John Brown Russwurm House: a window into Bowdoin's past

Interactive: Coles Tower renovations to begin this summer

Coles Tower is getting a long overdue makeover. This summer, the College will spend $2.8 million to renovate the building, which turns 50 this year. Four floors will be renovated each year for the next four years. The completed project will cost approximately $5 million, according to Katy Longley, the senior vice president for finance and administration and the college treasurer. The College will partner with Harriman, an engineering firm in Auburn and Massachusetts-based Consigli Construction Company, which has an office in Portland. Consigli worked with the College in 2007on the Art Museum and in 2004 on the Chapel.

Interactive: 14.8% acceptance rate for Class of 2018; up 0.3 percentage points

Regular decision acceptance letters for the Class of 2018 were sent out via email last Friday. Of the 6,048 Regular Decision applicants, 756 were admitted, for an acceptance rate of 12.4 percent. Overall, 1,032 students were admitted for a total acceptance rate of 14.8 percent (including Early Decision applicants.) Last year, the Orient reported a 14.5 percent acceptance rate.
Applications for the Class of 2018 went down 1.6 percent from last year, when there were 7,052 total applicants to the Class of 2017. This year, 6,935 total students applied.
According to Dean of Admissions and Student Aid Scott Meiklejohn, despite the slight decrease in applicants, the Class of 2018 was drawn from “exactly the same pool” as in previous years.
“Numerically, it was a hundred fewer, but it didn’t make much difference in admitting the class,” he said.
Applications from the South and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States as well as foreign countries increased, while those from New England and the West decreased. Those from the Southwest and Midwest remained roughly the same.
Applications from multicultural students also increased 10 percent, and there was a six percent increase in the number of high schools sending Bowdoin at least one applicant.
Meiklejohn expressed enthusiasm for the increased number of high schools, saying it demonstrated Bowdoin’s “increasing geographic reach.”
There were 524 women and 508 men admitted, a figure consistent with Bowdoin’s current gender ratio. According to Meiklejohn, the ratio of public to private schools also remained consistent. Currently, 58 percent of Bowdoin students attended public high school; 42 percent went to private school.
The target size for the Class of 2018 is 495 students, the same as for the Class of 2017, and admitted students must submit their decisions by May 1.

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John Brown Russwurm House: a window into Bowdoin's past

Maggie Bryan

Orient Staff

Matthew Gutschenritter

Orient Staff

February 14, 2014

In 1826, John Brown Russwurm became the first African American to graduate from Bowdoin College. Nearly 200 years later, the House named in his memory is a thriving center for academic, social and cultural events on campus.

The son of an English merchant and an unknown black slave, Russwurm was born in 1799 in Jamaica. He and his father moved to Portland, Maine in 1812, where he attended Hebron Academy. In 1824, with the support of his stepmother and her second husband, Russwurm enrolled at Bowdoin.

After graduation, he led an illustrious career as an abolitionist, serving as editor of “Freedom’s Journal” (the first newspaper owned and operated by African Americans) in New York for several years before emigrating to Liberia in 1829, following his controversial support of African American colonization of Africa. He served as editor of “The Liberia Herald” for several years and became governor of the Maryland section of the colony in 1836, holding this post until his death in 1851.

“The Russwurm House is really interesting because it has the history connected with the Africana Studies program and gets reconnected to student groups too,” said Brittany-Renee Vernon ’14, an Africana Studies major.

Originally built in 1827 (with a long history of ownership and name changes), the Mitchell-Little House on College Street was rededicated as the John Brown Russwurm African-American Center in 1970, a year after the creation of the Africana Studies program. Since that time, the program has grown considerably and moved its offices from the Russwurm House to Adams Hall.
Although the Russwurm House is no longer home base for the Africana Studies program, it still has an academic function, housing an extensive library that is heavily utilized by faculty.
“It’s like a resource center for us,” said professor Tess Chakkalakal, who is serving her third year as director of the Africana Studies program. “We have a remarkable collection of books related to African-American and African Studies.”

“[The House] serves mostly a social function now, though we also host many of our speakers, performance artists, or even academics to give lectures, talks and panel discussions there,” said Chakkalakal.

Vernon is a member of the African-American Society and currently lives in the Russwurm House with three other students who are members of either the African-American Society, African Alliance or the Latin American Student Organization (LASO). According to Vernon, these three student groups elect members to live in the house each year.

“You really get to know the people you’re living with, since it’s only four people,” she said.
“A big of part of [Russwurm] is catering to the first years and giving them a space where they feel comfortable,” said President of the African-American Society Dominique Wein ’15, stressing the importance of the house as a social center.

“Last year we had a weekly meeting for African-American Society that was kind of like a treasure hunt based on Black History Month,” she said. “It was pretty fun. And even the little meetings where you get to see everyone and just talk—that’s probably my favorite part [of the Society].”
Despite its many purposes, both Vernon and Wein said they believe that the house’s potential has not yet been fully realized.

“I would definitely like to see the house used even more as a resource for the whole campus,” said Wein. “There may be a stigma on campus where people think that Russwurm House is only for black people and I want to see it used in a wider scope.”

Vernon is currently spearheading February’s Black History Month Film Festival and hopes that the films will attract a diverse crowd. Although the film screenings are in Cleveland Hall, the festival represents one of many types of events put on by the organizations based in the House. The documentary “Free Angela” was screened last night, and the critically-acclaimed drama “Fruitvale Station” will play on February 27.

“I wanted to do something that would appeal to the whole campus,” said Vernon, “but I kind of wanted to do my own thing too, so we didn’t do movies that people had already seen…I chose [“Free Angela”] because I wanted the film festival to have an educational aspect, and it was also about a woman, so I wanted to do that too.”

“Fruitvale Station—it was a movie that got a lot of hype. It had won a ton of awards and it hadn’t had any viewings in Brunswick movie theaters at all, so I definitely wanted to bring that to campus,” she added.

Vernon and Wein would also like to see more collaboration between the groups that utilize the House.

“The house brings the people together to live in the House but there’s not as much overlap as you would think,” said Wein.

“The Africana Studies department co-sponsored the film festival, which is great,” Vernon said, “but I really haven’t seen many other events that have brought everyone together. I think that would be wonderful.”

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