College welcomes new dean

Bates to lead developmental school, help students transition to credit courses

By Owen Boss

GARDNER — The new dean of the School of Liberal Arts, Math and Developmental Education at Mount Wachusett Community College said he plans to use his extensive experience to improve the quality of education offered to developmental education students in an effort to advance them into credit level courses. Prior to accepting the position at the college, Dr. Vincent Michael Bates served at Prince George’s Community College in Largo, Md., as chairman of developmental mathematics from 2001 to 2007 and as course coordinator and associate professor from 1999 to 2001. Previously, he was associate professor of mathematics at Anne Arundel Community College in Arnold, Md. from 1984 to 1999. Daniel M. Asquino, president of the college, said he is confident that Mr. Bates will successfully fill his new role. “Dr. Bates is a creative educator who is dedicated to helping students succeed,” said Dr. Asquino. “We are most fortunate to have him joining our college community.” Although this is his first position as a dean, Dr. Bates said the experience he gained during his time at Prince George’s will prove to be a valuable asset because the job requirements were very similar to those of his new position. “The transition really shouldn’t be that difficult, because at Prince George’s Community College, the role of the chairman there was to do a lot of the things that the deans do here,” said Dr. Bates. “We did the hiring and interviewing of faculty, creating a schedule, assigning workloads, doing evaluations, and these are things that I am accustomed to already, it’s just a matter of learning the system here.” The Mount differs from other colleges that Dr. Bates has worked for in the past because it is a union school, which means faculty members can and cannot do certain things based on their contracts. According to Dr. Bates, former Dean Dr. Richard Shine will remain at the college in the Division of Academic Affairs as the dean of Special Projects until his retirement in January, and will guide Dr. Bates with any problems he may run into. Dr. Bates said as time goes by, he would like to implement several changes to the program areas he oversees. “We are looking forward to fall ’09,” said Dr. Bates. “And what I want to do is I want to increase the success of the developmental education students and do a revamp of the developmental education structure here. There are some retention strategies that I would like to bring in to hopefully retain students better and get them to matriculate from developmental education into credit-level courses.” Dr. Bates is a member of the National Association of Development Education, the American Mathematics Association of Two-Year Colleges, the National Council for Teachers of Mathematics and the Developmental Education Association of Maryland. He is the treasurer of the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc., and is an active member and participant in its national campaign “Got to high school — Go to college.” oboss@thegardnernews.com

Appeared on Page 1 on 9/5/2008 (Vol. 206 No. 210)