CSC Contructs New Pier Research Center
As part of Bowdoin College, the CSC is committed to creating opportunities for students and faculty that advance discovery while promoting teaching, training and learning from a range of scientific disciplinary perspectives. The pier will help realize this commitment in three important ways. The pier will greatly increase the opportunities Bowdoin students have to engage in marine science by expanding our areas of inquiry beyond the bounds of the property to the surrounding waters of Casco Bay and the Gulf of Maine. This will allow students and faculty for example to engage in a range of on-going and planned projects including sea urchin growth experiments, invasive species research, blue mussel toxicology, marine glaciology and water quality studies, and coastal archaeology.
The construction of the pier will also benefit visiting scientists and courses that use the CSC as well as serve as a catalyst for creating collaborations with other institutions. For example, the pier will enhance partnerships with Bigelow Laboratory of Ocean Sciences and St Joseph’s College around the new Bowdoin Bouy Facility recently launched in Harpswell Sound. Finally, access to the ocean will enrich our support for hands-on research, education and training that are so crucial to preparing students for advanced degrees in the sciences.
This project was made possible through generous financial support from Geoff Rusack (‘78) and Alison Wrigley Rusack, and the National Science Foundation. Many thanks also go to Bowdoin’s Facility Department staff including Greg Hogan, (project manager) Don Borkowski, Don Brown, and CSC caretaker for Mark Murray, for overseeing all the details of the project.
Click here to see a gallery of the pier under construction.
Click here to see the dock user guidelines.