Academic News
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Professor Margaret Boyle Receives $35,000 Fellowship from Howard Foundation
May 01, 2019The award provides more support for Boyle as she plans her next book, a study of women and health in early modern Spain. Earlier this year she won a Fulbright scholarship to work on the project in Spain next year. -
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Bowdoin’s Brian Purnell Reminds Us of the North’s Racist Past
August 17, 2018While modern racism is often characterized as a primarily Southern scourge, “embodied in tiki torches, Confederate flags and violent outbursts,” the North cannot ignore its own racist roots, or, for that matter, its ties to today’s white supremacy movements, Brian Purnell argues in a new co-authored article in The Conversation. -
Reappraising Ovid: Professor Boyd Examines the Roman Poet’s Relationship with Homeric Tradition
July 27, 2018She aims to shed fresh light on the literary connections between Ovid and Homer, who lived nearly a thousand years before the Roman poet, and who may well have been several different people! -
More Recognition for Bowdoin Art Professor Jackie Brown
May 17, 2018Marvin H. Green Jr. Assistant Professor of Art Jackie Brown has another honor to add to her name. She was recently awarded a Maine Artist Fellowship, one of seven Mainers to be recognized in this way for their efforts across the artistic spectrum. -
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The Story of Bowdoin’s Guest Semester Program is Told around New England and ‘The World’
May 11, 2018In the aftermath of the devastating storms that struck Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands, Bowdoin opened its classrooms to students whose education was disrupted by Hurricanes Irma and Maria. Two students accepted the invitation to enroll in the spring semester, with their tuition, room and board, books, winter clothing costs, and transportation to campus all covered by the College. -
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Prof. Erin Johnson Honored for Bringing Community Service to the Classroom
April 13, 2018Erin Johnson, a visiting assistant professor at Bowdoin in the two departments of Visual Arts and Digital and Computational Studies, is being recognized for making public service an integral part of her classes. -
Robert Morrison Awarded Guggenheim Fellowship to Study Islamic Influence on the Renaissance
April 10, 2018Religion professor says a network of Jewish scholars played a key part in transporting scientific ideas from the Islamic world to Renaissance Europe. The pioneering astronomer Copernicus, for example, owes a significant debt to mathematical theories developed in the Ottoman Empire, says newly appointed Guggenheim Fellow Morrison. -
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In New Yorker Article on Bratz Dolls vs. Barbie, Bowdoin Economist Offers Insight
January 24, 2018In a recent New Yorker article, writer Jill Lepore — a 2015 Bowdoin honorary degree recipient — describes Bratz dolls as having eyes and heads so big and noses so small “that if it weren’t for their Penthouse makeup…and their come-hither clothes…they’d look like emaciated babies….” The popular Bratz are the only dolls to successfully compete with Barbie dolls since Barbie was introduced in 1959. -
C-SPAN Airs Professor Dorn’s Talk on Higher Education
January 17, 2018Professor of Education Chuck Dorn recently gave a keynote address on his research into U.S. universities and colleges for the New England Association of Schools and Colleges’s annual conference in Boston. His lecture was broadcast by C-SPAN. -
President Rose Busts Myths Around the Liberal Arts in ‘US News’ Op-Ed
January 17, 2018In an opinion piece for U.S. News & World Report, President Clayton Rose stands up against those who have taken aim at higher education—addressing criticisms and misconceptions that exist around the liberal arts education model, and telling the story of what it does well. -
Bowdoin Appoints New Senior Leaders
January 15, 2018The new year kicked off with announcements of two new members to the College’s senior staff—one in the newly created role of senior vice president for inclusion and diversity, the other filling the position of senior vice president and chief information officer. -
MacEachern Book Studies Origins of Boko Haram
January 12, 2018Scott MacEachern’s latest book—Searching for Boko Haram: A History of Violence in Central Africa (Oxford University Press, 2018)—sheds fresh light on the origins of the Central African Islamic terror group. MacEachern, an anthropology professor with more than three decades of experience researching the archaeology of the Lake Chad Basin, came upon the subject more by circumstance than intention. -
Bowdoin Profile: First-Generation College Student Dylan Bess ’21
January 10, 2018A few days after his high school guidance counselor recommended to Dylan Bess that he consider applying to Bowdoin, an admissions representative from Bowdoin visited his school in St. Louis, Mo. And she spoke his language. -
Bowdoin Profile: First-Generation College Student Kathryn McGinnis ’21
January 10, 2018In her early days at Bowdoin, Kathryn McGinnis ’21 had an experience that is not uncommon for first-year students at a liberal arts college. She arrived at college thinking she would be pre-med. But after taking a microeconomics class, she found a new academic passion. -
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Marine Science Students Research Ocean Changes, Microplastics, Invasive Species, and More
January 02, 2018At the conclusion of the fall semester, it is a tradition for the Bowdoin Marine Science Semester students to present their independent research projects at the Schiller Coastal Studies Center. To a gathered group of scientists and students, they explain how they designed their experiments and what they discovered. The ten participants in the program this year pursued a range of inquiries, from how climate change might be changing snails’ eating habits to how much microplastic is being eaten by zooplankton. -
Bowdoin STEM Students Present, and Get Inspired, at Diversity Conference
November 07, 2017Three students from Bowdoin — Jorge Gómez ’18, Louis Mendez ’19, and Cindy Rivera ’18 — recently presented their research at The National Diversity in STEM conference in Salt Lake City, Utah, which is hosted by the Society for Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS). -
The Giant Stairs of Bailey Island: An Evolving Outdoor Classroom
September 27, 2017At the narrow end of Bailey’s Island in Harpswell, a series of dark, blocky stones are laid out one on top of another, like a huge staircase leading down to the sea. Known as the Giant Stairs, they’ve long been a favorite destination for Bowdoin scientists and students because they’re a curious anomaly set within the flaky rust-gray metamorphic rock around them. -
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Art—Some of it Talking—Fills Edwards Center
May 15, 2017At this year’s Spring 2017 Visual Arts Open House, in Edwards Center for Art and Dance, digital creations — like soundscapes and videos — joined the mix of sculptures, drawings, paintings, photographs, and prints on display throughout the building. -
National Economics Bureau Profiles Research by Bowdoin Professor Zorina Khan
April 19, 2017The National Bureau of Economic Research has profiled the research of Zorina Khan, professor of economics at Bowdoin, who writes on law and economic history, including intellectual property rights, technological progress in Europe and the United States, antitrust, litigation and legal systems, and corporate governance. She is also a research associate with NBER’s Development of the American Economy Program. -
New Zealand to Tahiti: Spiro ’18 and Wu ‘18 are Sailing Through the Semester. No, Really.
April 12, 2017Math and physics major Carina Spiro ‘18 and Jacquelyn Wu ’18, a math major, are sailing the South Pacific Ocean in an effort to address and better understand some of the most pressing global questions related to the marine environment. -
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Bowdoin's LaVigne Named Frontiers of Science Fellow
March 07, 2017When Assistant Professor of Earth and Oceanographic Science Michèle LaVigne travels to an academic conference, like most scholars she typically finds herself surrounded by fellow experts in her field: in this case deep sea oceanography. -
Women Warriors: A New Seminar
December 03, 2016Christian Potholm, Bowdoin’s DeAlva Stanwood Alexander Professor of Government, has been teaching for more than four decades, but says he can’t remember a course in recent years that has stirred such excitement and energy, both among the students and himself. -
Professor Chakkalakal Presents Writer’s Unpopular Perspective on Race
December 02, 2016Associate Professor of Africana Studies and English Tess Chakkalakal recently gave a public talk on campus about Charles Chesnutt’s 1901 novel The Marrow of Tradition, a book she positions as “a — maybe the — great American novel.” Chakkalakal focused on the novel’s treatment of race, which Chesnutt had argued in his essays was a social fiction. His was a controversial stance that helped nudge him into obscurity, but Chakkalakal said his ideas deserve to be resurrected and examined in today’s world. -
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Visiting Artist, Filmmaker Lyès Salem Inspired by French-Algerian Roots
October 31, 2016The Francophone Film Festival kicks off at Bowdoin on November 4, 2016, with a screening of L’Oranais, or The Man From Oran, to give it its English subtitle. The 2014 movie is the second feature film from acclaimed French-Algerian actor-director Lyès Salem, the current visiting artist in Francophone studies. -
Professor Ghodsee Speaks on the Re-emergence of Nationalism in Eastern Europe
October 18, 2016The Institute for Advanced Study, where Albert Einstein lived and worked after he fled to the US, recently invited a Bowdoin professor of gender, sexuality, and women’s studies to give a talk about her recent research and latest book, Red Hangover: Legacies of 20th Century Communism. -
Bowdoin Economist Critiques US Carbon Markets (Climate Change Economics)
September 08, 2016In a new analysis of US carbon-offset programs that reward farmers for reforesting their farmland, Assistant Professor of Economics Erik Nelson finds that the programs are not enticing enough orchard farmers in Northern California to switch from fruit production to carbon production. These programs are designed to help mitigate climate change. -
Bowdoin Celebrates Baccalaureate 2016
May 27, 2016Baccalaureate 2016 from Bowdoin College on Vimeo. “Your lives have been shaped by 9/11, the global financial crisis, and the challenges facing our environment, to name just three,” Rose said. With this in mind, he continued, “…I offer for your consideration three ideas: objectivity, faith, and joy.” He explained, “…difficult work will require a combination of, first, being ruthlessly objective about the nature of the challenge and about what is required to make progress. The hardest problems and biggest opportunities are almost certain to be incredibly difficult, and filled with failure and disappointment. Understand and acknowledge this. Do not fool yourself that there is an easy way. However, he continued, “…you cannot lose faith that there is a way to prevail.” -
A Semester’s Worth of Art Fills Edwards Center
May 16, 2016Students, faculty, staff, and community members toured the Edwards Arts Center for Art and Dance last Friday night, checking out the end-of-semester open house of artwork produced in the spring semester’s visual arts classes. Drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, and film were some of the media in which students worked. -
Baccalaureate Speaker and Poet Matthew Williams ’16
May 16, 2016Matthew Williams ’16 would like one day to be a teacher, perhaps an English professor. But he says he can’t stand in front of students and urge them to follow their dreams if he has neglected his own. “I would feel like a fraud,” he said. -
Bowdoin Student Tackles Dementia Care Using 'Person-Centered' Approach
May 03, 2016When psychology major Julia Mehlman ’16 went to study abroad for a semester in the fall of 2014 at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, she took the opportunity to take classes that were not offered at Bowdoin. One class in particular grabbed her attention. “The class was The Psychology of Dementia Care, and this was where I learned about ‘person-centered care'”, she explained, “and it made me look at the subject of dementia care in a completely different light.” -
Rural Pathways to College
December 23, 2015According to assistant professor of sociology Ingrid Nelson, high school students from rural backgrounds, which includes most of those in Maine, have a number of factors working against them when it comes to getting into college compared to their urban counterparts. -
Perspectives from Bowdoin Professors on the New Climate Deal
December 17, 2015We asked professors from different disciplines to weigh in on the new agreement among 195 nations to reduce global emissions in an attempt to save our planet from the worst effects of climate change. Three faculty from the government and legal studies department offered their thoughts — Laura Henry, Allen Springer and Divya Gupta — as well as physicist Mark Battle, economist Erik Nelson, and Shu-chin Tsui, an expert in China. -
ISIS and Islam: A Conversation with Bowdoin’s Elias and Morrison
December 16, 2015Professor Robert G. Morrison, chair of the Religion Department, and Assistant Professor of Government Barbara Elias, discuss Islam, ISIS — also known as the Islamic state — and the current situation in Iraq and Syria. They start by addressing popular misconceptions about ISIS and Islam. -
Bowdoin's Palopoli Finds Promising Way to Study Human Evolution, with Mites
December 15, 2015Microscopic face mites that live deep in our hair follicles and sweat glands contain information on where our ancestors came from, according to a new study by first author Michael Palopoli, an associate professor of biology at Bowdoin. The co-authored study shows that people with European, Asian, African and Latin American ancestries carry four different subgroups of the bugs, which could help reveal how humans spread throughout the globe. -
Machine Learning: How Computers Predict The Future
December 14, 2015When Assistant Professor of Economics Erik Nelson heard what was going on at the computer science department earlier this semester, he was psyched. “I was excited when she sent out an email about a month and a half ago looking for data that her students could work with.” The “she” Nelson refers to here is Clare Bates Congdon, visiting associate professor of computer science. -
Students Find Social Commentary in Comic Relief
December 14, 2015Students in Of Comics and Culture, a class taught by Associate Professor of English Elizabeth Muther, spent the semester chuckling over comics and thinking about the social criticism and political commentary cartoons sometimes convey in their jokes. -
President Rose Leads Town Hall Meeting on Issues of Race
December 09, 2015Issues of race on campus and across the country were front and center Tuesday night when more than 500 students crowded into Smith Union’s Morrell Lounge and onto its balconies for a town hall-style meeting around the topic “Why do issues of race matter if I’m white?” -
150 Years Later: Commemorating Ratification of the 13th Amendment
December 07, 2015On December 6, 1865, the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified, abolishing slavery and involuntary servitude. In observation of the occasion’s sesquicentennial, a student-organized discussion was held in Beam Classroom, Visual Arts Center Sunday. Elina Zhang ’16 covered the event. -
Prof. Vété-Congolo-Leibnitz's Poetry Shortlisted for Literary Prize
December 01, 2015A book of poetry by Associate Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures Hanétha Vété-Congolo-Leibnitz has been shortlisted for the 2015 Small Axe Literary Competition. (Vété-Congolo-Leibnitz is the name she uses for her creative publications in English.) -
Bowdoin Partnerships Expand Educational Access
September 30, 2015Building on a tradition of providing access to higher education, Bowdoin College has many longstanding and productive partnerships with community based organizations (CBOs) that strive to help high-potential, low-income high school students get into and graduate from college. -
Professor Dharni Vasudevan Helps Detect Chemical Exposure in the Environment
September 18, 2015You’re not feeling well, you take some medicine, you feel better. End of story? No. Instead, some proportion of some medicines, or their components, passes through your body and makes their way into the environment, potentially contaminating ecosystems and harming people and wildlife. -
Bowdoin's Newest Tenure-Track Faculty
September 10, 2015Several tenure-track professors joined Bowdoin’s faculty this year to teach and do research in a number of fields — math, Romance languages, chemistry, digital and computational studies, theater and dance, Asian studies, history and sociology. The new professors answered a few questions about their research and teaching interests, and what they like to do when they find themselves with free time. -
Laura Griffee ’17 Creates Virtual Installation for Art Professor Jackie Brown
September 04, 2015Laura Griffee ’17 worked with Assistant Professor of Art Jackie Brown this summer to design an interactive, 3D interface for Brown’s sculpture installations. Griffee received a fellowship from the Gibbons Summer Research Program to support her work. She is pursuing a self-designed major in art and computer science. -
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Bowdoin Professors Offer 28 New Courses This Semester
September 03, 2015The following is a complete list of new Bowdoin classes as they’re described in the course catalog. In a related story, several Bowdoin professors comment on what motivated them to offer their new courses and what they hope students will gain from them. -
