A sense of belonging is essential to success, to flourishing, and to the full expression of joy.

Our students, faculty and staff, alumni, and leadership commit to continued self-reflection, valuing difference, addressing concerns, and interacting constructively with a diversity of people, spaces, situations, and ideas to foster belonging in every member of the Bowdoin community.


Our work is informed by the three pillars shared by President Rose in October 2021 and we have these goals for our overarching institutional work:

  • We desire to be a community filled with students, faculty, staff, and alumni who are smart, engaged, curious, kind, collaborative, and generous in spirit and who embody our essential ethos of serving the common good. 
  • We desire to be a community where everyone has the opportunity to belong and to know that they belong.  
  • We desire to be a community where there is equity in the opportunity to pursue the same successes, outcomes, and lived experiences.
  • Satisfying our mission requires us to prepare our students to lead in a world where the demographics are changing rapidly and where individual identities are simultaneously being understood and celebrated—and contested and denigrated. These changes and issues have profound political, social, economic, cultural, and scientific implications. Our students need the skills and tools to understand, navigate, discuss, and challenge bias, prejudice, and systematic marginalization and their implications in a knowledgeable and respectful way.