Last weekend, the Board of Trustees held a series of meetings to discuss future campus planning, the Ad Hoc Committee on Investments and Responsibility (ACIR) and other potential changes to the College.

One of the focal points of the Trustees’ meeting was the involvement of Ayers Saint Gross (ASG), the College’s campus planning firm, in gathering feedback for future campus construction projects. ASG set up interactive sessions to ask students and faculty which spaces on campus they love, which need updating and what new spaces they would like to see on campus.

The Trustees also approved a budget increase for the restoration of the observatory and reviewed the financial statements for the 2024 fiscal year.

The Trustees discussed the ACIR, which was formed after last spring’s Bowdoin Solidarity Referendum called for the college to take a stance against scholasticide and disclose its investments in arms manufacturing. Mary Hogan Preusse ’90, the ACIR committee chair, discussed the recent student listening sessions and upcoming plans of action for the committee.

The Trustees hosted a dinner on Friday, where members of the Bowdoin Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) organized a sit-in to protest the lack of transparency that they observed in the ACIR’s listening sessions. Bowdoin Student Government (BSG) President Eisa Rafat ’25, who was at the dinner, walked out shortly after its commencement in protest.

“Participating in this action was a way for me to make my frustrations known without compromising the position of my peers in BSG,” Rafat, who is also a leader of SJP, wrote in an email to the Orient. “As a democratically elected representative of the student body, I felt compelled to stand up for my fellow students in the face of the administration’s undemocratic tactics—to ensure their voices were heard.”

The Trustees are set to convene again in February 2025.

Sam Borne contributed to this report.