COURSES IN BATES

Courses

   The Bates academic year follows a 4-4-1 calendar.Students take four courses (the normal course load) during the fall and winter semesters,and for at least two of the four years take  five week long intensive course during the spring.This session called Short Term,allows professors to have more freedom and creativity in designing each courses and in many cases allows the class to leave the campus to study a subject by touching it and seeing it rather than just reading about it.Short Term courses allows geologists to study geologic history from inside a kayak in the Inter coastal waterways of Malne; biologists study evolution by learning about the finches of the Galapagos Islands,as Darwin did from the Beagle.

The Harvard Center for Community Partnership

           The Harvard Center for Community Partnership leads Bates efforts in community involvement,including strong programs in services learning,community volunteerism,and environmental stewardship.The center aims to work with community partners to meet community needs and in the process, to integrate civic engagement with the Bates educational experience.The center offers short-and long-term grants to faculty,staff,and students,and provides summer support to pursue community-based research and work-study.The Harvard Center works with more than 125 partners,from schools and cultural Institutions to grassroots community groups.

*Academically-Based-Service-Learning

               The Harvard Center supports sources and projects that activate liberal learning to make a difference in the world,From oral history projects to pollution monitoring of the Androgenic River to literacy research with local immigrants,some fifty percent of Bates students incorporate community work into their studies.

*Community Volunteerism

             The center coordinates Bates community volunteer programs.Led by a term of undergraduate Volunteer Fellows,the program enables Bates students to serve as school mentors or tutors,to work in senior centers or environmental conservation areas,even to plant community gardens and build ski trails.Each years,two thirds of the students on campus take part in volunteer services.

*Environmental Stewardship

          Committed to environmental stewardship,the Harvard center for Community Partnership oversees the Bates-Morse Mountain Conversation area,a six-hundred acre coastal preserve that protects rare salt marsh and dune beach ecologies for research and public use.

Degrees

     Bachlor's degrees are fulfilled after completion of thirty-two courses and two Short-Term units.A degree can be conferred after three years.this accelerated program requires completion of thirty courses and three short-term units.