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'Bowdoin College', founded in 1794, is a private liberal arts college located in the coastal New England town of Brunswick, Maine. It enrolls approximately 1,700 students and has been coeducational since 1971. Bowdoin offers 33 majors and 4 additional minors; the academic year consists of two four-course semesters, and the student-faculty ratio is 10:1. Brunswick is located on the shores of Casco Bay and the Androscoggin River, 12 miles (19 km) north of Freeport, Maine, 28 miles north of Portland, Maine, and 131 miles (211 km) north of Boston, Massachusetts. In addition to its Brunswick campus, Bowdoin also operates a 118 acre (478,000 m²) coastal studies center on Orrs Island ^[2] in Harpswell, Maine and a 200 acre (809,000 m²) scientific field station on Kent Island ^[3] in the Bay of Fundy.

Contents

History

Academics

Student body

Student life

Athletics

Postgraduate placement

Alma Mater

Bowdoin alumni

Bowdoin in literature and film

Bowdoin trivia

External links

References

History

Bowdoin College was chartered in 1794 by Governor Samuel Adams of Massachusetts, of which Maine was then a district, and was named for former Massachusetts governor James Bowdoin, whose son James Bowdoin III was an early benefactor. At the time of its founding, it was the easternmost college in the United States.
Bowdoin came into its own in the 1820s, a decade in which Maine became an independent state as a result of the Missouri Compromise and the College graduated a number of its most famous alumni, including future United States President Franklin Pierce, class of 1824, and writers Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, both of whom graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1825.
Bowdoin's connections to the Civil War have prompted some to quip that the war "began and ended" in Brunswick. Harriet Beecher Stowe, "the little lady who started this big war," started writing her influential anti-slavery novel ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' in Bowdoin's Appleton Hall while her husband was teaching at the College, and General Joshua Chamberlain, a Bowdoin alumnus and professor, was responsible for receiving the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Court House in 1865. Chamberlain, a Medal of Honor winner who later served as governor of Maine and president of Bowdoin, distinguished himself at Gettysburg, where he led the 20th Maine in its valiant defense of Little Round Top.

There are other Civil War connections as well: General Oliver Otis Howard, class of 1850, led the Freedmen's Bureau after the war and later founded Howard University; Massachusetts Governor John A. Andrew, class of 1837, was responsible for the formation of the famous 54th Massachusetts; and William P. Fessenden 1823 and Hugh McCulloch 1827 both served as Secretary of the Treasury during the Lincoln Administration. After the war, Bowdoin contended that a higher percentage of its alumni fought in the war than that of any other college in the North -- and not only for the Union. In fact, Confederate President Jefferson Davis held an honorary degree from Bowdoin, which he received while United States Secretary of War in 1858. This controversial degree was later used to ridicule Bowdoin by other New England institutions.^[4].
and film, the character Hawkeye Pierce is said to have played football at Androscoggin College, a fictional school based on the alma mater of author H. Richard Hornberger, Bowdoin class of 1945.

★ ''The Killer Angels'' (1975) — This historical novel by Michael Shaara, which won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, focuses in large part on the role played by Bowdoin graduate and professor Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain at the Battle of Gettysburg.

★ ''Glory'' (1989) — Massachusetts Governor John A. Andrew, class of 1837 is a character in this film about the 54th Massachusetts.

★ ''Gettysburg'' (1993) — In this movie based on ''The Killer Angels'' There is at least one reference to character Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain as having had an academic career at Bowdoin, which he put aside to lead the 20th Maine.

★ ''The Man Without a Face'' (1993) — Parts of this movie were filmed on campus.

★ ''The Cider House Rules'' (1994) — In this John Irving novel, a Bowdoin-educated doctor forges a Bowdoin diploma for a young protégé.

★ ''The Sopranos'' (1999) — In an episode entitled "College," Tony Soprano and his daughter Meadow visit Colby, where Tony kills a former associate, and Bowdoin, where he reads an inscription paraphrasing Hawthorne's warning that "no man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself, and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be true." ^[21] Tony's daughter is ultimately waitlisted at Bowdoin and ends up attending Columbia. The episode was not filmed on Bowdoin's campus, but was filmed at Drew University in New Jersey.

★ ''Where the Heart Is'' (2000) — The main character in this movie falls in love with a Bowdoin man. The film, which has a scene "at Bowdoin," is based on a novel of the same name.

★ ''Gods and Generals'' (2003) — This film, based on a historical novel of the same name, is a prequel to ''Gettysburg''.

★ ''Kinsey'' (2004) — Biopic about sex researcher Alfred Kinsey, class of 1916, includes a scene in which his father opposes his decision to transfer to Bowdoin.

★ ''The Aviator'' (2004) — 1909 Bowdoin grad and U.S. Senator Owen Brewster plays a major role in this Howard Hughes biopic.

Bowdoin trivia

★ With approximately 1,710 undergraduate students, Bowdoin is the second-smallest school in the New England Small College Athletic Conference. (The smallest, Amherst College, enrolls 1,600; the largest, Tufts University, enrolls 4,800.)

★ Bowdoin's chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, which was founded in 1825, is the nation's sixth oldest. Among those who have been inducted to the Maine Alpha chapter as undergraduates include Nathaniel Hawthorne (1825), Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1825), Robert E. Peary (1877), Owen Brewster (1909), Harold Hitz Burton (1909), Paul Douglas (1913), Alfred Kinsey (1916), Thomas R. Pickering (1953), and Lawrence B. Lindsey (1976).

★ Bowdoin graduates have led all three branches of the federal government, including both houses of Congress. Franklin Pierce 1826 was America's fourteenth President; Melville Weston Fuller 1853 served as Chief Justice of the United States; Thomas Brackett Reed 1860 was twice elected Speaker of the House of Representatives; and Wallace H. White, Jr. 1899 and George J. Mitchell 1954 both served as Majority Leader of the United States Senate.

★ It is a longstanding myth that a stylized sun appears on Bowdoin's seal because for more than a hundred years Bowdoin was the easternmost college in the United States. The true origin of the seal is not known^[22].

★ In the early years of the Republic, students who had received degrees from one institution of higher learning could receive reciprocal degrees from another. In 1806, apparently concerned that they might need further credentials, 13 Harvard College graduates also took Bowdoin degrees.

★ The Bowdoin Canyon in Labrador, site of the Churchill Falls, is named for an 1891 expedition sponsored by Bowdoin College.

★ Before the fraternity system was abolished in the 1990s, all the Bowdoin fraternities were co-educational (except for one unrecognized sorority and one unrecognized all-male fraternity).

External links

★ Bowdoin College

★ ''The Bowdoin Orient''

★ ''The Princeton Review''

★ Bowdoin Food Blog

★ Overheard at Bowdoin

★ Bowdoin Alumni Web Sites

References

1. http://orient.bowdoin.edu/orient/article.php?date=2007-02-02§ion=1&id=5 Report gives college 'B-' on environmental practices
2. The Bowdoin Coastal Studies Center
3. A description of Kent Island.
4. Timothy Larson, Bates Thesis:Faith by Their Works, "Class at Bates College"
5. Website of the Peary-MacMillan Arctic Museum
6. US News and World Report rankings for liberal arts colleges.
7. Official website for the Bowdoin London School of Economics
8. Bowdoin Orient exposé on grade inflation.
9. Bowdoin admissions
10. Charles C. Calhoun, ''A Small College in Maine: 200 Years of Bowdoin''. pullihed by the College in 1993, ISBN 091-6606-25-2
11. Bowdoin Orient article on foreign student applications
12. Orient article interviewing Professor Morgan
13. Princeton Review dining rankings
14. Princeton Review dorm rankings
15. Maine: A Guide 'Down East', , , Maine League of Historical Societies and Museums, Courier-Gazette, Inc., 1970,
16. Bowdoin Outing Club website.
17. Meddiebempsters History: "And may the music echo long..." 1937-1987, , Peter, Race, , 1987, ML200.8.B73 M44 1987
18. Bowdoin Orient article on Bowdoin producing Fulbright Scholars.
19. Wall Street Journal rankings of undergraduate institutions' success at sending students to top-five graduate programs.
20. Longfellow poem written for his 50th Bowdoin reunion.
21. Synopsis of the Sopranos episode in which Tony Soprano and his daughter visit Bowdoin.
22.



★ "House Linked to 'Uncle Tom's Cabin'". (June 16, 1968), ''NY Times''.

★ "Bowdoin Seeks End of R.O.T.C. Credits". (Feb 16, 1969), ''NY Times''.

★ "Bowdoin Drops College Boards" (Jan 19, 1970), ''NY Times''.

★ "Bowdoin to Become Coed" (Sept 29, 1970), ''NY Times''.

★ Moran, Malcolm (Aug 6, 1984). "First Women's Olympic Marathon to Benoit". ''NY Times''.

★ "Favorite Elective at Bowdoin: Food". (Feb 21, 1988), ''NY Times''.