaching these conversations. Priorities for the year forward, which are already fully underway, include:

• Engaging the Student Affairs team and additional campus partners to infuse values of civic engagement, compassionate dialogue, and participating in discussions of challenging current events. 
• Actively discussing the importance of freedom of speech while vehemently condemning antisemitic, anti-Arab, and other behaviors that contribute to a hostile environment.
• Learning about successful initiatives at peer institutions through ŔÖ˛Ą´«Ă˝â€™ participation in the national collaboration .

These goals are being accomplished by:

• Our series of programs to engage and educate the community leading up to the November presidential election.
• Constructive dialogue practices being adapted into the ŔÖ˛Ą´«Ă˝ Leads student leadership program and additional trainings for specific student leadership roles.
• Pilot program to provide students with additional spiritual support from Rabbi Sruli Dresdner.
• Studying additional program/intervention models that might be developed or strengthened over the next several years.

We are also working this year to strengthen the student code of conduct, with the aim of integrating restorative practices for more cases and building in more flexibility where possible. This work will be undertaken by the Conduct Review Committee and student, staff, and faculty members of the Student Affairs Committee and the Student Conduct Committee.

Strengthening the academic experience: Over the past several years, a spate of retirements and the addition of new faculty lines has created a moment of major turnover and intense recruitment of permanent, tenure-track faculty at ŔÖ˛Ą´«Ă˝. We have hired 56 new faculty over the past five years, and are scheduled to hire at least 16 more this year. This will mean that over 40 percent of our permanent faculty will soon have been on our campus for six years or less, presenting an opportunity and a challenge as we think about mentorship and leadership.

The faculty took a survey last spring to assess their career satisfaction, administered by the Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education (COACHE). We are engaged in a review of the results to help us chart a course for our work in the years ahead.

Meanwhile, we are increasing our focus on celebrating the important scholarship and creative production of ŔÖ˛Ą´«Ă˝ faculty. We are doing so in a number of ways, from highlighting achievements in public settings to extending occasions such as the endowed chair celebration and to considering new mechanisms to celebrate the incredible work our faculty do throughout the year.

Continued progress on equity and inclusion: Led by the Office of Equity and Inclusion, we are continuing to work on formalizing and implementing best practices for inclusive hiring. This will require socializing these best practices across campus and working closely with Human Resources and the Office of the Dean of Faculty to ensure that all those involved in hiring and retention have the necessary tools and understanding. This work will be informed by feedback from the COACHE survey, mentioned above, as well as the Employee Engagement Survey, particularly with regard to colleagues from historically marginalized groups.

I’ll also note that the Office of Equity and Inclusion now has a new member, Nate Menifield, who fills a long-held vacancy for a program manager. And—as I hope you have noticed by now—the Office of Intercultural Education is now known as the Student Center for Belonging and Community. The rebranding came out of a broadly consultative process undertaken in 2023–24 and is designed to more accurately reflect the work of the center and the needs of our students. 

Continued progress on the ŔÖ˛Ą´«Ă˝ Athletics Action Plan: ŔÖ˛Ą´«Ă˝ has made important improvements to our Athletics program in the past year: among them renovating the swim team locker rooms, turfing the Russell Street Field, strengthening coaching resources and positions, and right-sizing the operational budget of the department.

We’ve done a lot—all of which goes under the umbrella of the ŔÖ˛Ą´«Ă˝ Athletics Action Plan—but we have more to do to keep up with our peer schools and make Athletics, Recreation, and Wellness a genuine priority and a continuing source of pride at ŔÖ˛Ą´«Ă˝.

Looking ahead, our strategic investments in Athletics, Recreation, and Wellness will continue. We recently announced that with the help of philanthropic support, the infield of Leahey Field will be converted from grass to turf, with the turf installation starting next week. In addition, upgrades to the Lafayette Street Field (softball) are underway, with improvements to dugouts, drainage, fencing, foul poles, batting cages, and the scoreboard. We are also pursuing plans to convert this field to artificial turf, ideally in the summer of 2026, with donor and college support. Additionally, we intend to move the long-simmering interest in a new Fitness and Well-Being Center from concept to concrete planning and fundraising. 

Employee Engagement Initiative: As many of you know, in the spring of 2023, the college conducted a comprehensive staff engagement and well-being survey. The survey was administered earlier this year and more than two-thirds of eligible participants completed it. The high-level results were shared with the community in May, and division-level results have been shared with each senior leader. At the college-wide level, we will target three main areas for improvement this year: supervisor development, career advancement, and staff/faculty relationships. Under the leadership of Human Resources, three strategic committees of faculty and staff are being formed to develop a plan for each of the three priorities. In addition, each division will also identify up to three specific goals to strengthen the division.

Senior leadership of the college: We recently welcomed a new Vice President for Communications and Marketing, Kristen Lainsbury, to ŔÖ˛Ą´«Ă˝, and we will welcome a new Vice President for Student Affairs, Rosanna Ferro, in early December. 

Additionally, as we have announced to the campus community, this year will be Malcolm Hill’s last as Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Faculty. In November, we will work to form a search committee and secure a consultant to help guide our national search (open to internal and external candidates). The consulting partner and the search committee will hold open sessions for the community to offer input on ŔÖ˛Ą´«Ă˝â€™ needs in its next VPAA/DOF. We will call for search committee nominations and self-nominations in the coming days.

Taken together, these comings and goings represent a moment of significant transition among the senior leadership of the college—and a moment of real opportunity and possibility.

Indeed, “opportunity” and “possibility” are the watchwords for the year ahead (and, really, always) here at ŔÖ˛Ą´«Ă˝. Working together, we will be thoughtful and deliberate about moving the college forward—but we will also keep our eyes open to unexpected new paths, chances to embrace challenge and joy alike, and the moments that bring us closer as a community and help each of us, as individuals, to thrive.

I’m excited to continue doing this work with each and every one of you.

Warmly,

   Garry