In celebration of Women’s History Month, we speak with a leader who is the true definition of longevity and commitment, Mary Lou Bates, Vice President and Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid at Skidmore College. She speaks to us about the challenge of raising a family while maintaining a thriving career, and how her passion for her work in admissions has allowed her to craft creative solutions during 49 years at Skidmore.
Guest: Mary Lou Bates, Vice President and Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid at Skidmore College
Angel Pérez: Hello and welcome to the College Admissions Decoded Podcast, an occasional series from the National Association for College Admission Counseling, or as we call it, NACAC. NACAC is an association of more than 26,000 professionals at high schools, colleges, universities, and nonprofit organizations, as well as independent counselors who support and advise students and families through the college admissions process. I'm Angel Pérez, NACAC CEO, and the host of today's special Women's History Month edition. College Admissions Decoded typically covers topics that are important to students and families who are considering next steps in the sometimes confusing college admissions process. However, with me today is an absolute legend in our profession, and I might say the woman who admitted me to college as well, Mary Lou Bates. Mary Lou, thanks for being here.
Mary Lou Bates: Thank you, Angel, for admitting me. It is truly an honor.
Angel Pérez: I'm paying it back. Mary Lou Bates is vice president and dean of admissions and financial aid at Skidmore College, where she has proudly served since 1974. Previous to her arrival at Skidmore, she worked on the admission staff of Mount Holyoke College after her graduation from Mount Holyoke with a degree in American culture. Mary Lou has been active in numerous professional organizations related to admissions and financial aid, including serving as president of New York State ACAC. She has also been elected twice to the board of directors of the Common Application. And I might also mention that she has mentored hundreds of staff members in our field. So to say that I'm talking to a legend is an understatement. So thank you for joining me today, Mary Lou. And I thought that the way that we might start is by talking a little bit about your story. You've dedicated your career to serving liberal arts colleges, and in particular, Skidmore, for almost 50 years. So I'm wondering if you can tell us how you got your start and what's contributed to your longevity.
Mary Lou Bates: Sure. I'm thinking back to my senior year in college, the spring of 1972. I had taken a number of job interviews. Recruiters came to campuses at that time and had a couple of job offers. New York and Boston. None of them were very thoughtfully researched. My biggest goal seemed to be to get to New York or to Boston, get an apartment with my friends and live a young professional life. And then I suddenly got a handwritten note from the director of admissions at Mount Holyoke, a long-serving legend herself named Reggie Ludwig, who invited me to apply for a position on the admissions staff. She said, "You've been active on campus and were looking for someone to commit to for a couple of years and do a lot of travel for us around the country." And my first thought was, oh, south Hadley for two more years? Wasn't New York or Boston, which I was thinking about, but I went to talk to her and it was very apparent that I would love doing this job.
So I did. For those two years, I traveled 17 weeks a year, most often staying with alumni, which I can't imagine today hiring a young staff member and saying, "You'll be staying with alums when you go." I saw parts of this country, Bartlesville, Oklahoma, Little Rock, Arkansas. Most of the recruitment areas were centered around alumni groups that were very active in the schools. Often, the alums drove me to the school appointments. Anyway, at the end of those two years, I realized this was work that I loved. I had always thought I'd go to law school, and somehow the experience I had in those two years in admissions at Mount Holyoke just changed that. And so I was leaving Mount Holyoke, getting married, moving back to the Saratoga area where I had grown up, and there was an opening at Skidmore College, and I was fortunate to get that job. And that was about 49 years ago, and I am still here.
Angel Pérez: I love it. Actually, let's stick with the theme of still being there. I think you shared with me recently, Mary Lou, that you have navigated five presidential transitions at Skidmore. And as someone who has served as vice president for enrollment and institution, those can be really tricky and challenging. And so I'm wondering what advice would you give to the next generation of leaders who will fill your shoes as they navigate those presidential transitions? I think your longevity has been extraordinary. And what would you say to the next generation?
Mary Lou Bates: Transitions of your supervisor, especially perhaps the president, are challenging. I think however, if you're good at your job, if you listen, if you have a sense of what that president is looking for and you are responsive and can be flexible, if it's different than perhaps what a previous supervisor had, I think it's eminently doable. With any job, you have to know what your boss wants and be ready to be creative and flexible to respond.
Angel Pérez: Would you say that your longevity at the institution also helped presidents? Because I'm thinking about the fact that Skidmore has a relatively new president right now, and you can now provide a history and a background. Is that a piece of service to a certain extent that most people don't think about?
Mary Lou Bates: I think that really is true, and it's one of the things I often think about as I sit around the cabinet table. I know things nobody else there knows. And kind of the responsibility for conveying that kind of institutional history is something that I take seriously and try to be perhaps more expansive as we're discussing something to give context and background to my colleagues around the table.
Angel Pérez: You and I have known each other for a very long time, and actually you were kind enough to hire me as a young professional. And I saw firsthand how you managed a balancing family and a very hectic career and a very hectic travel schedule. You've traveled all over the country and the world. You've raised three wonderful children, two of whom are in the profession. And one of the questions that I get often from young women in the profession now is, how will I do this? How will I stay? The jobs are getting more hectic. I always think of you as such an extraordinary example of someone. I'm sure you would say it was not stress-free, but someone who has managed to do all of it. What would your advice be to young women today?
Mary Lou Bates: I think the first thing is you really have to want to do it. You have to want this wonderful job and you have to want a wonderful family. It's not always easy, and there is a lot of juggling. I absolutely love the work that I do, and I've loved and felt very fortunate to have had a wonderful family. I remember when our first child was born and I took a couple of months of maternity leave, I'd never not worked, and it was just, I didn't know. I didn't know how I'd feel about not being with my child. I didn't know how I would feel about not working. And I didn't really sort that out until I went back to work and I thought, oh, I am so much better at this than I was at being home all day. Not that I didn't take good care of the baby, but at the end of the day I thought, what did I do today?
And so once I was back at work, I thought, this is wonderful. I want to go to work every day. I was excited about going to work and I was just as excited about getting home to the family. But there were challenges. I think over the years, what I gave up was any time, there was the job that had to be done. There were the kids, and if I wanted to go take a job, that just kind of didn't happen. Understanding that kind of flexibility is key to making it work. I have traveled a lot, probably a lot more than some vice presidents do. And when the kids were all at home, fortunately I had a spouse who doesn't travel for his work, so he was kind of always there.
We had someone come into the home with our kids. Our three kids are, from oldest to youngest, there are 10 years there. So one of the things that worked when I had teenagers at home is we still had a caretaker for our youngest son, keeping an eye on the teenagers at home as well in the afternoon. So all of that, it was doable. It wasn't always easy.
Angel Pérez: Well, I always say it takes a village, and so there is no way you can do this work alone. And another part of that village I would say is who you work for, and your supervisor. You have supervised many people, but you have also had five presidents that you have reported to. What do you think supervisors can do to better support women in leadership roles today?
Mary Lou Bates: I think understanding the challenges, and I guess one observation I'd like to make in the 50-ish years I have been doing this is I think it would be fair to say, when I was married and starting to have kids, women were bearing the entire brunt of it. I'd go to the supermarket, you never saw a man in the supermarket. It was always the women in the supermarket. And now it makes me so happy to see a young dad with three kids. Obviously mom has said, "You're taking all of them because I need some time." So I do think we've made, culturally in our society, tremendous progress on acceptance. This generation of parents share in a way that when I started out, there wasn't that.
But at the same time, I think as we look at the number of young women who are on admission staff at the entry and mid-level, there are far more women than there are in the top senior leadership positions. And so I don't know that they weren't given the opportunities. They just would say, "I can't. I can't do all of that at that level." So I think flexibility for women perhaps to be willing to say to a supervisor, "Could I flex here? I really want this top job, but I see this as an obstacle. Would it be possible?" And if both the women professionals are willing to make the outreach to ask the question and the supervisors can value having that person continue at a higher level, I think we can make even more progress and see more women in the very highest, the vice presidential spots.
Angel Pérez: If I could put you on the spot, Mary Lou, before, as we were preparing for this podcast, you said another thing they could do is hire more women. I love that because how do we make progress? We hire more women. Let's start there.
Mary Lou Bates: Right. There you go. That's simple.
Angel Pérez: It's a very busy season, but I know that you will be transitioning to retirement in the next year, and I'm wondering if you've had any time to think about what has been the key to your success and the key to your longevity. Few people choose to stay in the profession for 50 years. What are some of the pieces of advice or things you would share with particularly women, given that we are celebrating Women's History Month?
Mary Lou Bates: I guess I've stayed this long because I have loved my job. I hadn't really thought about that specifically. And a few years ago, a trustee said, "You are still here. It's wonderful you're still here. You must really love what you do." And I hadn't really thought about it and I thought, yeah, that is why I'm still here. I really love what I do. And I have to say, admissions work, I think admissions college counseling, our universe, Angel, of folks is unlike any other profession I can think of. I think it's fair to say that for you and I, some of our best friends in the world are the friends we have made in admissions. It goes beyond professional. The work, again, as a young admissions officer, just my first job out of college, you're doing counseling, you're doing public relations, you are doing strategy in terms of figuring out where you're going to recruit based on other kinds of things.
You're out on the road traveling, the autonomy you have, the room for creativity, all of those things. I can't think of another job for someone 22, 23, who offers that same kind of opportunity. And remember, not too long into admissions saying to my husband, who is an attorney, I wonder if I should think again about going to law school. I'd always kind of thought about that. And he looked at me and he said, "What you do is so much more fun than what I do." And I thought, that's so true. We do have fun. We work hard. The work we do is mission driven. And I think that not only impacts how we feel about what we did today, the lives we've impacted, but the people that it attracts have a value system that I think is different from a lot of what you find in the corporate world.
It just is a very special profession, is special work with special people. And for all those reasons, I've continued, it'll be 51 years in admissions with the two years I was at Mount Holyoke, and I've loved every minute of it. Making the decision this coming summer to retire was not an easy one. I went back and forth. I told the president in June that that was my plan, and then I thought, oh, have I done the right thing? But once it's settled, I have to say I'm looking forward to having the capacity to do some other things. I say to folks, I have three lists. A very long list of the things I'll miss, the people I'll miss, seeing regularly. Many people I will stay in touch with and see. Then there's another list of things I won't miss. The final list is things that I am really looking forward to doing that I just haven't had the time capacity to do with the demands of this wonderful job.
Angel Pérez: Well, I think it's incredibly exciting and I agree with you. I mean, it's such a beautiful profession and actually I've said to many people here at NACAC, some who have not worked in college admission, I think it's the best first job for all of the reasons that you stated. And there are lots of many good reasons to stay and grow and flourish in the field. I know this is a tough question and maybe you haven't thought a bit so much yet, but what are you most proud of?
Mary Lou Bates: Well, I guess I am most proud of having done some part to bring Skidmore College from where it was in 1974 with an endowment of about 3 million. Because we were such a young college, we were on two campuses. We had just made the decision to become a co-educational school. So we weren't an all women's college, but we weren't yet a co-educational college, to have done some part to have brought Skidmore from where it was then to the incredible, strong, robust, leading liberal arts college that it is today. That is something that has been wonderful to have been a part of. I've had wonderful leadership throughout that time. The college has had wonderful leadership, and it's pretty exciting. I feel Skidmore continues to be a college that will be stronger tomorrow than it was today and so on, and that certainly has been the trajectory that I've seen over the 49 years that I've been here.
Angel Pérez: Well, thank you Mary Lou, and I think on behalf of everyone associated with Skidmore, including myself, I can say you've been a true gift to the college and a true gift to the profession. As I mentioned in the beginning, you have mentored hundreds and hundreds of counselors. I can't imagine what that going away party's going to look like. I can't wait to see you there, but I want to thank you again for inspiring us today and in particular inspiring us during Women's History Month. And I also want to thank our audience for joining us for this episode.
College Admissions Decoded is a podcast from NACAC, the National Association for College Admission Counseling. It is produced by LWC. Kojin Tashiro produced this episode. If you would like to learn more about NACAC's guests, our organization, and the college admission process, visit our website at nacacnet.org. Also, leave a review and rate us on Apple Podcasts, and we look forward to seeing you next time on College Admissions Decoded.
CITATION: National Association for College Admission Counseling. “Women’s History Month Edition: Balancing Life, Family, and a Career You Love: Reflections from Admissions legend, Mary Lou Bates”
NACAC College Admissions Decoded,
National Association for College Admissions Counseling, March 21, 2023.