I can vouch that Bates has popular geology courses. As for small numbers of geology majors, I’m not sure that’s terribly unusual at small LACs. It’s endowment isn’t huge, but it’s strong enough to weather this storm.
Bates is certainly a less conservative than Hamilton or Colgate, but it’s not a school full of social justice warriors and the like. It’s not competitive and students are not uptight. Bates is in a small city/large town and is close to Portland, but also has easy access to the outdoors.
I would not choose BU. It’s extremely urban and I think field trips in and out of Boston would get very tiresome. For the money, I’d choose William and Mary. It seems to tick all your boxes at a great price.