Bowdoin College

Academics

“To carry the keys of the world’s library in your pocket, and feel its resources behind you in whatever task you undertake” is part of The Offer of the College, a sort of proto-Mission Statement, ubiquitous within the community ever since a former president penned it a century ago. Today the college remains true to this liberal arts ethos, with an academic program designed to broaden the range of the intellect rather than stuff it with facts.

Of the total, students must take one course on mathematical, computational, or statistical reasoning; one course on inquiry in the natural sciences; one course on “exploring social differences;” one course on “international perspectives;” and one course in the visual and performing arts. Courses are designed to help students hone their written and analytical skills, deepen their aesthetic judgments, use varied forms of informational resources, and create multifaceted solutions to complex problems.

In addition, students are required to take one first-year seminar by the end of their second semester. These seminars provide an opportunity for students to take a small, seminar-style class about a topic of interest that is also directed toward building students’ writing, critical reading, research, and analytic skills. The courses range widely; a few examples include: Mass Media in American Politics; Seekers’ Lives; Dreaming in the Middle Ages; Non-Violence, Nukes and Nationalism.

Students are allowed to direct their own studies, taking classes in many different fields outside their major. Pursuing two majors is not all uncommon. Requirements for the major vary, but eight to ten courses is a rough standard.

Of the forty-two majors and forty minors available, the most statistically popular are government, and economics history. Most students would agree that the film students, artists, and economics majors are discernable groups, and that there are some beloved professors in the Africana Studies and religion departments. Recent changes in the academic structure include the creation of two new programs: Latin American Studies and Gay and Lesbian Studies. New interdisciplinary majors have sprung up (English and Theater is just one), and for a small college in Maine, there are particularly strong departments of Asian studies, neuroscience, and computer science (some interesting work with robots and artificial intelligence here has caught international attention).

Several years ago, the campus theater underwent renovation and is now a vibrant center for theater and dance on campus as well as a big draw for the Brunswick community. In 2007, the college’s landmark Walker Arts Building reopened after a two-year, $20 million renovation. The building is the home of the Bowdoin Museum of Art, a teaching museum with a collection of more than 14,000 objects. It is one of the oldest collegiate art collections in the United States with works from the ancient world to the present. Also in 2007, the fine arts department opened a new 290-seat state-of-the-art recital hall. And in the 1990s a donation by Stanley Druckenmiller (class of 1975) made possible a new, state-of-the-art science building that is successful both as a research center and as an architectural triumph.

I used the pass/fail option only once, in my first semester, because I wanted to try some unfamiliar subjects before I got too serious. I did have a friend who used it junior year, in a fifth class he took by special arrangement with the dean. This meant that in the spring of our senior year he had to take only three classes, which allowed him to spend the extra free time making trips up to ski at Sunday River, which was about ninety minutes away. I had an AP credit, so I also had just three classes; I joined my friend a few times, but mostly used that extra time working on finishing my honors project.

Along with introductory-level courses (average size of 30), freshmen (known as “first years”) may end up taking the regular course offerings that are the bread-and-butter of upperclassmen. These classes have an average size of sixteen. Toward the end of their time on campus, most students are back in senior seminars—the small, upperlevel classes designed primarily for majors. Students are permitted to take up to four classes on a “credit/ fail” basis, which allows for a greater opportunity for pressure-free academic exploration.

Independent Study and Honors Projects

Independent study is very popular, chiefly owing to the motivation of the students and accessibility of the professors. Such projects allow the student (typically a junior or senior, but not always) to choose a topic, set specific goals and schedules, and work closely with a professor. An independent study usually replaces one of the four classes the student would normally take, and works like a class credit toward graduation and, if applicable, the major. Many projects begin as an extension of work that a student and professor explored earlier—or had to pass up—in a traditional classroom course. Sometimes students with similar interests will band together, find a professor, and use the independent study model to create what is for all intents and purposes a private class. Popular professors have been known to direct three or four projects in one semester, in addition to their classroom duties.

Some independent studies evolve into Honors Projects. This last feature of the curriculum, however, is much more involved than an independent study; a typical Honors Project spans two semesters, involves periodic oral defenses before the academic department, and may culminate in the publication of scientific data or a hundred-page paper. An Honors Project is always a solitary endeavor, and each department encourages only the most motivated (i.e., graduate school-oriented) students to pursue such a project.

Independent studies and Honors Projects are among the most attractive features of the academic program. It is rare, even at the highest academic levels, for students to enjoy such unfettered access to world-class faculty. Such close-quarter interaction is why intellectuals are drawn to small, elite colleges such as this, and it is why they leave equipped with superior critical- thinking skills and broad knowledge of cultural, historical, and scientific fields.

RECENT INDEPENDENT STUDY

• Economics: “Patterns of Land Use, and Land Values, in Three Atlantic Coastal Regions”

• English: “The New Journalism: True-Crime Novels of Norman Mailer and Truman Capote”

• Sociology: “HIV/AIDS and Poverty in South Africa”

• Chemistry: “Gas-Phase Hydrolysis Reactions of Ester of Methyl- Substituted Glutarates: Effect of an Alpha Methyl Group.”

• History: “Representations of Race in American Professional Baseball”

• Biology: “Effects of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome on Cell Death and Cell Death Gene Expression in the Developing Brain.”

• Russian: “Existentialism, Social Realism, and Formalism in the Novels of Chernyshevsky, Turgenev, and Dostoevsky.”

• Coastal Studies: “Burial Depth of the Soft-Shell Clam, mya arenaria, in Response to Food Availability and Chemical Cues from the Green Crab carcinus maenas: a Behavioral Response to Confliction Needs.”

Off-campus Study

Many students (about fifty-five percent) study off campus, usually abroad, for a semester or two of their junior year. Bowdoin sponsors a well-respected program known as the Intercollegiate Sri Lanka Education. Students participate in more than one hundred additional approved study-abroad programs. Students less exotically inclined may also choose to study for a year at one of the schools in the Twelve College Exchange: Amherst, Connecticut, Dartmouth, Mount Holyoke, Smith, Trinity, Vassar, Wellesley, Wesleyan, Wheaton, and Williams.

Other possibilities, for students who want both a large university’s resources as well as the liberal arts milieu, are the 3-2 engineering degree programs with Columbia, Dartmouth, The University of Maine, the California Institute of Technology or the 3-2 law program with Columbia.

The Writing Project

Naturally there is plenty of ambient literary energy at the school that produced Hawthorne and Longfellow, as well as hip, younger writers such as Jason Brown and Willing Davidson.

The Writing Project is a tutoring program in which students recognized for excellent writing serve as editors for their peers. These students are there to receive first drafts of papers and return them, prior to the due date, with nonjudgmental advice for revision. The Bowdoin Orient, the student newspaper, enjoys the distinction of being the oldest continuously published campus weekly in the country; The Quill is a student-run literary magazine; and the Forum, initiated in the late nineties, is an annual compilation of essays by students, faculty, alumni, and staff, and its primary focus is an analysis of international events.

In addition to all of these outlets, the English department continues to be recognized as first-rate. Scholars such as Pete Coviello, Ann Kibbie, Anthony Walton, are outstanding in their fields.