On Wednesday night, Bowdoin Student Government (BSG) convened in the Mills Hall event space, hosting six administrators. The administrators included Senior Vice President and Dean for Academic Affairs Jen Scanlon, Senior Vice President and Dean for Student Affairs Jim Hoppe, Director of Student Activities Nate Hintze, Director of Residential Life SJ Tinker, Director of Sustainability Keisha Payson and Director of the Library Peter Bae.

Scanlon said she hopes to continue a partnership with BSG to spread the word about the importance of the Bowdoin Course Questionnaire (BCQ) to students. Scanlon noted that if only a small percentage of students fill out the BCQs, her department cannot consider them to be representative of the student body.

“For several years, the BSG has partnered with us to try to promote the BCQ,” Scanlon said. “The BCQs are really important…. We believe that teaching is a lifelong practice, and so we want our faculty to continually get better.”

Scanlon also spoke about the current BSG proposal to publish course syllabi for students to view before course registration. She said she is planning to provide feedback on the current proposal to the BSG Academic Affairs Committee. Once the proposal is finalized, it will be reviewed by the Curriculum and Educational Policy Committee. After this, it needs a motion to be presented to the faculty as a whole.

Payson talked about the various initiatives the Office of Sustainability is working on for the upcoming year. These include a bike share program, where bikes will be available for students to borrow outside of the library, a carpool feature in CampusGroups to connect students traveling to the airport for breaks and the annual fall clothing swap.

Bae spoke about how the library is working with the Hastings Initiative for AI and Humanity to make knowledge about artificial intelligence (AI) ethics more accessible for students, especially as premium models of five generative AI companies were recently made available to students.

Hoppe said centering the student experience is a key element of the Office of the Dean for Student Affairs, and he hopes students continue to voice their concerns to his office.

“​​I do my job better when I know what you’re thinking and what your views are,” Hoppe said.