A jewel in Lewiston, Maine.
For an alphabetical index of the New England College series of pieces, click here.
While the old mill town of Lewiston appears to be successfully gentrifying, its ‘dark, satanic mills’ being converted to businesses, restaurants and quality housing, no such excuse need be made for Bates College, a true jewel. The campus is gorgeous, and Lewiston happens to be one of the safest cities in the United States.
On the small side as US campuses go with but 1,800 undergraduates, and dating from 1855, Bates spans 133 acres on the Lewiston campus, and manages to be much of a muchness. Everything is where you want it and it is the second school we have visited where not a single building is out of place, regardless of age. Indeed, one of the most recent, Pettengill Hall, is one of the best, with a magnificent sweep of bay windows and the high Perry Atrium inside making for a special place to meet, to learn and to think.
A dear friend who graduated here – and also met his future spouse on campus – writes:
Without naming names, I can guiltlessly disclose this long held secret!
Bates is accused of being the costliest private school but the distinction is meaningless. These New England private colleges do not compete on price, having no need to do so in an environment of massively excess demand. So the Bates ‘premium’ is but pennies on a comparative basis. If Bates has a challenge it is to increase its endowment where, on a dollars per student basis, it’s at the low end of the range. Let’s hope its modest premium allows this to be done.
Winston approaches the Gomes Chapel, modeled on King’s College Chapel, Cambridge.
The Gomes Chapel.
Inside the Chapel.
The Coram Library.
Hathorn Hall is the oldest academic building, dating from 1856.
The George and Helen Ladd Library. Modern, yet nicely integrated.
Inside the Ladd Library.
The magnificent sweep of the north facing bay windows of Pettengill Hall, dating from 1999. Proof positive that ‘modern’ need not be ugly.
The Perry Atrium inside Pettengill Hall. The wooden flying buttresses support the domed ceiling.
A high aesthetic inside Pettengill Hall. No improving on this. Economics, a Bates specialty, is one of the subjects taught here.
Lake Andrews provides scenic beauty.
Yet another Olin building. Under renovation during our visit.
The Dining Hall. Another example of a newer building well integrated into the College’s whole.
The Carnegie Science Center.
Bates alumni include Bryant Gumbel, Robert F. Kennedy, the architects Buckminster Fuller and Minoru Yamasaki, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Dean Kamen the great engineer and inventor, George Mitchell, Jan Masaryk, Edmund Muskie and Olympia Snowe.