From Opening Day on Aug. 26 to Opening Convocation on Sept. 3, the 501 members of the Class of 2023 had nine days to settle in, meet new friends, start sports and activities, get a taste of Bates academics, and explore Lewiston and Maine.
And Bates Communications photographers Phyllis Graber Jensen and Theophil Syslo were there to document it all.
Opening Day for the Class of 2023 was Monday, Aug. 26, and the Bates community turned out in friendly force to welcome and guide Bates’ newest students.
From welcoming greetings to parting hugs, from checking out new digs to checking out camping gear, Bates’ newest students experience Opening Day.
The first 24 hours after Opening Day is an intensive introduction to life at Bates, including academics. Early on Aug. 27, new students met with professors for the first session of their First Year Seminars.
In “Inequality, Community, and Social Change,” Professor of Sociology Emily Kane sent her students on a campus-wide scavenger hunt before reconvening in the classroom to consider ideas about community and social change.
Lecturer in Environmental Studies Ethan Miller ’00, who met with his students in his First Year Seminar, “Life Beyond Capitalism,” shared fresh fruit from his apple trees and then drew his students into a classroom and small group discussions.
His course draws on tools from economic anthropology and geography to examine noncapitalist livelihoods in contemporary industrialized societies.
In the early evening, the first-year class gathered together under the Orientation tent next to Garcelon Field for the session “Centering Racial Equity in Your Life,” led by Vice President for Equity and Inclusion Noelle Chaddock, also new to Bates this year.
After remarks by Chaddock and other faculty, staff, and alumni, the evening featured discussion tables, each with nine first-years and a discussion leader.
Each table chose a word that captures the experience of discussing racial equity at Bates. One table chose “open.”
AESOP, the fabled three-day, student-led trips during Orientation, kicked off on Aug. 28 with an official welcome at Lake Andrews’ Keigwin Amphitheater.
And what a welcome: As senior AESOP coordinators Erni Whitaker, Grace Warder, and Peter Griffin introduced themselves to the unsuspecting first-years, trip leaders bedecked in costumes emerged running and shouting from behind the amphitheater, dousing the coordinators with a delightful (!) mix of water, pasta, eggs, and glitter.
The following morning, small groups of students departed for three days of camping, hiking, kayaking, or community service across Maine and New Hampshire.
The grand entrance by AESOP trip leaders, reaction by first-years, and introductions all around preceded AESOP trip leaders and first-years breaking into trip groups to begin the getting-to-know-you process.
Under new head coach Joe Vari, the women’s soccer team held its first full practice on Aug. 29 at Russell Street Field, which received new sod over the summer. The team won its season opener 1-0 against Maine Maritime Academy in a non-conference game Sept. 3.
Over the Labor Day weekend, Bates football coach Malik Hall led his team in an early morning practice followed by a team picture on Garcelon Field. The team travels to Amherst on Sept. 14 for its opener, then hosts Middlebury on Sept. 21.
Over the Labor Day weekend, three AESOP trips hit Popham Beach State Park in Phippsburg, then camped overnight at the Hermit Island Campground.
Hannah Fitts ’20 and Steven Sparks ’22 led a group of first-years to Sheepscott Farm in Whitefield, Maine, where on Friday afternoon participants picked cherry tomatoes and peppers and weeded carrots before settling in for a farm-fresh dinner.
Bates juniors Angel Echipue, Delaney Mayfield ’21, and Emily Gianunzio ’21 enjoy coffee and strawberry milk as they walk down Lewiston’s historic Lisbon Street.
Echipue and Mayfield play varsity volleyball, while Gianunzio plays varsity field hockey.
Later in the day, members of the Class of 2023 participated in the annual walking tours of the downtown to learn about the history and architecture of Bates’ hometown.
Before Convocation on Sept. 3, students gathered in and around Commons with their First Year Seminars to discuss this year’s Common Read Documentary, Dolores, a film about the inspiring life of Convocation speaker and honorand Dolores Huerta.
Not every Opening Convocation at Bates ends with a legend of the American labor movement leading a chant of “Yes we can! ¡Sí, se puede!”
But that’s what happened on Sept. 3, as Bates began its academic year with a ceremony featuring social justice icon Dolores Huerta, the 89-year-old co-founder of the United Farm Workers, as the keynote speaker and recipient of a Bates honorary degree.
Among others speaking to the new students was Student Government President Ryan Lizanecz ’20 of Portland, Maine.
Lizanecz urged the new students to take a pro-active approach, academically and socially — especially in terms of rocking one’s own identity. “Embrace what sets you apart from the rest of your classmates,” he advised. “The transformative power of our differences will enrich your time both at Bates and throughout your life.”
© 2026 Bates College
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