I heard the rumors while abroad: "The police are out of control," "Bowdoin is different," "Weekends aren't fun anymore," and "The party scene is gone." I refused to believe these outlandish claims when I heard them through my computer screen via a Skype call, or read them during a Facebook chat or in an e-mail.
The Bowdoin College I was excited to come back to was one characterized by a special relationship between students and Security and a drinking culture that, while certainly central to campus social life, could not, on a broad scale, in any way be construed as unmanageable or dangerous. We have always been a school of individuals who know how to work hard and play hard in a respectful and safe manner.
We as students could take all of the credit for this, but let's not flatter ourselves; we all know it is the direct result of the incredible efforts of Director of Safety and Security Randy Nichols and his team. Through his "fireside chats" to first years, his personable demeanor and knowledge of the law, Randy has created a student-Security relationship on this campus that stresses trust, honesty and communication before discipline and punishment. Through Randy and his team's awareness and sensitivity to the lives of individual students and to the overall social environment on campus, we were able to strike an understanding between Bowdoin Security and Bowdoin students that put students' safety first and repercussions second. It is this unique balance of authority and genuine concern for the well-being of the student body that has been key in fostering a social community at Bowdoin based on a level of confidence and support that very few other colleges can claim to have.
But all of that is beginning to change. The new $12,000 state grant received by the Brunswick Police Department (BPD) is slowly but surely eroding this special relationship and threatening to destroy the safe environment that Security has fostered and we have all helped create. Their presence is the opposite of the respected and trusted authority that Randy and his team have always represented to Bowdoin students. Instead, they incite uneasiness and even fear in the minds of students as they swarm around campus and back roads late at night, seemingly motivated less by the desire to keep us safe and more by the necessity to gather enough "write-ups" to justify the grant.
I have heard accounts of the police being rude and disrespectful toward students, behavior that only ignites tension and distrust and creates an atmosphere ripe for the misconduct and overdrinking that were never an issue when Bowdoin Security was in charge. Students, unaware of their rights and unaccustomed to having to worry about the looming presence of police, have taken drastic actions to escape persecution, jumping from windows, fleeing the scene and taking other radical measures to evade having to face the police. As soon as the sun goes down on Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, their flashing cop cars transform the peaceful streets of Brunswick into a scene straight out of "Cops," as if the Bowdoin kids they are so avidly searching for were fugitives on the loose.
I feel sad for Randy and his team. The unwarranted omnipresence of the BPD is threatening to compromise the outstanding reputation that Security has earned via its hard work, care and respect for the student body. Where before there was an incredible sense of safety, trust and security on and off campus, the police's unjustified intervention in Bowdoin social life has left lingering an unpleasant sentiment of aggravation and fear.
Cameron Weller is a member of the Class of 2011.