The Oak Foundation has awarded a grant in support of the creation and installation of an Inuksuk in front of the College’s new John and Lile Gibbons Center for Arctic Studies. Inuksuit (plural of Inuksuk) are stone formations shaped in the likeness of a person that were erected to serve as wayfinding structures for Inuit communities and have become a symbol of Inuit culture, resilience, and survival. Puta Irnik, a highly respected Inuk artist, will create the Inuksuk for installation at Bowdoin.
Continuing its eleven year partnership with Bowdoin, the Mellam Family Foundation has renewed its support for the Funded Internship Program offered by the Office of Career Exploration and Development. The grant will support two talented students who wish to pursue work in government or business during the summer months, allowing them to explore career opportunities and cultivate lifelong aspirations they may not have otherwise.
The Mellon Foundation has renewed its support for Bowdoin’s Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Program (MMUF). Aiming to increase diversity in the faculty of institutions of higher learning, this program offers two years of mentoring and preparation for a PhD program for promising Bowdoin students from historically underrepresented backgrounds interested in the humanities. Four Bowdoin MMUF alums accepted tenure-track positions last year at Connecticut College, Georgia Tech, Harvard, and Rutgers University.
The Wyeth Foundation for American Art has awarded a grant in support of the upcoming exhibition – and specifically, its accompanying catalogue – at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art titled The Monhegan Wildlands: Artists, Ecologists, and the Resilience of a Maine Island. On view December 2024 through early June 2025, The Monhegan Wildlands will bring together artworks, objects and representations of ecological inquiry, and historical and contemporary documents and photographs to chart forest conversion and recovery on Monhegan Island.