Last spring, Alison Bennie, the editor of Bowdoin Magazine, was faced with the task of creating a graphic symbol to represent the successful Bowdoin Campaign.
Her final vision, photographs of Bowdoin students positioning their bodies into shapes of the cardinal numbers, embodies the idea that the $293 million raised by the five-year long fundraiser goes toward bettering the experience of the student body, according to Bennie.
The student number photographs appear on the homepage of the Bowdoin Web site, broadcasting various statistics from the Bowdoin Campaign.
Ten students worked with Bennie to represent the 10 numerals from zero to nine.
Originally, the College planned to print a final report of the campaign's results, as well as to host a party this past June to celebrate the conclusion of the campaign. Bennie's original proposal called to use the numbers generated by Bowdoin students in the printed report, as well as on material for the party.
When the College canceled both the report and the party, the number graphics were put on the Web site.
Mary Ridley '12, who participated in Bennie's project, said, "it was an interesting process figuring out how exactly to make the different shapes of the numbers, especially since we weren't all gymnasts."
Ridley was surprised with the amount of people that recognized her as one of the students posed as numbers on the Bowdoin Web site.
"I was happy to volunteer to portray numbers to help out the Bowdoin Campaign," Jurdane Hall '11 said. Hall said that as a part of her job with the office of Alumni Relations, she calls alumni and asks for donations.
Both the students and Bowdoin faculty involved enjoyed the experience.
"The students were a pleasure to work with," said Bennie, adding that she thinks that nothing is more fitting to represent the money that was donated for the school than by using the bodies of the students it will directly affect.