French

Thank you for your interest in joining our department. We are a thriving department with typically ten to twenty French majors and Romance Languages majors (who combine the study of French with Italian or Spanish) graduating each year. Many of our students double major with another discipline, from Government to Neuroscience.  Our majors study away for a year or a semester in France or Francophone Africa through a diverse group of programs run by other institutions. Our program includes course offerings from beginning language through upper-level seminars in literature and culture. We all teach two courses each semester at all levels of the curriculum. All of our 100- and 200-level courses are capped at 18 students and our upper-level seminars at 16 students. A typical teaching year includes one introductory or intermediate French course (FR101-204), an Advanced French course (FR205), a course in our Introduction to Literature or Introduction to Culture series (FR207-211), and an upper-level seminar in our area of specialization. While we share common curricular goals at each course level, instructors have great freedom in the design of their individual courses. Upper-level seminars provide an exciting opportunity each year to link teaching to current research and to explore new interests. We encourage you to explore our curriculum page for a complete layout of our course offerings and progression and a description of our major and minor requirements. In addition, we each occasionally lead individual senior majors in self-designed independent study in the fall semester that typically leads to an Honors Project  in the spring, supervised by individual faculty members with a committee drawn from the entire department. Our majors go on to variety of post-college careers in fields such as teaching, non-profit work, international business, law, and government.

Our students are talented, bright, and diverse. In terms of its admissions requirements, Bowdoin is one of the most selective colleges in the country. The College has a need-blind admissions policy, allowing it to admit students without regard to their financial resources, and offering generous support for students from less-privileged backgrounds. Our Admissions Office also engages in an energetic outreach program that seeks future Bowdoin students in high schools across the country. These efforts have allowed Bowdoin to achieve significant levels of racial, religious, economic, and geographic diversity, further contributing to the intellectual and cultural vitality of our student population.

Bowdoin offers its faculty excellent resources. Our library's collection in French literature is strong and its ordering policy generous. We have quick and easy access to the resources of a large network of New England libraries through a consortium arrangement and beyond through interlibrary loan. Our Language Media Center boasts an extensive foreign film library and the collections of the acclaimed Bowdoin College Museum of Art are available to faculty for integration into their courses. Our Information Technology Department provides excellent daily support and grants for faculty initiatives involving technology.  The Joseph McKeen Center for the Common Good facilitates faculty initiatives for community-based teaching and research.

One of the great benefits of teaching at Bowdoin is the opportunity for collaboration with students and colleagues across the campus. Many of our courses are cross-listed in other departments or programs, and they draw students from a wide variety of majors. Our relatively small campus setting affords numerous occasions to engage with faculty in other disciplines— encounters that enrich our teaching, our research, and our general intellectual lives. The College offers many further possibilities for such intellectual nourishment, for instance by providing considerable opportunities to fund outside lecturers, and encouraging collaboration with colleagues both on campus and at nearby Bates and Colby colleges. The College also offers funding for major symposia. For example, "Caribbean Interorality in the New Millenium," a 2-day symposium, will take place at Bowdoin on October 11-12.

Research and teaching are valued equally at Bowdoin. Faculty are expected to excel at both and are provided with substantial opportunities for financial support in these endeavors. We all have active and productive research agendas. Small class sizes and the 2/2 teaching load help make this possible. In addition, Bowdoin provides annual funds for faculty travel as well as competitive funds for research, travel and course development. There is also a junior faculty sabbatical leave program, granting faculty leave from teaching to pursue in-depth research, usually during the fourth year of employment. This affords an opportunity to make significant strides in research prior to tenure. The College has recently instituted generous post-tenure sabbatical policies as well, creating a new opportunity for sabbatic leave in the second year after tenure and compressing the time between sabbaticals to every sixth year (i.e. after five years of teaching service).

The Location

Bowdoin is located on a beautiful 110-acre campus in Brunswick, Maine a town of 20,000 that serves as the gateway to the mid-coast region. Brunswick features a welcoming environment for raising families, as well as an array of cultural resources, including galleries, theaters, independent bookstores and restaurants. Several other colleges are nearby (Bates, Colby, and the University of Southern Maine), adding to the region's cultural offerings. The area is also known for its great natural beauty, with beaches, shoreline, forests, and mountains a short drive (or in some cases even a short bike ride) away.

One-half hour south is Portland, Maine, the state's largest metropolis (75,000) and its cultural mecca. Portland is a lively city with theatre companies, art galleries, bookstores, a symphony , and an art museum . It has also achieved widespread recognition as a home of talented chefs, and features an astonishing array of restaurants serving an equally broad range of cuisine.

Boston is a relatively easy day trip away, and can be reached by car or bus from Brunswick in roughly two and a half hours. Beginning November 1, Amtrak extends their "Downeaster" train service to Brunswick , with several round-trip trains between Boston and Brunswick. The station from which these trains will depart is an easy walk from the center of Bowdoin's campus.

For trips somewhat farther afield, we generally make use of the Portland Jetport, which has direct flights to many northeastern and mid Atlantic states. New York City is particularly well-served, with numerous flight options to all three of the city's airports. For international flights, Concord Coachlines provides direct service to Logan Airport in Boston from the Portland bus station and the Bowdoin campus when classes are in session.

Bowdoin College is committed to equality through affirmative action and is an equal opportunity employer. We encourage inquiries from candidates who will enrich and contribute to the cultural and ethnic diversity of our college. Bowdoin College does not discriminate on the basis of age, race, creed, color, religion, marital status, gender, sexual orientation, veteran status, national origin, or disability status in employment, or in our education programs.