Support Bowdoin

The College allocates resources in 6 key areas: teaching and research, ensuring access,  engaging students, caring for students, managing the College, and stewarding campus.

Caring for Students

Bowdoin strives to create the best possible college experience for each student. This is evidenced by our innovative college house system, the exceptional quality of the dining services, the culture of empowerment in student activities, and the high level of participation in fitness activities and athletics from club level to varsity.

The Community Service Resource Center exemplifies the atmosphere of engagement on campus by facilitating the thousands of hours of community service performed by Bowdoin students each year. In a given year, over a quarter of the student body will reach out to the local community, with the number topping 70% by graduation, making President McKeen’s 1802 vision of the college serving the Common Good a reality today.

Ensuring Access

Bowdoin provides financial aid to more than 40 percent of its students each year, with the average grant approaching $32,000 for members of the incoming first-year class. Beginning with the 2008-2009 academic year, the College began replacing loans with grants for new and current students receiving financial aid.

Eliminating loans from the financial aid packages allows the College to attract and retain exceptional students, regardless of family income, and creates a student body of diverse backgrounds and experiences, infusing the campus with energy and varied perspectives and creating a vibrant learning community. Additionally, the “no-loan” policy can allow students to choose professional paths or graduate study they might not if they were burdened with large loans after graduation.

Managing the College

Unrestricted annual fund gifts help cover the annual costs of running the College that are not fully covered by tuition, fees, or endowment income.  It would take $112 million in additional endowment to generate the funds provided by these gifts.

Stewarding Campus

One of Bowdoin’s greatest treasures is its beautiful campus, nestled beneath the Pines, and graced with stunning historic architecture. Preserving the College’s unique architecture is both a joy and a responsibility. Recently Bowdoin’s only gargoyle, which has resided over the campus since 1903, was discovered to be cracked and crumbling.

“This is an example of an unplanned restoration project that will have to be addressed by the College. The history and architectural significance of Hubbard Hall requires us to make sure its lone gargoyle is replaced,” said Catherine Longley, Bowdoin’s senior Vice president for finance and administration and treasurer. The College is currently working with funds from annual giving to contract a stonecutter to replicate the figure.

Teaching and Research

Annual Giving helps Bowdoin attract and retain leading faculty in a range of fields by supporting a culture of excellence both for teaching and research. Funding for efforts such as the Baldwin Center for Teaching and Learning; for research, guest lectureships, and seminars; and for the innovative application of technology to teaching and research, make Bowdoin an intellectually stimulating environment.

Additionally, Bowdoin's facilities frequently provide resources not commonly found at a small liberal arts college. The Coastal Studies Center, which sports an island location, marine labs equipped with running sea-water tanks, a terrestrial lab, an art studio, and a variety of meeting spaces, exemplifies the opportunities at Bowdoin for a multi-faceted approach to complex areas of research.

Engaging Students

Bowdoin’s facilities include one of the most distinguished liberal arts college libraries in the country; the nation’s oldest college art museum; the Peary-MacMillan Arctic Museum; the Coastal Studies Center; and the 200-acre Kent Island — a scientific research station located in the Bay of Fundy.

These resources ensure that students remain engaged throughout their Bowdoin career, gain valuable hands-on experience, and carry-on the institution’s legacy of exploration.