To Those Who Give

Each year, the McKeen Center team highlights a few individuals who stand out for the positive impacts they've had on the communities around them. 

This is a tough job because there so many people at Bowdoin and in greater Brunswick who are committed to improving lives and serving others, noted McKeen Center director Sarah Seames.

“We find all of our recipients here so inspirational,” she said at the award ceremony, “and this is just a sampling of what our students and our community partners are doing, day in and day out. We're just lucky. We're very, very lucky to work with the students we do and the community partners we do.” 

2025 McKeen Center Awardees

Luna Jiang-Qin ’25 and Brian Liu ’25, Lydia Bell Award for Initiative in Public Service

For four years, Jiang-Qin and Liu have contributed to the Alternative Spring Break (ASB) program. They began by participating on a trip their first year, followed by leading a trip together their sophomore year focusing on the housing crisis in San Francisco.

Though Jiang-Qin worked as the sole ASB program coordinator her junior year while Liu studied abroad, they reunited their senior year to lead as student coordinators. Together, they “brought back international trips to the program for the first time since the pandemic,” said Tim Wylie, McKeen Center associate director of student leadership and community engagement.

This year, the two prize winners trained and mentored a cohort of peers to lead trips, and led two trips to Guatemala and Belize. “These two artfully demonstrated the balance of co-leadership, collaboration, and expansion of the ASB program to create success,” Wylie said.

Arlenys Soler ’25, Spirit of Service Award

“Arlenys’ capacity for engagement seems to know no bounds as she has continued her journey at Bowdoin,” Seames said. 

Soler joined the Common Good Grant program for two years to help satisfy her curiosity about the local community, philanthropy, and nonprofits. She participated in both the Student Community Action Network and Bowdoin Public Service (BPS) in Washington. With support from the Winter Break Community Engagement Program, she spent three winter breaks volunteering with “an organization from her home community that had a significant impact on her early life,” Seames said.

As a sophomore, Soler “officially became a student staff member and started running our Common Good project teams,” Seames continued. The program pairs groups of students with community partners.

In this capacity, she worked closely on Brunswick's New Mainer initiative and Welcome Center to organize conversation groups to help refugees and immigrants learn English. 

Khalil Kilani ’25, The Henni Friedlander Student Prize

“Khalil's exploration of the common good has been broad and deep,” said Wendy Van Damme, McKeen Center associate director for public service. As a sophomore, he participated in an ASB trip and received a Global Citizen Fellowship to work with Helping Hands in Peru. 

He has led Bowdoin's Red Cross blood drive, and was selected for the BPS in Washington program. Now one of the leaders of the BPS initiative, Khalil has “strengthened BPS and inspired many students to explore lives of service,” Van Damme added. “His good judgment, thoughtful guidance, and commitment to excellence has made him a steady and visionary presence in the McKeen Center.”

Last summer, Kilani interned at the US State Department's Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, which years ago supported his own family's journey. This work underscore his enduring dedication to the vulnerable among us, Van Damme said, adding, “Khalil has transformed adversity into a source of strength and purpose.”

Alina Dau ’25, The General R.H. Dunlap Prize

In Dau's essay, which won her this prize, she argues that the ideal model of community engagement is a gardener “who creates the conditions for growth without controlling its direction,” read McKeen Center Associate Director Tom Ancona.

Ancona added, “What is clear from Alina's essay and her time at Bowdoin, is that she has lived these ideas to the fullest.”

Dau has worked at the Bowdoin Children's Center and tutored middle school students through the America Reads and America Counts tutoring program. 

“Alina also highlighted her Winter Break Community Engagement Program experience, in December 2023, going back to her home in Louisiana to work with Catholic Charities of Southwest Louisiana’s relief efforts after Hurricane Laura devastated the area, including Alina’s home,” Ancona said.

Community engagement is, Dau writes, “about creating the kinds of environment where people can show up fully, reclaim their agency, and move forward the best versions of themselves.” 

Ruth Olujobi ’25, The General R.H. Dunlap Prize

Olujobi also wrote a prize-winning essay, in which she explains that she tries to emobolden others to help others by her own actions.

With her podcast, Blooming Daily, which attracts listeners from over thirty countries, Olujobi makes the wellness industry more accessible and relatable. She is the founder of Africans at Bowdoin, which provides support for international African students, and of the Arete Sisterhood, which supports women of color.

She also helped organize a semester series, with the Africa Alliance, to examine the conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and our collective responsibility to stop violence and protect victims.

Additionally, since 2022, Olujobi has served as global president for TeenNation Africa, furthering the organization’s mission to provide leadership and empowerment opportunities for young people in Africa. 

“She has served—and she phrased this perfectly in her essay—as 'a mirror of possibility for others, showing them who they can be before they even know it,'” said Megan Birnbaum, department coordinator for the McKeen Center.

Sadie New ’25, The Leadership for the Common Good Award

“Sadie possesses many qualities that set her apart as a leader, including her incredible organizational and communication skills,” said Sam Cogswell, associate director of the McKeen Center. “She has the utmost care for her peers and mentees, and a willingness to engage in difficult conversations with maturity and warmth.”

Over her time at Bowdoin, New mentored young students through the Friends Fostering Leadership in Youth (FFLY) program at Bath Middle School. As a leader of Next Steps, she helped arrange college visits for over 150 local students. She also participated in the McKeen Center's Student Community Action Network (SCAN) program as a junior.

Then, as a senior, she worked as SCAN's program coordinator, co-leading weekly programming with staff and acting “as an integral thought partner for developing curriculum,” Cogswell said.

New was also selected to be the McKeen Center’s Bowdoin Student Government representative, a role she held for two years, committing herself to speak on behalf of the Center and to represent the interests of students engaged with it. 

Associate Professor of Africana Studies and English Tess Chakkalakal, Community Engaged Curriculum Award

In 2021, Chakkalakal partnered with the Maine Maritime Museum for her Introduction to Africana Studies course, in which students collaborated with museum staff to create a new exhibition, "Cotton Town," that explored the city of Bath's relationship to the Atlantic slave trade. 

“That work gave students firsthand experience in learning how a museum grapples with historical stories,” Ancona said. Chakkalakal has continued to incorporate the museum into her classes, and she has joined its board of trustees.

Chakkalakal's successful Dead Writers podcast, about old literary homes, gave her the experience to advise students making their own podcasts. This year, she also facilitated a McKeen Center “What Matters” discussion to examine how Bowdoin portrays its past.

“Through all her work, Tess pushes her students to engage and grapple with our histories, rather than bury them and, through this work, she helps enrich our communities by engaging in our past, present, and future,” Ancona said.

The Town of Brunswick, McKeen Center Community Impact Award

The McKeen Center staff had so much to say about the town and the many ways it supports Bowdoin and its students that it was forced to reduce the font size on its write-up, Seames said. (See below to read the McKeen Center posters for all the awardees.)

“The Town of Brunswick and Bowdoin College have shared a meaningful, reciprocal relationship since the College’s founding,” Seames continued. 

Students regularly intern with town departments, from public works to planning and development. “Town staff
have warmly welcomed students, generously sharing their knowledge, modeling the workings of local government, and offering meaningful opportunities to contribute to the community,” she said.

The town also welcomes Bowdoin students as “full community members,” a quality especially evident during elections, when the town clerk trains students as deputy registrars so they can guide their peers through the voter registration process. 

“Bowdoin students carry forward the lessons they’ve learned from these role models, inspired to become thoughtful and engaged community leaders themselves,” Seames concluded.