Common Good Awards

"Juan P. Bonilla, member of the Class of 1995, you have made it your life’s work to lift up your home community of Lawrence, Massachusetts, and its residents. You have devoted your considerable skills and expertise in personal finance, management, housing, and economic policy, as well as your passion for social justice and economic opportunity, to provide a better life for the diverse low- and moderate-income population you serve.

Born in Puerto Rico, at age nine you moved with your family to Lawrence, where you grew up learning about both the need and opportunity for revitalization in your community. At Bowdoin you majored in sociology and Spanish and were active in several cultural organizations, and you began building on your academic foundation to acquire practical skills that would enable you to be an effective community leader and advocate. While still a student at Bowdoin, you worked as a youth employment training counselor; after graduation you took a job as an assistant grocery store manager; and then you worked as a financial planner and financial services advisor for MassMutual, before you arrived at Lawrence CommunityWorks (LCW) in 2004. You began at LCW as a homeownership counselor, later becoming director of homeownership, then director of the asset building department, and later ascending to your current position as deputy director.

Throughout this time, you have served your community in multiple and significant capacities— volunteering as a member of the Merrimack Valley YMCA board of directors, The Midas Collaborative board of directors, the board of the Massachusetts Association of Community Development Corporations, and the Federal Reserve Bank Community Advisory Council and as a mentor for the Lawrence Boys and Girls Club. You have received certifications from NeighborWorks, the Massachusetts Citizens Housing and Planning Association, Mass Housing, United Way of Mass Bay, the Institute of Nonprofit Management and Leadership, and UnidosUS (formerly the National Council of La Raza), for which you were a national training provider. In 2014, the Lawrence Bar Association honored you with its Liberty Bell Award, recognizing your work “on the forefront of educating families on how to acquire and maintain homeownership successfully,” as well as your advocacy “against the dangers of predatory lending and mortgage fraud.” In 2019, you were named as one of five Neighborhood Fellows of the Tufts University Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning master of public policy program.

Your colleagues have called you “a ferocious and knowledgeable advocate for economic justice and prosperity in our community.” For all that you have done to improve the lives of members of your community—through homeownership, economic counseling, and increased opportunity—we are proud to present you with the 2020 Common Good Award. We join your family, classmates, friends, colleagues, and the people you serve in honoring you."

May 30, 2020

"Jeffrey K. Hom, member of the Class of 2004, while still early in your career in medicine, health care, and public health, you have already made major positive contributions to the lives and health of residents of several domestic and international communities. Your talent, intellect, burgeoning body of experience, and profound commitment to equity and social justice augur what is sure to be an even more significant impact on public health policy and access in the years to come.

You graduated magna cum laude from Bowdoin as a member of Phi Beta Kappa, a Book Award winner, and a Sarah and James Bowdoin Scholar, and you engaged with local schoolchildren as a tutor, mentor, and Big Brother, among many other activities. You earned a master’s in public health and a medical degree from Harvard University, and were selected as a Zuckerman Fellow at Harvard’s Center for Public Leadership. You then earned a master’s degree in health policy at the University of Pennsylvania, as well as a presidential scholarship for AcademyHealth’s Institute on Advocacy and Public Policy, and were named a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholars Program Fellow.

Now a board-certified internist, you serve as a policy advisor in the Philadelphia Department of Public Health, and you were named a fellow of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia.

In 2018, you were selected as a Presidential Leadership Scholar. Your work on access to treatment and overdose prevention for people suffering from substance abuse and addiction, particularly those who are members of underserved populations, has benefited residents of such cities and towns as Philadelphia, San Francisco, Boston, and Shiprock, New Mexico, as well as the international communities of Lesotho and Cambodia. You also have served as a member of the Philadelphia Medical Reserve Corps and have participated in the New Leaders Council. In naming you to its list of young Philadelphia leaders, “Who’s Next,” the publication Billy Penn quoted your nomination, which stated: “He has an obvious drive for people, leadership, and making the world around him better.”

For all that you have done to improve the health of underserved populations struggling with substance abuse and addiction and to advocate for wider access to health care, and for all that you will do to improve public health in this country and around the world, we are proud to present you with the 2019 Common Good Award. We join your family, classmates, friends, and the communities you serve in honoring you."

June 1, 2019

"Viktoria Paulick Keding, member of the Bowdoin Class of 1998, pioneer and leader in the field of environmental education, you have spearheaded a movement in southwestern Africa to equip residents and their communities with the skills and knowledge to understand, appreciate, benefit from, and conserve their unique natural environment.

At Bowdoin you were a standout student, majoring in German and environmental studies and minoring in anthropology, and graduating magna cum laude. George Lincoln Skolfield Jr. Professor of German Emeritus Steven Cerf described you as “dedicated, patient, and centered,” and called you “a true winner.” After graduation you moved to Namibia to volunteer with the environmental education organization WorldTeach, and you have remained in that country, committed to bettering its environment and the lives of its people, ever since. While in Namibia you pursued and earned a master’s degree in sustainable development from the University of London.

In 2003, you cofounded the nonprofit Namib Desert Environmental Education Trust (NaDEET), located in Namibia’s namesake Namib Desert. In your work, you and your staff provide hands-on environmental education designed to foster awareness and appreciation of that ecosystem and to teach and promote  environmentally sustainable skills, practices, and attitudes. You have led the organization since you and your husband founded it, infusing schools and communities throughout Namibia with an understanding of the importance of environmental conservation, and providing these communities with practical experience and tools to better steward their surroundings. NaDEET was selected key partner of the
UNESCO Global Action Programme (GAP) for Education for Sustainable Development (2015-2019).

You have become recognized as an influential and successful leader in the fields of environmental education and sustainability, being named as a Namibian Climate Change Ambassador and receiving the Windhoek Lager Ambassador Conservation Award in 2014. In 2017, you were awarded first place at the
Yves Rocher Fondation-Trophée de FemmesGermany, an award that honors women “who do great things for the environment and work for the common good.”

For your extraordinary contributions to environmental education in your adopted country of Namibia, your impact on the fields of environmental education and conservation worldwide, and your inspiration of students to understand, care for, and protect their natural surroundings, we are proud to present you with the 2018 Common Good Award. We join your family, classmates, friends, and all the many people and communities you have touched in honoring you."

June 2, 2018

"Gerald C. Chertavian of the Class of 1987, founder and CEO of Year Up, among the most influential agents of social change in our country, you have devoted your prodigious talents to providing the resources and opportunities for thousands of underserved young men and women to succeed professionally and personally.

At Bowdoin, you were a Sarah and James Bowdoin Scholar and a member of Phi Beta Kappa, and you graduated summa cum laude with a degree in economics. You have said that your volunteer work as a mentor through the Big Brothers and Big Sisters program was your proudest and most profound experience in college. Two years after your Bowdoin graduation, you were recognized by that program as one of the most outstanding Big Brothers in the state of New York.

Under your leadership, Year Up has continued to thrive, change lives, and effect societal change. The organization has now partnered with over 300 businesses, has opened sites across the country, and serves more than 2,000 young adults each year. Year Up has been widely touted as one of the most influential programs for social change in the United States, being named as one of Philanthropedia’s Top 17 National Nonprofits and being listed among the Social Impact Exchange 100, among many other honors. Your book, A Year Up: Helping Young Adults Move from Poverty to Professional Careers in a Single Year, has been a New York Times bestseller and has been hailed by critics as a “must-read account” of your “groundbreaking employment program.” Said one, simply, “Gerald Chertavian is one of America’s leading pioneers for social change.”

For your impact on the lives of thousands of young men and women, and for your extraordinary efforts as a champion of social progress, we are proud to present you with the 2017 Common Good Award. On behalf of the Board of Trustees, we join your family, classmates, friends, colleagues, and all the many people you have touched and served in honoring you."

June 3, 2017

"Donald J. Krogstad of the Class of 1965, you have devoted your career as a physician and researcher to finding ways to contain and fight malaria, one of the greatest threats to the health of people in the developing world in the modern era. As a student at Bowdoin, you began your lifelong commitment to serving others; then-President LeRoy Greason cited you as the person most responsible for establishing the Big Brother program at the College, a program that is still active today. After graduating from Bowdoin magna cum laude, with highest honors in biology and as a member of Phi Beta Kappa, you earned your M.D. from Harvard Medical School.

From there you went to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, where you worked on parasitic diseases, and in 1973 you joined the Peace Corps as a volunteer physician in Lilongwe, Malawi. After your time in the Peace Corps, you joined the faculty of the Washington University School of Medicine, and in 1992 you took a position with the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine as chair of tropical medicine.

In short order, you were invested as the William Henderson Professor of Tropical Medicine, and in 1998 you were named Director of the Center for Infectious Diseases.

Since your days as a student in medical school, you have been passionate about combating the scourge of malaria in Africa and other parts of the developing world, using your considerable talents to help develop a critical anti-malarial drug, AQ-13, and championing other advances in treatment. You have worked around the world to help control the spread of malaria, and in 2009 you were awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to spend a year in Mali, conducting studies of the drug you developed and training researchers and public health investigators at the University of Bamako.

For your long and ardent commitment to bettering the public health of people in the developing world, as well as your significant contributions to the treatment of malaria and the myriad lives saved and improved by your work, we are proud to recognize you for your service to the Common Good. We join your family, classmates, friends, and all the many people you have touched and served in honoring you. On behalf of the Board of Trustees, we present to you the 2015 Common Good Award."

May 30, 2015

"Mary Ann Villari of the Class of 1975, devoted servant of the College and of homeless and low-income individuals and families, your many talents were evident at graduation when you were awarded both the Class of 1875 Prize in American History and the Bowdoin Film Society Best Cinematography Award, as well as being recognized as magna cum laude, a James Bowdoin Scholar, and having earned departmental high honors. You earned your J.D. degree from Boston University and then practiced law at the firms Sage Gray Todd & Sims, Blank Rome Comisky & McCauley, and Battle Fowler. You served Bowdoin in several important capacities through the years, being elected as an Overseer of the College in 1987 and then as a member of the Board of Trustees, helping to govern the College for twelve years. In 2001, the Bowdoin Alumni Council honored you for your service to the College with the Polar Bear Award.

Also in 2001, you stepped down as a partner at Battle Fowler and left the private practice of law to pursue your greatest passions: community service and social justice. You devoted your legal acumen and real estate and finance expertise to creating housing opportunities and providing vital services for low-income and homeless individuals and families, joining the not-for-profit agency Broadway Housing Communities. In your role as managing director and general counsel of that agency, you have worked with dedication and skill to help improve the conditions and lives of people in the Washington Heights and West Harlem neighborhoods of New York City. With your high-level involvement for nearly half of its three-decade existence, Broadway Housing Communities has provided hundreds of units of affordable housing, along with critical social services, childcare, and cultural opportunities for some of New York’s neediest and most vulnerable residents.

You have devoted your considerable energy, talent, and professional expertise to bettering the lives of an underserved population of women, men, and children in New York City and have made an indelible impact on the people you’ve assisted as well as those with whom you have worked. On behalf of the Board of Trustees, we are proud to present to you the 2015 Common Good Award."

May 30, 2015

"Edwin M. Lee of the Bowdoin Class of 1974, mayor of San Francisco, one of America's greatest cities, your outstanding record of public service epitomizes a life devoted to the Common Good. Born in Seattle into a working-class family of immigrants from China, you brought a keen intellect, a strong work ethic, and the wisdom of lived experiences to Bowdoin in the fall of 1970. At the College you were a James Bowdoin Scholar, a Surdna Foundation Fellow, co-captain of the tennis team, a member of Phi Beta Kappa, and a summa cum laude graduate. A Watson Fellowship allowed you to study the Youth League Movement in China before obtaining a law degree at the Boalt Hall School of Law, University of California, Berkeley. For all the unexpected turns in your life, your commitment to the Common Good and public service has been a lodestar.

As a civil rights lawyer, you advocated for tenant rights and equal employment opportunities for women and minorities, important work that you continued as investigator for San Francisco's Whistle-Blower Ordinance, deputy director of employee relations, and executive director of the Human Rights Commission. In your roles as director of City Purchasing, director of the Department of Public Works, city administrator, interim mayor, and now mayor, you have shown that you know how to make municipal government work. Over the course of your pioneering career, as San Francisco's first Asian-American mayor, you have played a major role in creating the conditions that open doors of opportunity for all citizens. You have a rare gift for finding common ground and enlisting the support of diverse constituencies to solve some of the most difficult issues of the day, and the compassion, efficiency, and modesty that you exhibit in doing so is an inspiration to us all. We share with your family, your classmates, and fellow alumni a deep sense of pride in recognizing you for your extraordinary record of public service. On behalf of the Board of Trustees, we are proud to present to you the 2014 Common Good Award."

May 31, 2014

"Mike Poor of the Class of 1964, business executive and visionary philanthropist, you have been a leader in the establishment of the McKeen Center for the Common Good at Bowdoin, and you continue to seek ways in which the Center and the College might better serve the mission of promoting the common good in the world. Following your graduation from Bowdoin, you earned an MBA at Boston University. You became president of Sunburst Fruit Juices of Salem, Massachusetts, and you were the CEO of its successor company, NORBEV. With your wife, Loel, you established the Forest Foundation, which provides start-up funds to new and emerging non-profit organizations in the Boston area, and which has created life-changing summer internship opportunities for students over the years. The Bowdoin community is deeply grateful to you for your role in establishing the McKeen Center and for your active engagement in the life of the College. The McKeen Center has become a signature program for the College, and your inspired decision to create the Common Good Grant has taught Bowdoin students about the value and the challenges of philanthropy. The Center and the Common Good Grant program have become models that other colleges and universities are beginning to emulate. The internships that you support have expanded the missions of the McKeen Center and the Forest Foundation and are giving students the opportunity to engage in work that improves the lives of others—on local, national, and international levels. These initiatives will spread like amplifying ripples across generations to come. The example of your devotion to the Common Good matches President McKeen's eloquent words with actions. We are proud to share this day with your classmates as they celebrate their 50^th Reunion, with your wife Loel and your daughters Tiffany, Bowdoin class of 1988; Sara, Bowdoin class of 1995; and Elizabeth. On behalf of the Board of Trustees and a grateful College, we are proud to present to you the 2014 Common Good Award."

May 31, 2014

"Jill Shaw Ruddock of the Class of 1977, author, patron of the arts, philanthropist, publisher, and accomplished executive in the world of investments and securities, over the course of your career you have shared generously of your talents, energy, and resources to advance the common good. Your Bowdoin journey began at Northwestern High School in Baltimore, and has included a major in government, membership in the Psi Upsilon fraternity, editorship of The Bugle, a semester at the National Theater Institute in Connecticut, and another semester studying in Vienna, Austria.

Following your graduation, you quickly established yourself in the world of advertising and publishing, launching three new magazines for the Goldhirsch Group and later working as a consultant for The Atlantic Monthly. Your business acumen was recognized at the investment banking and securities brokerage firm of Alex Brown & Sons, where you successively held the positions of vice president, principal, and managing director of the firm's London office. Despite the demands of a busy professional life, you always found the time to serve Bowdoin in important ways, as an overseer of the College from 1991 to 1996 and as a trustee from 1996 to 2000. You and your husband, Paul, established the Shaw Ruddock Museum of Art Fund in 2007, and another gift created the Shaw Ruddock Gallery in the renovated Walker Art Building, enduring legacies for the arts. In London you have given unstintingly of your time and energies as a board member of the American School in London, Donmar Warehouse Projects nonprofit theater, and The Mousetrap Theatre Projects, which afford opportunities for young people with limited resources or disabilities to engage with the world of theater. As a patron of the Royal National Theatre, the Almeida Theatre, and Sadler's Wells Dance House, you have sown the seeds that will yield a bountiful harvest for others.

Your latest endeavor is your first book, The Second Half of Your Life, published in 2010, which addresses the attitudes and issues associated with life after the age of fifty, especially for women. Your book received high critical acclaim, and you seized the opportunity to establish The Second Half Foundation and The Second Half Centre to create a place where women and men over the age of fifty from all socioeconomic circumstances could learn new skills, build social networks, and find ways to make the "second half" of life fulfilling. You understand so well the perspective that graduation marks the beginning, not the end, of an education. On behalf of the Board of Trustees I am proud to present to you the 2012 Common Good Award."

"David Frank Gordon of the Class of 1971, you have applied the lessons and principles of international relations learned over the course of your distinguished career in public service to guide policy decisions on a global scale.  Born in Salem, Massachusetts, you prepared for college at Lynn English High School, and established yourself as a leader at Bowdoin—as editor of The Orient, co-captain of the squash team, and a member of Alpha Delta Phi fraternity. You earned departmental honors as a government major and, during a period of intense scrutiny and debate over United States foreign policy, you demonstrated a remarkable commitment to—and aptitude for—global affairs. After earning a master of arts degree in political science in 1973 and a Ph.D. in political science/economics at the University of Michigan in 1980, you shared your knowledge through a joint faculty appointment at the University of Michigan and Michigan State University and in teaching positions at the College of William and Mary, Princeton University, Georgetown University, and the University of Nairobi in Kenya.

Your keen understanding of the interrelationships of historical, political, economic, ecological, and health issues has made you an indispensable public servant. Few among us have the capacity to see the world's problems from perspectives that transcend national boundaries or have the ability to assess the risks and consequences of policy decisions. In the best traditions of seeking the common good, you have taken on the challenges of the foreign policy arena as program director at the Overseas Development Council, senior staff member for the Foreign Affairs Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, and regional economic policy and democracy advisor for the U.S. Agency for International Development in Kenya. As director of the CIA's Office of Transnational Issues you took on a host of "real world" challenges that defy easy solution, such as illicit finance, insurgency and counterinsurgency, global economics and energy, and HIV/AIDS as a global security threat. Your experience and wise counsel were sought at ever-higher levels of public service. As vice-chair of the National Intelligence Council, you led the NIC's integration into the new Office of the Director of National Intelligence and you played a central role in the preparation of reports on future global trends. In 2007 you were named director of policy planning at the State Department, where your portfolio included strategies for countering violent extremism, the scope of U.S.-China relations, developing State Department policies for Pakistan, and creating the G-20 as a multilateral response to the international financial crisis. Following your retirement from government service as a member of the Senior Intelligence Service of the United States you were awarded the Distinguished Career Intelligence Medal in 2010.

In 2009 you became the head of research and director of policy planning for Eurasia Group, a firm specializing in political risk research and consulting. Through your research, your books and articles on risk management and assessment, and your advice to policy-makers, you embody the spirit of President McKeen's hope that the mental powers of Bowdoin students "be cultivated and improved for the benefit of society." We are proud to share this day with members of your family, alumni, and special guests who have been inspired by your record of public service. On behalf of the Board of Trustees I am proud to present to you the 2011 Common Good Award."

"Peter F. Maguire of the Class of 1962, visionary physician dedicated to the delivery of high-quality healthcare, entrepreneur, and founder and medical director of the Oasis Health Center, we celebrate the spirit and the substance of your accomplishments with the 2007 Common Good Award.  A native of Danbury, Connecticut, you knew at the time of your graduation from high school in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, that your future would be in the field of medicine.

The path to your chosen career led from Bowdoin to McGill University School of Medicine, from which you graduated in 1966.  Following your marriage to Marcy in that year you served an internship at Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal.   Your entry into the U.S. Army in 1967 took you to Vietnam as a captain commanding the 61^st Medical Detachment of the U. S. Army Medical Corps, where you received the Bronze Star and also the Vietnamese Armed Forces Honor Medal for your medical treatment of civilians during the Tet offensive.  You returned to Maine in 1969 from Fort Hood, Texas, and served in the residency program in adult and child medicine at Maine Medical Center until 1971, when you opened a private medical practice in Brunswick.

As a physician you have always sought to improve the delivery of healthcare in your own family practice, first with your pioneering efforts to create and administer Healthsource Maine in the 1980s, the first physician-run health maintenance organization (HMO) in the State of Maine.  Through your insights into the needs of patients and the physicians who treat them, your entrepreneurial creativity, and your administrative skill as its medical director, Healthsource Maine became a model for the delivery of healthcare.  Acting in the spirit of service to the Common Good as described by President McKeen nearly 205 years ago, you continued to seek improvements in health care systems for the benefit of society.  In 1992 you began a healthcare program at a homeless shelter in Brunswick, recognizing that access to medical care was beyond the reach of many who needed it the most.  Your efforts to restore health, dignity, and hope to the homeless have grown into the Oasis Health Center, which serves a broad segment of the population of midcoast Maine who do not have--and cannot afford--medical care for themselves and their families.  The center's mission is "…to provide free, quality health care with dignity, confidentiality, respect and equal access to persons of limited means."  Your understanding of the interpersonal, communications, social, and economic dimensions of the practice of medicine earned you the Maine Medical Association's Humanitarian Domestic Service Award in 2005 and the gratitude of countless patients.

Through the example of your life's work you have inspired – and continue to inspire – the medical community, the Bowdoin family, and society at large to serve the Common Good.  On behalf of the Trustees of Bowdoin College, I am proud to present to you the 2007 Common Good Award."

June 2, 2007

"Kenneth E. Legins, Jr., of the Class of 1992, you have spent nearly half the years of your life as an advocate for the some of the most vulnerable members of the global community.  Your work has exhibited the utmost care and compassion for thousands of people around the world who are often relegated to the outermost margins of society.  The distances you have traveled and the populations you have engaged indicate a remarkable commitment to the Common Good.

Coming to Bowdoin from Stearns High School in Millinocket, Maine, and completing a double major in biology and sociology, you established yourself as a leader during your time at Bowdoin.  You volunteered your time at the Brunswick Hospice Center and at the Maine Juvenile Delinquent Center in Portland, and in 1990 you were one of the founders of Safe Space -- an organization that has not only persevered on campus but has thrived, engaging dozens of students each year who serve as a support system for victims of sexual harassment and sexual abuse.

Your professors and mentors at Bowdoin recall your great interest in serving the Common Good.  As a student it was clear that you were “thinking about science as a way to improve people’s lives.”  One professor recalls being impressed that “a kid from the middle of Maine” could possess such passion for tackling some of our society’s most difficult issues.

After earning your Master of Public Health at the Yale University School of Medicine, your dedication to those most in need of help has led you across America and across the world.  You have been an HIV/AIDS counselor in inner-city Atlanta and have counseled HIV-positive inmates in Connecticut prisons; you have worked toward treating and preventing tuberculosis in the immigrant population in New York; you have traveled to Russia and other parts of eastern Europe to assist children living with or orphaned by AIDS and worked with refugee women and children in Albania during the war in the Balkans; and you are now the Chief of UNICEF’s HIV/AIDS Programme in the world’s most populous country, the People’s Republic of China.  Those who know you recognize that your work is “so much more than just a job.”

Kenneth E. Legins, Jr., for your fearless and selfless endeavors to serve those who might otherwise be forgotten, we are proud to present you with the 2006 Common Good Award."

"Sue E. Marsh of the Class of 1982, for twenty years you have been a clear and powerful voice for those who often do not have one.  You have devoted yourself to the poor and homeless in Boston and throughout Massachusetts, becoming a well-respected advocate for issues that all too often are avoided or easily ignored.  A colleague has said you have an "absolutely unwavering sense of justice for poor people" and others who are marginalized.

Arriving at Bowdoin from Connecticut, you majored in government and were a member of Alpha Rho Upsilon.  After graduating magna cum laude, you enrolled in Boston University, earning a master's degree in public policy.  You began work helping Boston-area families find affordable housing and in 1986 joined the Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless.  In your 13 years with the statewide agency, the last eleven of which you served as executive director, you led important statewide and local campaigns to help the homeless gain access to public and subsidized housing.  You are widely respected among Massachusetts legislators, with a reputation for tenaciously representing those whose needs all too easily are ignored.

In 1998, you joined Rosie's Place, the first emergency and drop-in shelter in the nation for homeless and poor women.  Rosie's Place serves more than 1,000 women each year, providing emergency shelter, housing, hot meals, a food pantry and food cooperative, job training, and advice to women in need, many of whom are struggling not only with homelessness, but also with language, mental-health, or addictive issues.  Your commitment to your clients is steadfast.  "[Rosie's Place] operates on a philosophy of unconditional love," you once told a reporter.  "We accept every woman who comes through our door. . . and strive to walk along her path with her.  They come to Rosie's Place because they know that whatever they need, we will fight like crazy to get it."

Your legislative expertise and trademark pragmatism were key to your successful effort to improve the way food stamps are distributed within the Commonwealth.  Your work within the agency itself has strengthened its advocacy program, ensuring that counselors can build and maintain relationships with clients at various stages of their work to overcome homelessness.

Agencies seek your leadership, and you have answered when called to serve, whether as a member of the mayor of Boston's Homeless Planning Committee, or as a board member of the Greater Boston Food Bank and Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless.  Your work has been justly recognized, and you have been named Public Citizen of the Year by the National Association of Social Workers and Outstanding Advocate by the Massachusetts Human Services Committee.

Sue E. Marsh, it is with pride and gratitude for your devotion to women in need, and your ability to speak for those who often have no voice, that we present you with the 2004 Common Good Award."

June 5, 2004

"Dr. Samuel Berry Broaddus of the Class of 1973, you have selflessly given your time and expertise to serve patients and physicians the world over.  For years, you have traveled great distances to provide much-needed care to people in some of the world's poorest countries.  You travel with medical equipment and supplies, all donated due to your artful and impassioned persuasion. On several trips, you have remained for weeks and months at a time, training other doctors to use life-saving tools and skills.

A native of Westbrook, Maine, you were an active student at Bowdoin. You participated in track and football, served as a DJ for WBOR, and worked at your fraternity, Psi Upsilon, to support yourself during your years here. While at Bowdoin, you served as a tutor and teacher's aide in the Brunswick Public Schools.  Upon graduating cum laude, you enrolled in the University of Vermont College of Medicine and completed an internship and residency at the Virginia Mason Hospital in Seattle, Washington. You returned to Medical Center Hospital of Vermont, where you served as a chief resident and were named Resident of the Year by the University.

In 1982, you began an 18-month journey that took you to St. Lucia, Egypt, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. You traveled with donated medical equipment and financed your trip with personal monies and through donations from local churches. In each locale, you spent months living and working with local surgeons, teaching them how to use the urological equipment you brought. You improved the quality of care for hundreds of patients, who could, for the first time, be diagnosed and treated using non-invasive procedures. Your training of local physicians ensured that the treatments would continue well after you departed.

Since 1994, you have traveled frequently to Haiti on the rough roads from the Port-Au-Prince airport to Albert Schweitzer Hospital in Deschappelles.  On each trip, you brought with you a footlocker filled with gloves, masks, antibiotics, and catheters. You spent your days providing urological care and surgeries in a region where such care is rare and inconsistent. Hearing of your visit, patients traveled for days to the hospital, often on foot or by donkey, to receive care.  Working with translators, you frequently saw as many as 50 patients a day. You have made these trips family affairs, traveling with your wife, Sandra, and children, Nathan and Hannah. You have instilled in them the value of service, and your children have organized clothing drives, cared for children in a local orphanage, and once assisted you in the operating room.

A colleague said you have always given of yourself, strengthened by your faith and interest in world cultures. Last year, Vietnam became your latest humanitarian destination. Your international work has earned you well-deserved recognition, including an award from the Pan-African Urological Surgeons' Association for "helping to bring urology to the doorstep of the underprivileged in Africa." In 1991, you received the Westbrook High School Alumni Award. You also serve your local community as an advisory board member for Two Roads Maine, a wilderness retreat for those with life-threatening illnesses.

Samuel Broaddus, it is with great pride, and an even greater sense of admiration for your commitment to teaching and healing, that we present you with the 2003 Common Good Award."

May 31, 2003

"Mark R. Swann, from your days as a student at Bowdoin, you have embodied the spirit of the Common Good. In Boston and Portland, you have advocated for the services needed by those who have nowhere else to turn. You have nourished those who are hungry and enriched your community in your work with countless non-profit agencies who seek your counsel.

At Bowdoin, you majored in history, played rugby and were a member of Delta Sigma fraternity. A campus friends recalls you as one “who takes on big problems and isn’t afraid to get down to it. [He] takes the bull by the horns and gets done what needs to be done.” Following graduation, you continued to take on difficult assignments, working for the International Institute of Boston coordinating resettlement services for Ethiopian refugees. In 1989, after earning a master’s degree in public affairs from the University of Massachusetts at Boston, you became the institute’s director of social services, coordinating the myriad needs of refugees, including social services, victim assistance, and a food pantry.

You moved to Portland and continued to change lives, serving as director of a breakfast service for the homeless. Shortly after you arrived, you realized that the many services for the homeless were scattered throughout the city and differed greatly in mission and purpose. In a short period of time, you created a one-stop, barrier-free service center, the Preble Street Resource Center, which serves the needs of Portland’s homeless. Today, and every day, the center’s programs – a health clinic, soup kitchen, food pantry and teen center -- serve nearly 300 homeless and low-income people in Portland. In 1998, seeing a need to provide employment training, you created Stone Soup Foods, which trains Preble Street clients in the culinary arts, selling soups, stocks and sauces to visitors to a restaurant and Portland’s Public Market. Preble Street and Stone Soup now serve as national models of providing homeless services.

Despite your many professional obligations, you have found the time to volunteer, whether assisting Russian and Ethiopian immigrants, as a director of the Maine Coalition for the Homeless of the York-Cumberland Housing Co., or as a youth league basketball coach. While you are self-effacing and devoted to family, others have recognized your good work. Among your many honors, you won the Portland Rotary Club’s first annual Paul Harris Fellow Award for Community Service in 1993 and the U.S. Mayor’s End Hunger Award in 1995. Your friends say you give so much of yourself because of your deep conviction that you can help those in need; this you have done with remarkable dedication and success.

It is with great pride and an even greater sense of admiration for your commitment to the lives of homeless and low-income residents of Maine that we present to you the 2001 Common Good Award."

June 2, 2001

"Edward J. Guen, cum laude graduate of the Class of 1949, tireless advocate and organizer for the Chinese-American community in Boston, devoted husband and father, accomplished scientist, and longstanding volunteer on behalf of the College, the spirit of the Common Good flows strong in your veins.

You have earned distinction in two demanding careers simultaneously--as a research metallurgist and as a community organizer.  After earning a master's degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1950 and a doctorate in chemistry from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1954, you embarked on a distinguished career as manager of research and development for the National Research Corporation and Norton Metals Division.  You have advanced the frontiers of knowledge through scientific publications, patents, and your leadership in the research community.

Throughout your life you have embodied a devotion to family, a commitment to community, and a work ethic that is second to none.  For more than 35 years, in the roles of president, chair, director, trustee, or board member, you have led grassroots organizations committed to education, health care, and community development within the Chinese-American community in Boston.  If actions speak louder than words, then your voice must be very loud indeed.  You were the first American-born president of the Kwong-Kow Chinese Language School for children; one of the founders of a bicultural nursing home which offers Chinese and American meals, language, and recreational activities; board chair of Action for Boston Community Development (ABCD), a non-profit, anti-poverty agency of the City of Boston; and chair of the Chinese Economic Development Council and the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association's Scholarship Committee.  The Bowdoin Club of Boston, the Alumni Council, BASIC, the Planned Giving Program and the Class of 1949 have also been beneficiaries of your volunteer efforts.

This extraordinary record of service is rooted in ideals--about family, community, and integrity--ideals that you, your brothers, and sisters learned from your mother, Toy Len Guen, and that you and Amy have passed on to your children and grandchildren."

It is an honor to present to you the Common Good Award for 1999.

June 5, 1999

"Sven B. Hamrell, member of the Bowdoin Class of 1948, throughout your career, you have played a pivotal role in communicating issues and problems facing Third World countries. You are a senior advisor to the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation, where he served 30 years as exexcutive director. You have also served as director of the Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, a member of the Commission on Aid to African Refugees, a member of the Swedish Government Committee on Humanitarian Aid, and chair of the Rural Advancement Foundation International. Your work has helped resolve problems of health, housing, education, employment, and the effect of biotechnology on agriculture in developing countries. You work has led to reform in the United Nations and in setting policy for international development.

A native of Sweden, you graduated cum laude from Bowdoin in 1947. You spent two years studying political science at the New School of Social Research in New York City upon graduation, and later enrolled in Uppsala University, where you received a degree in political science and philosophy in 1956."

June 4, 1998

"Andrew J. Reicher, your vitally important work as an advocate for the right of New York City's low-income people to safe and affordable housing has benefited thousands of the city's residents, providing them not only with shelter, but with the skills required to oversee the operation of their housing cooperatives.

A member of the Class of 1977, you graduated from Bowdoin with honors and earned a master of architecture degree at the University of California at Berkeley.  As a Vista volunteer and consultant in Bronx, New York, from 1974-1976, you provided support in the rehabilitation and management of tenant-run buildings, and directed a program that developed and built community parks and playgrounds associated with those buildings.  After two years in California, spent primarily as a teaching assistant for UC Berkeley's Department of Architecture at the College of Environmental Design and as a project coordinator and director of their Center for Planning and Development Research, you returned to New York to join the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board.

Founded in 1973, UHAB is New York City's "oldest and most respected" non-profit organization dedicated to assisting low-income people in obtaining the basic right to decent and affordable housing.  UHAB embraces a philosophy of self-help and democratic decision-making, and provides technical assistance and bilingual training through classes, site visits, training manuals, and other printed materials for residents of low-income housing cooperatives so that they may develop the skills to maintain and manage the buildings in which they live.

Since 1981, you have led the extraordinary work of UHAB as its executive director.  During that time, you have overseen the substantial growth of the organization, moving it from the single function of homesteading to offering a broad range of programs and technical assistance, and urging it to pursue greater gender and racial diversity.  Over 1,000 buildings, containing more than 20,000 units, are now tenant-owned due to the efforts of UHAB.  Nor does your commitment stop there.  You are Founding Chairman, a member of the Board of Directors, and a volunteer for the Green Guerrillas, a non-profit organization that works to build and preserve green space all over New York City by turning abandoned lots into gardens.  In addition, to name a few of your auxiliary activities, you are president of City Limits Magazine, treasurer of Community Assisted Tenant Controlled Housing, representative to the Task Force on City-Owned Property, and a member of the Bar Association of New York's Ad Hoc Committee on the Legal Problems of the Homeless.

Your seemingly endless energy, your commitment to the principles of self-help and the empowerment of the individual, and your belief that people can each make a valuable contribution to effect change in their neighborhoods and communities, makes you a role model for those with whom you work and, indeed, for all of us.  It is for these qualities, which you employ each day in your continued efforts to help others help themselves, and for your achievements, that Bowdoin is proud to honor you with the 1997 Common Good Award."

May 31, 1997

"Lisa A. McElaney, your important work as an award-winning filmmaker has brought to the screen vital issues dealing with the health of women, children, and the family.  A member of the Bowdoin Class of 1977, you earned a master of fine arts degree at Columbia University's School of Arts and have served on the faculties of Bowdoin and Tufts University. As founder and president of Vida Health Communications, Inc., in Cambridge, Mass., you have enlightened your varied audiences on such important topics as maternal and infant care, child development, women and addiction, teen pregnancy, and parenthood, and your work has been built into the curricula of most public health and parent education programs in the United States.

While film is your preferred medium, you have never hesitated to use other means to communicate your message. You have written for health care providers, designed training programs for nurses and midwives, conducted luncheon workshops for working parents at corporations in and around Boston, and have taught parents and childcare professionals as a member of the faculty of the T. Berry Brazelton National Seminar Series.

As a senior at Bowdoin, you took your first steps toward a career in filmmaking by producing the award-winning film Pattern Grace about an elderly man's life on the coast of Maine.  It was the first of many awards to come. To date, your work has been honored by the American Film and Video Festival, the National Educational Film and Video Festival, and the American Medical Film Festival. You have received three CINE Golden Eagle awards and two Parents' Choice awards for programs you have written, produced and / or directed.  In 1990, you received a Rotary International Fellowship to study the status of maternal and child health in South India, where you shot over 22 hours of videotape documenting successful grassroots polio immunization campaigns spearheaded by volunteer business people.

Despite a prodigious schedule as filmmaker and teacher &mbdash; not to mention wife and mother of two -- you have been able to "indulge a love of teaching each summer by working with young film students at Bowdoin's Upward Bound Program." What you call an indulgence is undoubtedly an educational high point for these students as they aspire to continued learning and personal growth.

Your selfless work on behalf of women, children, and families, coupled with your devotion to those who would gain much from learning your craft, puts you among an important list of Bowdoin graduates who have realized the ideals set forth by President Joseph McKeen. Your college is proud to honor your exceptional accomplishments and your continued dedication to others with the Common Good Award for 1996."

June 1, 1996

"Robert Ives, you and your wife Ruth have made a tremendous difference in the lives of many people – whether they be neighbors whose homes need repair, young men and women searching for direction in their lives, persons seeking a warm meal and temporary shelter, parishioners looking for guidance, or the people you encounter each day.  Making your home in Pemaquid, Maine, you have chosen a simple, spiritual life dedicated to helping others.

With deep family ties to Bowdoin and to the ministry, you grew up in Connecticut and Massachusetts.  At Bowdoin, you were a Dean's List student, a varsity athlete, and class president, and also participated in organizations for civil rights and the disadvantaged.  After divinity school at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, you returned to Maine.  You and Ruth began your ministry on Monhegan Island, and later served congregations at Loud's Island, Sheepscot Village, New Harbor and Round Pond.

In 1978, you started the Carpenter's Boatshop in Pemaquid, an original and highly personal approach to Christian ministry which continues today.  At your home in Pemaquid, up to seven apprentices live with your family, share meals, discuss spiritual matters, pray, live simply, and work hard.  With care and compassion you help your apprentices address their problems and gain new skills and inspiration.  You train them to construct beautiful, hand-crafted wooden boats; you involve them in community service; and you help them build a sense of fellowship, teamwork, and self-worth.  You generously devote any surplus from sales of the boats to help the needy.  A beacon for the community, the Boatshop is also a resource for neighbors, a shelter for those in need, and a chapel for weekly worship.

In your work, your home, your calling, and your personal life you exemplify the ideals set forth by President Joseph McKeen.  Bowdoin is proud to honor your exceptional accomplishments and your lifelong dedication to others with the Common Good Award."

"William Christie, you have made a significant personal commitment to the education of deserving young people.  Despite the challenges of your profession as a trial attorney, you have traveled to Jamaica, Barbados, and throughout New England to identify students of color and young people with physical disabilities who are worthy of a college education.  You have taken these young men and women under your wing to ensure their completion of a four-year degree at St. Michael's and Bowdoin Colleges, serving as a mentor, guidance counselor, financial advisor, and friend.

Bill, your commitment to these students has been admirably enduring and meaningful, continuing for these young people through their graduate school experiences, as they have located full-time employment, and even longer.  For this wonderful service to humanity and to the common good, Bowdoin College is proud to present you with one of its highest honors, the Common Good Award."

"William Holmes, you have committed your life to education and community service, and in recognition of this, Bowdoin College is honored to present you with the Common Good Award.

Since graduating from Bowdoin, you have served as an untiring volunteer and counselor for numerous community organizations. As volunteer executive director of the Grace Gospel Church and emergency relief counselor for Edwin Gould Services for Children, you have given of yourself to your own home community. As program director for New York City Councilman Foster's Substance Abuse Program and for the 16th Councilman Youth Council programs conducted by the Supportive Children's Advocacy Network, and through your work at the Mullaly Center, you have diligently served the people of the South Bronx. As a teacher, trustee, and friend, you have supported many educational institutions, including Prep for Prep, the Collegiate School for Boys, and our very own Bowdoin College.

Your work has been recognized by the N.A.A.C.P., the City of New York, and the hundreds of families that you have served. It is now Bowdoin College's honor to present you with one of its highest honors, the Common Good Award."

June 4, 1994

"Thomas Roulston, Bowdoin College is proud to honor you during this bicentennial year for your exceptional service to the common good.

As co-founder and president of City Stage Company, Boston, you have focused your life's work on the value of theater in promoting racial and ethnic tolerance.  You have effectively used drama, role-playing, and interactive video with at-risk youth as a means of dispelling fear and prejudice.  Your creative exhibitions and videos have been used at museums and cultural centers nationwide.  Through arts education in public schools, daycare centers, social service agencies, churches, and arts organizations throughout the greater Boston area, you have made a significant impact on the lives of thousands of children.

As a producer you brought M.L.K.:  We  Are The Dream, a tribute to Martin Luther King, to a national audience.  Through all of your work, you have promoted hope, dignity, and self respect to an increasingly challenged society.  It is an honor for your alma mater to recognize your contributions by presenting you with one of Bowdoin's highest honors, the Common Good Award."

June 4, 1994

"Ellen Baxter, for seven years you have served as director of program development in supported housing for the Community Service Society in New York City and changed the lives of hundreds of homeless people.  In recognizing your unwavering service to humanity, Bowdoin College is honored to present you with the Common Good Award.

The New York Times has recognized your leadership role in the development of permanent housing for over 220 people in Washington Heights, housing that costs nearly half of what is spent on the city's government-supported shelters, yet which is well-maintained, staffed, and supported by outreach teams working to identify would-be tenants.  You have been characterized as having the "instincts of a street fighter and the tenacity of a badger," in light of your untiring negotiations with neighborhood leaders and politicians.  And yet, your commitment to "basic dignity and a place in daily life" forever pervades.  It is an honor for your alma mater to recognize your achievements by presenting you with one of Bowdoin's highest honors, the Common Good Award."

June 4, 1994

"Geoffrey Canada, you have been referred to as "one of the truly special leaders of our day," and, in recognition of your unwavering service to children and community, Bowdoin College is honored to present you with the Common Good Award.

Beginning with your own childhood in the South Bronx, you have lived with a special sensitivity and commitment to the needs of disadvantaged children.  After completing degree programs at Bowdoin and Harvard, you applied your energies and your concern for oppression to your work with children as a camp director for the emotionally and physically disadvantaged, as a teacher, and as a health care provider.  In 1983, you returned to New York to begin what has become a lasting relationship with the Rheedlen Centers for Children and Families.  Now Rheedlen's chief executive officer, you bring a sense of respect and care to more than 2,000 children in Harlem, Manhattan Valley, and Hell's Kitchen.  You have been highly recognized for your abilities and serve as the eastern regional coordinator for the Black Children's Crusade of the Children's Defense Fund.  In December 1992, you received the Hero's Award from the Robin Hood Foundation in New York.  It is an honor for your alma mater to recognize your achievements by presenting you with one of Bowdoin's highest honors, the Commmon Good Award."

October 15, 1993

"Barbara Hendrie, your work as a public information officer with Oxfam America led you to Africa, where you have remained for nearly ten years supporting famine relief efforts and helping those in need.  You have served as a field monitor for the emergency relief efforts of Interfam in the famine-stricken Horn of Africa.  For four years, you stationed yourself in Khartoum, Sudan, traveling across the border to Eritrea and Tigre, where Africa's longest war disrupted humanitarian assistance to famine victims.  Throughout this time you put your own life at risk to ensure that those in need received the food and supplies intended for them.  Recognizing that you could do still more, you entered the University of London to obtain a master's degree in social anthropology, which you have earned with distinction, concentrating on humanitarian aid in conflict zones.  Presently at work on your Ph.D., you have returned to the Horn of Africa to conduct field work, studying coping and survival mechanisms used by Tigrean people in times of drought, famine, and other disaster.  With support from Save the Children, Oxfam United Kingdom, and Norwegian Peoples Aid, your work is sure to bring great benefit to many.

Barbara, it was with you in mind that the idea of the Common Good Award was originally conceived by your former classmate, Cynthia McFadden.  It is an honor for your alma mater to recognize your achievements by presenting you with one of Bowdoin's highest honors, the Common Good Award."

October 15, 1993

"Albert Babcock, Bowdoin College is proud to honor you during this bicentennial year for your exceptional service to the common good.

A specialist in plastic and reconstructive surgery, you entered the medical field so that you could be of help to others.  You have done so by your extensive volunteer medical service to the disadvantaged, both in places far away and within your own community.  As one of your colleagues has said of you, "The tremendous good that Dr. Babcock has accomplished is immeasurable and serves as a definite manifestation of his inherent desire to provide meaningful and caring service for all patients."

Since the early 1970s, you have donated your professional service to Project Hope, providing surgical care to people in need in remote areas of North Africa and Tunisia for two months in 1970 and for a similar period of time along the Amazon River in Brazil in 1973.  Continuing the work of Project Hope through your association with Esperanca, Inc., you have returned to Brazil for two-week periods six more times -- in 1977, 1980, 1982, 1986, 1990, and most recently in 1992.  For this commitment you have been justly honored by Esperanca.  It is now Bowdoin's honor to recognize your sustained commitment to health and human dignity by presenting you with one of its highest honors, the Common Good Award."

October 15, 1993