Courtesy of Randy Nichols

Randy Nichols, associate vice president of the office of safety and security, was late to his final interview with the Orient. Sporting polarized shades and his signature khakis, he strode up hurriedly and apologized profusely. There was an incident on campus, he explained; students felt unsafe, and he needed to handle it.

For 20 years, this has been Nichols’s life as head of safety and security—constantly on-call and constantly trying to make Bowdoin a safer place.

“It’s a 24/7, 365 job,” he said. “Half of my mind is always back here at Bowdoin. You just can’t let your guard down.”

An undeniably unusual kind of campus mythology surrounds Nichols. Students tend to know the name “Randy” before they matriculate and remember it long after they graduate. He’s on a first-name basis with everyone, and he likes it that way.

“I’ve never wanted it to be ‘Director Nichols’ or ‘Mr. Nichols,’” he said. “It’s always Randy.”

Nichols spent 28 years with the Maine State Police (and before that, some years as a radio DJ) before the College appointed him as head of safety and security in 2005. Tim Foster, who was dean of student affairs at the time, had no idea what to expect of the newcomer.

“I thought to myself, ‘What are we doing, hiring one of the leaders of the Maine State Police to lead security on a college campus?’” Foster said. “What a wonderful decision it turned out to be.”

For Foster, Nichols ended up being a crucial ingredient in Bowdoin’s “special sauce” of forming a tight-knit community, whether he was leading meetings with new first years in the bricks or calling in to students’ WBOR shows.

“I think he’s a consummate community builder who’s helped really define the soul of what makes Bowdoin such a special place in my mind,” Foster said. “He knew students by name, and they knew him.”

Nichols boiled down all his efforts into a desire to build trust. He said his goal has been to make students feel known and treat them with dignity—to make them feel like security is working for them, not against them.

“I often will implant my daughter’s face on a student, or my son’s face on a student, and say, ‘How do I want my son or daughter treated in this situation?’” Nichols said. “I want them held accountable. I want them to take responsibility for their actions and tell the truth, but I want them to feel at the end that they were treated fairly.”

Building trust, Nichols said, is not easy to do. Students come into Bowdoin with different identities, life experiences and histories with law enforcement. And once trust is earned, it can’t be taken for granted.

“We realize that it takes years and years to build that [trust], but you can lose it almost instantaneously,” Randy said.

One of those make-or-break moments came in February when student protesters encamped for four days in Smith Union in support of the Bowdoin Solidarity Referendum. Nichols recalled the “awkwardness” of negotiating his support for peaceful protest with his role as an enforcer.

“The students that were taking part in the encampment and the supporters outside were very impassioned about their cause, and we understood that and respected that,” he said. “Safety and Security wanted nothing more than to keep everybody safe…. We were able to do that, but I think there was an element of luck to that.”

Nichols explained that the Covid-19 years were particularly difficult for trying to gain students’ trust. Not only could he not meet face-to-face with students, but students also feared his team as the enforcers of the College’s strict Covid-era restrictions.

“We were the security guards with face masks on that nobody knew,” he said. “Our reputation with the students was hurt during that time,… and I don’t think we ever fully rebuilt it.”

Being head of Safety and Security and a beloved presence on campus has been difficult work but also joyful. He fondly recalled the Ivies when students “woke up all of Brunswick” with a 2 a.m. bell tower prank. He equally loved his final Ivies, just last weekend, where he took over 300 selfies with students.

But there are also the moments that haunt him. Student deaths weigh particularly heavily on Nichols’s mind.

“It’s almost like a cut, and the cut runs deep,” he said. “I know all their names, and I do not forget them.”

Nichols has endeavored to stop tragedies before they happen. He emailed the student body with tips on driving in inclement weather, and he once published an op-ed in the Orient in honor of Shingo Matsumoto ’95 , a student killed by an oncoming truck on Maine Street in 1995, to remind students of pedestrian safety. His efforts have often been more personal—he once kept overnight watch on a student having a mental health emergency until the student’s parents arrived from several states away.

But he said his job wouldn’t be possible without the care Bowdoin students have for one another.

“People here at Bowdoin all want to help,” Nichols said. “When they see something, they say something, and that is a really immense credit to this community.”

Nichols also said his job wouldn’t be possible without the support of his wife, Mary Nichols. She said it’s been hard to watch his work take such an emotional toll, but she’s also proud of the work he has done.

“I’m glad it came as a second part of his career, because it’s allowed him to do it in a way that he feels good about,” Mary Nichols said. “He’s walking away from this feeling like he did the best he could.”

As current Executive Director of Security Bill Harwood prepares to step in as head of security, Nichols is deciding what his future  without Bowdoin will look like. He wants to spend time with his grandkids, hike with Mary and take trips to Moosehead Lake. He also knows he’ll never fully leave Bowdoin behind—he’s already looking forward to next year’s baseball season. Above all, he wants to spend his retirement in pursuit of the common good.

For the 10,000 students he’s served and the generations to come, Nichols has a familiar parting message.

“Thank you, and ‘B’ Safe,” he said.