The Campaign
Priorities: Student Affairs
To view the interactive pie chart you will need to update your Flash plugin.
Please update your Flash plugin.
Unrestricted Gifts of $6,512,993 are not reflected in the above totals.
Priority Update
For more than 200 years, the essence of a Bowdoin education has included not only what goes on in the classroom but all the ways that students grow and learn from others across campus — in the College Houses; the residence halls; in the studio, gallery, and theater; and in the athletic arena.
| Residential and Community Life | $ | 25,100,000 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Student/faculty interaction outside of the classroom | (e) | $ | 2,400,000 |
| Fitness, Health and Wellness Center | (c, e) | $ | 5,000,000 |
| Sidney J. Watson Arena | (c) | $ | 15,000,000 |
| Beyond Bowdoin - Career Success | (e) | $ | 2,700,000 |
| Leadership Development | $ | 3,620,000 | |
| Bowdoin Outing Club Leadership Program | (e) | $ | 780,000 |
| Bowdoin Outing Club/Community Service Trips | (e) | $ | 1,500,000 |
| Student Leadership and Skill Development | (e) | $ | 1,340,000 |
| Serving The Common Good | $ | 4,030,000 | |
| Center for the Common Good | (e) | $ | 4,030,000 |
| Key: (c)=Construction (e)=Endowment (s)=Spendable (r)=Renovation | |||
Student-Faculty Interaction Outside of the Classroom
A $2.4 million endowment will provide funding for innovative programs such as "Dinner with Six Strangers," that bring students and faculty together in a non-classroom setting.
For the past five years the Mellon Foundation has supplied grant funding for a range of innovative programs in student residences. These programs have become an indispensable part of student life, and in an effort to preserve them, our students requested that they be included in the campaign. “Dinner with Six Strangers” is a highly popular program that allows students to dine with six people from the College whom they may never have met or only barely know, weaving dozens of positive and unexpected relationships. In addition, some Houses regularly invite a faculty member to dinner, while other gatherings are more structured; for instance, faculty, staff, and students have together organized a series of on-going discussions called the “Collective Debates,” focusing on campus diversity issues. These interactions give students a place to test their classroom lessons and insight into the context of everyday lives, making discourse, critical thinking, and analysis as familiar as sitting down for a meal.
Fitness, Health and Wellness Center
To meet the demands of a more health-conscious community, the relocation and expansion of the fitness center has become a priority for Bowdoin. Plans call for a 44,659 square foot addition to the Morrell Gym complex that will dedicate a shared facility to benefit mind, body and spirit practices by housing exercise rooms along with centers for health and wellness. The new center dedicates two full floors to fitness, comprising more than 14,000 square feet. It will also provide new space on the third floor for the College's healthcare services, currently housed at the Dudley Coe Health Center. In addition, he center will bring yoga, meditation, tai chi, and other classes together from their disparate and borrowed spaces around campus and link them to the College's traditional fitness and health facilities. Consistent with the College's ongoing sustainability efforts, the project will seek LEED (Leadership in Energy Efficient Design) certification. The new Fitness, Health and Wellness Center is expected to be completed by August 2009. Read the latest news and view graphics of the new center.
Sidney J. Watson Arena
Bowdoin’s rich tradition of success in ice hockey can be traced to the visionary leaders who built Dayton Arena and the skilled men and women drawn to coach and play in what was then a pioneering athletic facility. Dayton Arena has served as an important element in Bowdoin ice hockey’s tremendous record of achievement. Nearly a half-century later, Bowdoin must again act with vision and resolve to meet the needs of its superb programs and maintain its commitment to this significant part of student life. We have begun building a new arena adjacent to Farley Field House, freeing up valuable space on central campus for other uses. The new Sidney J. Watson Arena will provide seating and additional standing room to accommodate Bowdoin’s largest crowds for hockey games. It will feature a 90-ft. by 200-ft. ice surface and greatly improved locker rooms with more space for changing, equipment storage, and athletic training facilities. The combination of a concourse area and seating in the interior will provide great views and proximity to the action, while the overall appearance will reflect a traditional Maine and Dayton Arena feel within an up-to-date facility. Watson Arena is registered as a LEED building project. Construction is expected to be finished by Winter 2008. Read the latest news and view photos of the construction of the arena.
Beyond Bowdoin - Career Success
A $2.7 million endowment will provide for the acquisition of new technologies and the implementation of new programs to strengthen the corporate-recruiting dimension and give students an edge in post-graduate opportunities.
The short-term goals of a Bowdoin education are to help launch students on a path of meaningful careers in their chosen fields. Our Career Planning Center provides an excellent balance of educational programming and advising as students explore their post-graduate employment and educational options.
Bowdoin plans to make career services a point of distinction for the College. To help each student experience a seamless transition to their first job, the College has developed a three-phase approach: Explore, Experience, and Pursue. With a strong emphasis on early career exploration and education, Career Planning begins reaching out to students in their sophomore year, offering events and workshops that explore the potential impact of major selection, study abroad plans, and summer internships on the achievement of career goals. The next phase emphasizes skill building and includes opportunities for students to network with alumni and parents in key fields. Finally, Career Planning assists students with post-college plans through advising and recruiting on and off campus.
An endowment will provide for additions to our existing programs and the development of an online career planning and networking center. It will allow Career Planning to bring the benefits of alumni and parent connections to more students, in more professions. Ultimately, campaign gifts will give students an edge in post-graduate opportunities by bringing them together with alumni and employers in meaningful ways for career information, internships, and jobs.
Leadership Development
“A Bowdoin education extends beyond the classroom into the residence halls, dining halls, playing fields, student organizations, community service and internship arenas, and the Maine outdoors. By thoughtfully building and investing in a vibrant co-curricular life, we further define who we are and what it is that makes this experience such a special and enduring one. The investments we make now in those areas will distinguish us and provide the formative opportunities for the next generation of Bowdoin leaders.”
Tim Foster, Dean of Student Affairs
Each year, hundreds of Bowdoin students hike, kayak, climb, bike, and paddle their way to a new sense of confidence, discovery, and purpose through the Bowdoin Outing Club — one of the strongest such programs in the country. Leading and being led by fellow Bowdoin students turns the rugged Maine landscape into an academy of courage, judgment, and camaraderie. Back on campus, Bowdoin offers a striking range of opportunities in music, dance, theater, debate, singing, journalism, student government, and countless clubs—all of them deliberately open to students of all levels of experience and ability. In addition, students are able to participate in the Residential Life leadership development program as part of the College’s emphasis on campus life. These groups are largely student-organized and student-run, allowing room for students to develop and test their own judgment and leadership.
Our goal is to provide budget relief and increased funding for Bowdoin’s Outdoor Leadership Program and to alleviate some of the costs currently absorbed by students in the Bowdoin Outing Club trips program. Additional funding for residential life leadership development will support the largely student organized and student-run leadership program that reinforces the College’s emphasis on campus life.
Serving the Common Good
The concept of the “College and the Common Good” remains a cornerstone of Bowdoin culture today and a driving force behind many alumni and student activities. In recent years, the College has taken significant steps to acknowledge these efforts. In 1994, the Common Good Award was established, and in 1999, Common Good Day was established – a day every autumn when students, faculty, and staff, as well as alumni across the nation, come together for a day of service in their communities. Now, the College is poised to establish a Center for the Common Good, which will aim to advance the legacy of service by formally funding and stabilizing programs that offer students rich opportunities for intellectual and personal growth, and to enhance learning both inside and outside the classroom through community engagement and leadership opportunities. New initiatives supported by a Center for the Common Good will strengthen existing community service programs and offer new initiatives such as summer internships and alternative spring break programs, which have grown in popularity in recent years.