This year, Bowdoin is turning its core values into practice by creating spaces where disagreement is civil, curiosity is expected, and community is the common ground.
From debate formats that date back more than two centuries to newly imagined series of talks and community conversations, campus programming has centered curiosity, dialogue across difference, and a commitment to the common good.
Early this semester, two student groups, the Bowdoin College Conservatives and Combating Hate and Antisemitism Initiative (CHAI), brought October 7: The Play to Pickard Theater. This verbatim theater piece, drawn entirely from interviews with eyewitnesses and survivors of the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack in Israel, was previously staged at Princeton and UCLA. The performance invited reflection and emphasized remembrance, drawing a crowd filled with students, faculty, community members, and alumni who lingered long after the play ended to engage in conversations with the actors, producers, and one another.
Today’s students are carrying forward Bowdoin’s longest-running forum for civil disagreement. During Homecoming Weekend, the Peucinian Society marked its 220th anniversary, drawing dozens of alumni from the 1960s through the 2020s back to campus to join current students for the celebration. Founded in 1805, the Peucinian Society is one of the nation’s foremost literary societies and Bowdoin’s oldest student organization. The event honored the society’s tradition of weekly disputations on statesmanship, culture, and political thought, a practice that has trained generations of students in the art of civil disagreement and thoughtful debate for more than two centuries.
Throughout the semester, Bowdoin’s Viewpoint Exchange series has offered campus talks and interactive sessions on issues including antisemitism, Islamophobia, and the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. The program is part of President Safa Zaki’s initiative to strengthen our community’s capacity for constructive engagement around complex and challenging issues, modeling respect for different experiences and a spirit of curiosity. These events invert the typical format: a speaker’s talk is followed by a community dinner, providing a forum for meaningful conversation over a shared meal. The series will continue throughout the academic year.
Beyond the stage and lecture halls, community-building has been on the move—literally. An innovative addition to the McKeen Center’s What Matters series, the new Walk & Talk initiative encourages people with differing beliefs and values to explore issues together. Participants are paired for short hikes in the Bowdoin Pines, with a set of prompts and the promise of hot cocoa and donuts upon return. Topics include economic inequality, immigration, climate change and responsibility, and free speech and campus expression. The prompts suggest shifts from personal experience to national and global politics, returning to individual reflection, practicing cross-differences discussion in real time.
Whether through theatrical performances, formal debates, facilitated dialogues, or walks in the woods, Bowdoin is teaching what it takes to live and lead together: creating spaces where students practice the skills of active listening, civil disagreement, and meaningful connection.
Early this semester, two student groups, the Bowdoin College Conservatives and Combating Hate and Antisemitism Initiative (CHAI), brought October 7: The Play to Pickard Theater. This verbatim theater piece, drawn entirely from interviews with eyewitnesses and survivors of the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack in Israel, was previously staged at Princeton and UCLA. The performance invited reflection and emphasized remembrance, drawing a crowd filled with students, faculty, community members, and alumni who lingered long after the play ended to engage in conversations with the actors, producers, and one another.
Today’s students are carrying forward Bowdoin’s longest-running forum for civil disagreement. During Homecoming Weekend, the Peucinian Society marked its 220th anniversary, drawing dozens of alumni from the 1960s through the 2020s back to campus to join current students for the celebration. Founded in 1805, the Peucinian Society is one of the nation’s foremost literary societies and Bowdoin’s oldest student organization. The event honored the society’s tradition of weekly disputations on statesmanship, culture, and political thought, a practice that has trained generations of students in the art of civil disagreement and thoughtful debate for more than two centuries.
Throughout the semester, Bowdoin’s Viewpoint Exchange series has offered campus talks and interactive sessions on issues including antisemitism, Islamophobia, and the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. The program is part of President Safa Zaki’s initiative to strengthen our community’s capacity for constructive engagement around complex and challenging issues, modeling respect for different experiences and a spirit of curiosity. These events invert the typical format: a speaker’s talk is followed by a community dinner, providing a forum for meaningful conversation over a shared meal. The series will continue throughout the academic year.
Beyond the stage and lecture halls, community-building has been on the move—literally. An innovative addition to the McKeen Center’s What Matters series, the new Walk & Talk initiative encourages people with differing beliefs and values to explore issues together. Participants are paired for short hikes in the Bowdoin Pines, with a set of prompts and the promise of hot cocoa and donuts upon return. Topics include economic inequality, immigration, climate change and responsibility, and free speech and campus expression. The prompts suggest shifts from personal experience to national and global politics, returning to individual reflection, practicing cross-differences discussion in real time.
Whether through theatrical performances, formal debates, facilitated dialogues, or walks in the woods, Bowdoin is teaching what it takes to live and lead together: creating spaces where students practice the skills of active listening, civil disagreement, and meaningful connection.
