Update from the Board of Trustees Meeting
To the campus community,
Our board of trustees held their regularly scheduled meeting on campus last Thursday through Saturday. I am writing to provide you with a summary of some of the topics we covered and a few notable discussions.
As many of you know, we have organized efforts over the past year to expand opportunities for trustees to interact with members of the campus community. At this past meeting, the Student Experience Committee, a standing committee of the board, met with students and staff involved in the McKeen Center, the Outing Club, the Community Host Program, and Bowdoin Teacher Scholars. They learned from students about how their experiences in the community give them the opportunity to engage with the people and places of Maine.
Trustees on the Academic Affairs Committee, another standing committee, spent time with faculty in Sills Hall, discussing how these new spaces foster learning and community. Faculty in cinema studies, classics, German, and Romance languages and literatures offered their perspectives on the new classrooms and shared spaces, and Jill Smith, associate professor of German, provided a teaching demonstration. This meeting was part of a series of conversations the board has been having about how important campus spaces are for what we do.
Last May, representatives from the campus planning firm of Ayers Saint Gross shared with the board what they have heard from students, faculty, and staff during campus presentations and feedback sessions on the next campus plan and potential construction priorities at the College. This past meeting, trustees had a walk-through of Hawthorne-Longfellow Library and Hubbard Hall, where they learned about the challenges of aging infrastructure and the possibilities for reimagining these beloved and central spaces. The trustees also heard about the varied challenges facing our dining colleagues in Moulton Union as they prepare outstanding meals for our students and special events. They also heard about the need for new spaces and infrastructure to support research and teaching in the sciences. The board also considered the financial implications of any such projects and the implications for the experiences of students, faculty, and staff. As planned, these discussions will continue during the next board meeting, in February.
At the plenary session on Friday afternoon—a meeting of the full board, senior officers, faculty, Bowdoin Student Government representatives, and the president of the Alumni Council—the group heard committee reports and welcomed three new trustees: Adam Gibbons, a member of the Class of 1991, an investment advisor with Latash, Inc. in Alaska, who serves as a trustee of The Nature Conservancy in Alaska and is the chair of the Rasmuson Foundation; Becca Rowe, a member of the Class of 1997, and professor of natural resources and the environment at the University of New Hampshire, whose research focuses on community, historical, and landscape ecology; and Amy Starck, a retired Deloitte consulting partner who serves as a trustee of the Tenement Museum in New York City and on the NYC board of Reading Partners, a nonprofit that tutors children to improve their reading skills and introduce a passion for reading.
At the plenary session, the group also remembered trustee emerita Jane Pinchin P’01, who served as a board member for twenty years and was a valued friend and colleague to so many of us.
That evening, the trustees also heard from Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, who offered reflections on the evolving landscape of higher education.
I also shared with the board the ways in which we are strengthening and clarifying our shared governance practices, including our pilot of a campus budget committee underway this year that includes students, faculty, and staff.
Finally, because this is my first board update message, I also want to share a particular highlight from our May meeting, where the board elected the following retiring members of the faculty and staff to emeritus status in recognition of long and devoted service to the College: Mark A. Dickey (special projects manager, dining services), Scott W. Hood (senior vice president for communications and public affairs), Suzanne B. Lovett (associate professor of psychology), Elizabeth F. McCormack (senior vice president and dean for academic affairs and professor of physics), Bridget D. Mullen (director of Upward Bound), and José L. Ribas (technician/preparator, Bowdoin College Museum of Art).
We are so fortunate to have the steady leadership of trustees who are so engaged and thoughtful and who care deeply about the College and this community. I am grateful to them and also to each of you for everything you do for Bowdoin.
All my best,
Safa
Our board of trustees held their regularly scheduled meeting on campus last Thursday through Saturday. I am writing to provide you with a summary of some of the topics we covered and a few notable discussions.
As many of you know, we have organized efforts over the past year to expand opportunities for trustees to interact with members of the campus community. At this past meeting, the Student Experience Committee, a standing committee of the board, met with students and staff involved in the McKeen Center, the Outing Club, the Community Host Program, and Bowdoin Teacher Scholars. They learned from students about how their experiences in the community give them the opportunity to engage with the people and places of Maine.
Trustees on the Academic Affairs Committee, another standing committee, spent time with faculty in Sills Hall, discussing how these new spaces foster learning and community. Faculty in cinema studies, classics, German, and Romance languages and literatures offered their perspectives on the new classrooms and shared spaces, and Jill Smith, associate professor of German, provided a teaching demonstration. This meeting was part of a series of conversations the board has been having about how important campus spaces are for what we do.
Last May, representatives from the campus planning firm of Ayers Saint Gross shared with the board what they have heard from students, faculty, and staff during campus presentations and feedback sessions on the next campus plan and potential construction priorities at the College. This past meeting, trustees had a walk-through of Hawthorne-Longfellow Library and Hubbard Hall, where they learned about the challenges of aging infrastructure and the possibilities for reimagining these beloved and central spaces. The trustees also heard about the varied challenges facing our dining colleagues in Moulton Union as they prepare outstanding meals for our students and special events. They also heard about the need for new spaces and infrastructure to support research and teaching in the sciences. The board also considered the financial implications of any such projects and the implications for the experiences of students, faculty, and staff. As planned, these discussions will continue during the next board meeting, in February.
At the plenary session on Friday afternoon—a meeting of the full board, senior officers, faculty, Bowdoin Student Government representatives, and the president of the Alumni Council—the group heard committee reports and welcomed three new trustees: Adam Gibbons, a member of the Class of 1991, an investment advisor with Latash, Inc. in Alaska, who serves as a trustee of The Nature Conservancy in Alaska and is the chair of the Rasmuson Foundation; Becca Rowe, a member of the Class of 1997, and professor of natural resources and the environment at the University of New Hampshire, whose research focuses on community, historical, and landscape ecology; and Amy Starck, a retired Deloitte consulting partner who serves as a trustee of the Tenement Museum in New York City and on the NYC board of Reading Partners, a nonprofit that tutors children to improve their reading skills and introduce a passion for reading.
At the plenary session, the group also remembered trustee emerita Jane Pinchin P’01, who served as a board member for twenty years and was a valued friend and colleague to so many of us.
That evening, the trustees also heard from Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, who offered reflections on the evolving landscape of higher education.
I also shared with the board the ways in which we are strengthening and clarifying our shared governance practices, including our pilot of a campus budget committee underway this year that includes students, faculty, and staff.
Finally, because this is my first board update message, I also want to share a particular highlight from our May meeting, where the board elected the following retiring members of the faculty and staff to emeritus status in recognition of long and devoted service to the College: Mark A. Dickey (special projects manager, dining services), Scott W. Hood (senior vice president for communications and public affairs), Suzanne B. Lovett (associate professor of psychology), Elizabeth F. McCormack (senior vice president and dean for academic affairs and professor of physics), Bridget D. Mullen (director of Upward Bound), and José L. Ribas (technician/preparator, Bowdoin College Museum of Art).
We are so fortunate to have the steady leadership of trustees who are so engaged and thoughtful and who care deeply about the College and this community. I am grateful to them and also to each of you for everything you do for Bowdoin.
All my best,
Safa