Alternative Spring Break 2013
Trip and Leader Application download HERE
DUE Wednesday, April 25, 12 p.m.

Alternative Spring Break (ASB) trips provide a unique opportunity for students to participate in an intensive public service experience while increasing their understanding of significant social and environmental problems.  Engaged in direct service relating to these problems, students live and work in communities with which they otherwise may have little contact. Being completely immersed in this environment over an extended period of time allows students to internalize their experience, which can serve as a springboard for a lifelong commitment to social change.

During the spring semester, participants attend weekly pre-service meetings to prepare them for their service experience. These meetings include background and cultural information about the site, educational visits from Bowdoin professors, reading assignments, film viewing, fundraising, and team-building activities. During the trip, students participate in meaningful service activities, daily reflective sessions, and evening group activities. After returning to campus, students work together to educate the larger Bowdoin community about their issue area and experience.

Applying to a Trip

Students interested in participating in the Alternative Spring Break program must submit an application to the McKeen Center each fall.  

Student Leadership

Alternative Spring Break trips are organized and led by students who want to provide an intensive learning through service experience. ASB leaders are responsible for all aspects of the alternative spring break trip, including recruiting participants, trip logistics, coordinating with the host site, and leading the actual trip.

Leader Selection
ASB proposals and leader applications are reviewed each spring for the following year by a committee of students, faculty, and McKeen Center staff. Those leaders whose trips are selected receive support from the McKeen Center to plan and implement their ASB trips.

Leaders' Seminar
During the fall semester, ASB leaders participate in the Leaders' Seminar, a 10-week course facilitated by the staff of the McKeen Center. This seminar prepares leaders in how to organize and lead their trips and to help student participants examine the political, social, cultural, and economic aspects of their service and the communities in which they will be living. Through this seminar, leaders develop their own seminar which they lead for their trip participants in the spring.