Phyllis Graber Jensen Published on March 10, 2021
The email went out at 10:07 a.m. on Friday, March 13, 2020, from President Clayton Spencer.
Due to the surging pandemic, Spencer announced, Bates would immediately suspend in-person classes, asking all 1,700 students except those granted waivers through petition to move off campus in preparation for remote learning to begin in 10 days.
“My heart goes out to all of our students,” Spencer said. But, “we are at a pivotal moment with respect to both the spread of the COVID-19 virus and our ability as a college to take proactive, rather than reactive, steps.”
Thus began a year filled to the brim with reactions, proactions, and a lot of Bates teamwork, culminating in a return to campus in August and a successful so far in-person academic year.
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Thirty years after Bates College decided to devote Martin Luther King Jr. Day to issues of racial justice instead of its ordinary class schedule, it held what its president called the college’s “first-ever, and hopefully last, fully remote” celebration to reach students scattered across the world by a raging pandemic.
President Clayton Spencer kicked off a daylong series of speeches, seminars, debates, podcasts, dances and more Monday with a call for the college community “to reflect consciously and intensively on what we owe our students and what we owe the world.”
With classes not set to resume until next month, Bates students and faculty relied on Zoom to hear historian and activist Angela Davis offer her thoughts on a range of issues to begin a day chock full of calls to action.