Independent Studies and Honors Projects

In the fall of 2020, four students worked together on a final project for Professor David Hecht’s interdisciplinary seminar, “Health, Culture, and Society.” For their project, Basmattie Dookie ’21, Emma Hahesy ’22, Joanna Lin ’22, and Hikmah Okoya ’21 decided to write and illustrate a children’s book entitled Coronavirus Heroes: Life During a Pandemic, which centers around a young girl who learns to use healthy coping mechanisms to deal with the isolation of the pandemic. Their collective experience working with children along with material from their seminar helped the group recognize the importance of having accessible information about the pandemic for children, many of whom found themselves confused and upset after COVID-19 upended their lives.

After their course had concluded, these students found a pro bono editor who wanted to help them publish and distribute copies of Coronavirus Heroes. They applied for the Ladd Fund to cover the costs of publishing 120 copies of their book to donate to schools in the greater Brunswick community, as well as to list on Amazon to generate proceeds for future printings. To make it accessible beyond the Brunswick community, they also made the book available as a free PDF. By putting their book out into the world, they hope to help children better cope with the pandemic and the emotional strains it put on them.

An article published by the Portland Press Herald on Coronavirus Heroes can be found here.

Over the course of the Spring 2021 Semester, Mohamed Kilani ’21 and Norell Sherman ’21 worked with Kate Furbish Elementary School in Brunswick as part of the Multilingual Mainers program developed by Professor Margaret Boyle of the Romance Languages and Literatures department. Since 2017, this program has placed Bowdoin students in local elementary schools to increase language exposure for children between Kindergarten and 2nd Grade.

Building on the existing work of Multilingual Mainers, Mo and Norell took part in an independent study with Professor Boyle, where the two used tools from the Diverse Book Finder developed at Bates College to better understand the representation of BIPOC narratives at Kate Furbish’s library. This stemmed from Mo and Norell recognizing the importance of diverse narratives, and especially bilingual picture books, in creating more tolerant students. When they identified the ways that the library’s catalogue fell short, they worked with the Diverse Book Finder’s catalogue to find and purchase 250 engaging, quality children’s books that provided more meaningful representation.

An article published by Bowdoin College on Mo and Norell's project can be found here.

For her Honors Project in the Mathematics Department, Kathryn McGinnis ’21 looked back on her time in the McKeen Center’s Bowdoin Public Service program during her sophomore and junior years, where she worked as a research assistant for the Licking County Coalition for Housing. Her work with this organization, which is based in Licking County, Ohio, exposed her to the ways that the size of a homeless population is estimated, and how traditional “Point In Time” estimates only capture about a third of the nation’s actual homeless population. Such drastic underestimates often lead to the underfunding of programs that assist homeless populations from the federal government. Knowing this, Kathryn was inspired to work on an Honors Project with Professor James Broda with a goal of proposing a new methodology to provide better estimates of the homeless population in Licking County’s largest city, Newark.

McGinnis studied the “Capture Recapture” method for population estimates, which is derived from an 1802 method to estimate the population of France. To make this methodology accessible to community organizations across the country, McGinnis developed a resource guide on how to use this methodology to capture data on their own communities.  In May, shared her guide with the community partners she had worked with in Licking County and ran a Zoom workshop to walk them through how to use the tool.

An article published by Bowdoin College on Kathryn's project can be found here.

For her Honors Project in the Environmental Studies Department, senior Lily McVetty decided to turn her sights towards her hometown of Rockland, Maine. This town, situated in the West Penobscot Bay about an hour from Brunswick, is one of many rural Maine towns that is facing impending sea level rise along with other dangers from climate change. However, as towns like Rockland work to face these challenges, the needs of lower-income, BIPOC, and year-round residents, who are already disproportionately affected by climate change, often go overlooked by local government in favor of wealthier seasonal residents. 

Observing this cycle inspired McVetty to do her Honors Project with Professor Eileen Johnson. In this project, she worked to use the Equity Framework developed by the University of Maine’s Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions to help assess how to best serve all residents of Rockland. To better understand her research questions, McVetty conducted a series of interviews with Rockland’s year-round residents, including small businesses and fishermen and -women. Upon completing her Honors Project, she shared her findings with a Rockland City Councilor.

An article published by Bowdoin College on Lily's project can be found here.

For his honors thesis, Alex traced the history of Portland's Bayside neighborhood. An environmentally- and socially-marginalized development, it was constructed with little or no involvement of local residents and without consideration of its environmental impact. For its entire existence, Bayside, this small neighborhood on the fringe of downtown Portland, has been a few streets to pass through rather than a destination deserving patronage or support. Having collected historical data through archives and interviews with city planners, activists, and community members, Alex suggested that to reverse the mistakes of the past and solidify Bayside as a community of worth and intrigue, those who seek changes to Bayside's landscape must acknowledge and contextually understand the neighborhood's layered history and genuinely seek to include its residents in their plans for the future.

Community Partners: Bayside Neighborhood residents and stakeholders