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As students finish week two of classes and workloads begin to increase, so has the number of COVID-19 cases. According to current manager of isolation housing and Associate Dean for Student Affairs and Assistant to the Dean for Student Affairs Katie Toro-Ferrari, there are 30 students in isolation as of Friday morning.
After lacking a masking requirement for the summer, on August 23 the College imposed an indoor mask mandate beginning on move-in day and requiring masks to be worn inside all public areas on campus. Although the College intended to reconsider the mandate on September 4, due to a flurry of positive tests the mandate was expanded to include student common spaces and extended indefinitely on Thursday.
Due to unforeseen weather and poor field conditions, the Office of Residential Life (ResLife) cancelled the annual College House Olympics, which was originally scheduled for the night of August 30 at Ryan Field from 8 p.m.
In an email to the campus community yesterday, COVID-19 Resource Coordinator Mike Ranen announced that the College would be moving to status Yellow effective immediately. The decision was made after 14 students tested positive for COVID-19 over the last two days.
The College will raise the minimum wage for all hourly workers by $1.50—from $15.50 to $17.00 per hour—on Monday, September 6. This raise comes ten months ahead of Bowdoin’s 3-year plan, which had anticipated this wage increase by July, 2022.
While the majority of Bowdoin’s student body was fully vaccinated prior to arrival on campus, a few students—primarily international students unable to obtain one or both doses of the vaccine in their home countries—were vaccinated upon arrival through Bowdoin Health Services or at Mid Coast Hospital.
After three decades as the only club on campus to formally charge membership fees, as of the beginning of this year, the Bowdoin Outing Club (BOC) will no longer be collecting membership dues. Although this decision will cost the club close to $10,000 annually, club leaders believe that the resultant gains in access and equity for members is more than worth that price.
On Tuesday, August 31, Associate Director of Residential Education and Residential Life, Stephanie Patterson left the Bowdoin College Office of Residential Life to join the Department of Fraternity and Sorority Life at the University of Maryland.
In line with its 2017 Master Planning Update, the College is on track to complete both the Gibbons Center for Arctic Studies and Mills Hall by late 2022. This is despite labor shortages, supply shortages and slowed material supply chains across the country.
Serving students in-person or, temporarily, through take-out, Dining Services is readjusting to accomodating a full-capacity campus for the first time in a year and a half. But as the number of people lining up for meals every day has risen, the number of dining employees has lagged behind.
An indoor mask mandate will be in effect on campus for all students, faculty, staff and visitors beginning Tuesday, August 24, President Clayton Rose announced in an email to the College community Monday morning. There are three exceptions to the indoor mask mandate: face coverings are not required for individuals while actively eating, for students in their own residence halls or for faculty and staff in their own offices.
In an email to the college community on Friday, President Clayton Rose announced that the college’s fall re-opening plan will remain mostly unchanged, even as the COVID-19 Delta Variant continues to spread. While stressing that the college will closely monitor the recently rising number of COVID-19 cases nationwide, Rose wrote that he remains encouraged by the high number of vaccinations in Brunswick and throughout Maine.
The College will no longer limit the number of guests graduating seniors can invite to commencement, wrote COVID-19 Resource Coordinator Mike Ranen in an email to the Bowdoin community. Prior to today’s announcement, each graduate was allowed two guests.
This past year, student ResLife staff faced new responsibilities and challenges as their role on campus changed, from providing support for first years in a new and sometimes isolating environment to enforcing COVID-19 safety guidelines. Next year, both administrative and upper-class student staff on ResLife are considering how to prepare the rising sophomores new to staff, who have yet to experience a normal semester on campus, for the return to a different Bowdoin in the fall.
Between adapting to new Title IX rules from Trump-era Department of Education reforms and finding ways to reach and work with students during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Office of Gender Violence Prevention and Education (OGVPE) has faced a novel academic year.
The Lewiston Police Department (LPD) has referred graffiti written in chalk on the campus of Bates College to the Maine attorney general, who is investigating the case as a possible hate crime. The Bates Leftist Coalition (BLC) shared pictures of the graffitied phrases, “Free Palestine,” “Stop Ethnic Cleansing,” “Israel is killing innocent people” and “[expletive] Zionist Israel.” According to the Associated Press, Gwen Lexow, Bates’ director of Title IX and civil rights compliance, wrote in an email to students that said she heard members of the Bates community “expressing deep concern about the impact of the language contained in the flyers and graffiti, particularly on Jewish members of our campus community.” Since the investigation was announced on Monday, members of the Bates community have responded to the news of the investigation.
In the first of a series of “fireside chats” with this year’s honorary degree recipients, the College welcomed DeRay Mckesson ’07 H’21, a Black Lives Matter activist and host of the podcast Pod Save the People, in a virtual conversation moderated by Beth Kowitt ’07, a journalist for Fortune Magazine.
Students who were set to study abroad in the fall of 2021 have had a tumultuous few weeks. Following the U.S. Department of State’s (DOS) decision to merge its travel advisories with those set by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), these students were notified during the first round of course registration that, if they were traveling to a country that the DOS had just categorized as Level 4, they were strongly encouraged to withdraw from their prospective study abroad status with Bowdoin and register for courses.
Marvin H. Green, Jr. Assistant Professor of Government Chryl Laird will be leaving Bowdoin at the end of the year for a new role at the University of Maryland (UMD), Laird announced on Twitter April 28.
As the College’s year of mostly virtual learning concludes, 73 percent of students approve or strongly approve of their spring 2021 classes, while only 17 percent disapprove or strongly disapprove of their classes. In a slight overall decrease from the fall 2020 semester, 77 percent of students feel the College is handling the COVID-19 crisis well or very well—slightly down from 81 percent of students approving of the College’s response to the pandemic in fall.
The McKeen Center for the Common Good is discontinuing its annual Common Good Day (CGD), McKeen Center Director Sarah Seames announced in an email to the community Wednesday, May 5. CGD will be replaced by a new program called Common Good Project Teams (CGPT).
As a compressed and atypical academic year comes to an end, some graduating seniors are wrapping up their honors projects despite delays caused by limited access to laboratories and difficulty obtaining sources remotely. For seniors conducting scientific research, the pandemic’s biggest impact on their work was the closure of on-campus labs last summer.
As the College prepares for a significant increase in the number of students on campus in the fall, the Office of Residential Life (ResLife) is in the process of finding housing accommodations for all returning students.
On July 1, Paula Volent, Bowdoin’s chief investments officer, will be stepping down from her position after more than two decades of service to the College. Over the duration of her career in Brunswick, Volent oversaw the growth of Bowdoin’s endowment from $465 million to its current $2.4 billion valuation—growth which has fundamentally altered the College’s financial capabilities and enabled it to be one of 19 need-blind colleges nationwide in its admissions policies and meet full demonstrated financial need with zero loans.
With finals around the corner and weather getting warmer, Peer Health is attempting to ensure that mental health and wellness are a top priority on campus. On Saturday, the group hosted a Mental Health Holiday on Dudley Coe Quad from 10 a.m.
On March 26, President Clayton Rose announced a series of anti-racism workshops, to be delivered by the Racial Equity Institute (REI), that ran earlier this month on April 15 and April 24. The workshops, designed to build a dialogue as well as generate awareness regarding racial discrepancies in American culture, were a success, according to Benje Douglas, associate vice president for Inclusion and Diversity.
For the first time since COVID-19 sent students home last spring, the College hosted a campus-wide in-person event. Dubbed a “May 1 Celebration,” the Office of Student Activities scheduled a day of outdoor activities, live music and food trucks last Saturday afternoon to usher in the final month of the semester.
The release of the Summer Campus Community Agreement this week painted a clear picture of what life on campus will look like for students who sign it, and it is a picture that strongly resembles this past semester at the College.
Juggling Handshake appointments, cover letters and interviews on top of an already-packed course load, students often struggle to keep up during internship application season, and the COVID-19 pandemic has only added another layer of complexity to the process.
The Brunswick Hotel and Tavern has housed 47 first-year students this semester as part of Bowdoin’s plan to secure single rooms for all students needing on-campus housing this spring. The students entered the semester with varying levels of connection to their neighbors: some had met over winter break, and some were core group mates from the fall.
This academic year has been defined by the measures taken by the Bowdoin community to protect against COVID-19, and the cornerstone of the College’s plan to prevent an outbreak on campus has been a robust testing program.
The McKeen Center for the Common Good is discontinuing its annual Common Good Day (CGD), McKeen Center Director Sarah Seames announced in an email to the community on Wednesday. CGD will be replaced with a new program called Common Good Project Teams (CGPT).
The College saw fewer acceptances for the Fulbright Student Program this year than is typical, despite a record number of applicants, many of whom advanced to the semi-finalist stage. Of the 62 applicants for the 2021-2022 program year, 39 were recommended to be semifinalists and eight students were selected for English Teaching Assistantship (ETA) programs, while five were selected for the study/research award—a 20 percent acceptance rate.
Ryan Britt ’22 will be the next president of Bowdoin Student Government (BSG) for the 2021-2022 academic year. Britt served as chair of student affairs for the 2019-2020 academic year and currently serves as the President of the Class of 2022.
After arriving at Bowdoin in 2005, Executive Director of Safety and Security Randy Nichols set a goal to get the Office of Safety and Security accredited by the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators (IACLEA)—a professional association committed to “excellence” in campus public safety and law enforcement.
On Wednesday evening, candidates for the Bowdoin Student Government (BSG) Executive Committee faced off against each other in four Zoom debates, moderated by Sabrina Lin ’21, Kate Lusignan ’21, Nina McKay ’21 and Harry Sherman ’21.
As vaccinations became available to all Maine residents over the age of 16, including Bowdoin community members, students from the Pre-Health Society and Bowdoin Underrepresented in Medical Professions (BUMP) have teamed up to contribute to the historic rollout by volunteering at Mid Coast Hospital’s Brunswick Recreation Center vaccine clinic.
On Monday, the Asian Students Alliance (ASA) and the Athletes of Color Coalition (AoCC) hosted a campus-wide conversation, “How to be a Better Ally,” over Zoom. The event was split into two sections, with the first half designated as an “open mic for people to share their feelings on the continued violence against the AAPI community and police brutality against Black and brown people.” During the second half, participants were split into breakout groups to discuss their personal experiences on campus and how to make Bowdoin a more inclusive, supportive place.
Federal officials announced late Monday that international students from Brazil, China, Iran and South Africa will join students from Europe in being exempt from the nation’s COVID-19 travel bans in the fall—a long-anticipated move that will clear a significant roadblock in the return of many international students who left for their home countries at the start of the pandemic.
The College announced on Wednesday that Stephanie Frost, who most recently served as associate dean for external relations at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, will replace Scott Meiklejohn as senior vice president for development and alumni relations beginning this summer.
On Thursday, COVID-19 Resource Coordinator Mike Ranen addressed Governor Janet Mills’ decision to loosen the state’s mask mandate in an email to the College community. Despite new state guidelines that people do not need to wear masks outdoors when they are practicing social distancing, Ranen asked in his email that members of the community continue wearing masks on campus.
College Houses were once centers of social life on campus. But due to COVID-19, they have been forced to reimagine their position. This year, they have become smaller living environments for “pods” of as few as 10 people, forgoing their typical role in campus-wide programming and community building.
Mellody Hobson, co-CEO and President of Ariel Investments and chairwoman of Starbucks, spoke to the Bowdoin community over Zoom on Wednesday night in the final installment of the College’s “Conversations on Democracy” speaker series. Jennifer Scanlon, dean of Academic Affairs and the John S.
On March 4, President Clayton Rose announced that the College will offer on-campus housing for students pursuing summer employment and research. Last summer, few students were offered on-campus housing due to COVID-19 restrictions. According to Director of Events and Summer Programs Tony Sprague, the guidelines for summer housing eligibility will be returning to normal—students who are employed for at least 20 hours a week on campus, pursuing a research fellowship on campus or completing a CXD-funded internship off campus or remotely will be eligible to live in campus housing.
The College announced on April 12 that, starting in the fall, it will be expanding its evaluation of student financial need—a decision that is expected to increase the student aid budget by an average of $3.5 million each year.
Last amended at the beginning of the Fall 2020 semester to accommodate remote learning, faculty members are encouraging the administration to revisit the Spring 2021 time block schedule to alleviate unnecessary class conflicts, make the process of time block selection more equitable within departments and accommodate for larger on-campus student population in the fall.
As shrapnel and earth rained over Elliot Ackerman’s humvee after an explosion in Iraq, his identity transformed. Ackerman was no longer only a ranking officer in the United States Marine Corps; he was also a combat veteran.
On Thursday, April 8, the Bowdoin College Museum of Art (BCMA) virtually welcomed Iraqi archeologist and former Iraq Minister of Culture Dr. Abdulameer Al-Hamdani to give a presentation on the significance of Iraqi heritage and culture.
Bowdoin will require students, faculty and staff, pending medical exceptions, to receive a COVID-19 vaccination before returning to campus for the fall 2021 semester, President Clayton Rose announced in an email sent to students, faculty and staff on Friday morning.
May is Asian and Pacific Islander (API) Heritage Month, and the Asian Students Alliance (ASA) is hosting a variety of events over the next month and a half to recognize and celebrate students’ heritage. This year, given the recent spike in anti-Asian hate crimes and sentiment in the United States, the month takes on increased importance for many.
Yesterday, Moulton Union re-opened for lunch for the first time since closing last week after six positive COVID-19 cases emerged among the dining hall’s staff beginning April 6. After the initial case, the College began administering rapid antigen tests to Moulton employees, which led to the identification of four more positive cases.
On Wednesday evening, the Office of Gender Violence Prevention and Education (OGVPE) hosted its annual Take Back the Night event, offering a time for students, both on and off campus, to hold a moment of reflection about sexual assault and rape culture at Bowdoin in their individual residences at 9 p.m.
Ana Gunther ’23 and Sawyer Gouldman ’23 have been collaborating with Bridget Spaeth, the academic department coordinator for the Earth and Oceanographic Science (EOS) Department, to highlight the “art” in “Earth” with their upcoming exhibition, “eARTh,” which will open in the Roux Center for the Environment on May 17.
On Tuesday evening, students and community members gathered on Zoom for the fifth discussion in the College’s “After the Insurrection: Conversations on Democracy” series. The event, moderated by President Clayton Rose, featured U.S. Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) as she discussed “The State of Our Democracy and Political System.” In her introductory remarks, Collins highlighted four main causes of political polarization in the United States: the role of social media, fragmentation of news, residential sorting and the expectation of political purity.
In an email to the College on March 8, President Clayton Rose announced the start of Mental Health Moments, an initiative developed by mental health advocate Dr. Sally Thomas ’89 to address mental health in an accessible way by providing weekly, easily-digestible action steps for members of the College community.
A student reported symptoms consistent with COVID-19 and subsequently received a positive result from Health Services’ rapid PCR testing instrument, COVID-19 Resource Coordinator Mike Ranen announced in an email to the community on Monday. The student is being moved to isolation housing, and through contact tracing, the College determined that no additional students are required to quarantine.
On Monday evening, as the sun began to dip below the horizon, hundreds of students, faculty and staff gathered on the quad in front of the Bowdoin College Museum of Art. On the Museum steps stood leaders of the Asian Students Alliance (ASA), other students who identify as Asian and Pacific Islander (API), faculty and staff affiliated with the Office of Inclusion and Diversity and individuals and groups of allies, including the Native American Student Association (NASA) and the Black Student Union (BSU).
In lieu of its traditional, in-person admitted students weekend, Admissions is hosting accepted student events virtually this spring for the second year in a row. However, with organizers having had close to a full year to prepare, this year’s programming is much more comprehensive than last year’s.
On Sunday at 5 p.m., registration opened on CampusGroups for students to receive their first dose of the Pfizer vaccine at Mid Coast Hospital’s clinic at the Brunswick Recreation Center beginning Wednesday. Despite website glitches and slowdowns, according to COVID-19 Resource Coordinator Mike Ranen, over 900 students were registered for an appointment within half an hour.
Two months into a spring semester like no other and with over 1,000 students on campus Bowdoin has managed to keep its positive COVID-19 case numbers relatively low. Despite a recent uptick in cases, it has also managed to stay in the least restrictive campus status level—”yellow”—since leaving “Hibearnation” and three days of “orange” in mid-February.
During public comment time at Thursday’s Bowdoin Student Government (BSG) meeting, many students expressed their displeasure with BSG’s decision to distribute masks reading “Hate is A Virus” at a vigil recognizing anti-Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) racism and violence on Monday.
Moulton Union will be closed until breakfast tomorrow after three employees tested positive for COVID-19 this week, COVID-19 Resource Coordinator Mike Ranen wrote in an email to the community on Thursday. Ranen wrote that the College closed the dining hall as a “precautionary measure.” Moulton dining employees will come to campus to receive a rapid antigen and PCR test every day, but they will leave campus immediately after they complete both tests.
An outside contractor who worked in Kanbar Hall this week tested positive for COVID-19 on Thursday, COVID-19 Resource Coordinator Mike Ranen announced in an email to the community Thursday evening. As a result, outside contractors will not be permitted to enter campus buildings, effective immediately.
On Friday, March 19, the Office of Admissions released its final round of decisions for the Class of 2025. The College received 9,325 applications this year—a slight decrease from last year’s all-time high of 9,402. This year’s final acceptance rate is 8.8 percent, which is a slight increase from last year’s rate of 8.3 percent.
A second staff member in Moulton Hall tested positive for COVID-19, COVID-19 Resource Coordinator Mike Ranen announced in an email to the community on Tuesday. Ranen clarified in his message that the case was not related to the positive case reported on Monday.
Editor’s Note 04/08/2021 at 9:25 p.m.: A previous version of this article stated that the testing center closed at 1 p.m. on Wednesdays. A correction has since been issued from the College; it closes at 4 p.m.
On Tuesday, one employee in Moulton Hall tested positive and one student who received an inconclusive test in Monday’s testing received a positive result on an antigen test, COVID-19 Resource Coordinator Mike Ranen announced in two separate emails to the community.
Editor’s Note 04/04/21 at 10:38 p.m.: This article has been edited to correct an accidental omission. The article previously stated that Thais Carrillo ’23 felt that skipping class did solve the problem. It has now been corrected to note that she stated the opposite.
Editor’s note 04/05/2021 at 3:31 p.m.: This article has been updated to incorporate additional details about the events surrounding the fire. Jacob Trachtenberg ’24 was eating lunch early in the afternoon of Monday, March 29, at the Brunswick Inn, where he and a handful of other first-year students are living this semester, when a fire broke out upstairs.
Editor’s Note on Friday, April 2, at 12:02 p.m.: This article has been updated to reflect additional information released to the student body about the College’s vaccination partnership with Mid Coast Hospital. The College will work with Mid Coast Hospital to provide Pfizer vaccinations to all Bowdoin students after vaccine eligibility is extended to all Maine residents over the age of 16 on April 7, COVID-19 Resource Coordinator Mike Ranen announced in an email to students on Thursday afternoon.
On Tuesday evening, journalist and bestselling author Emily Bazelon spoke to the Bowdoin community about the role of prosecutors in contributing to systemic mass incarceration. Bazelon is a staff writer at the New York Times Magazine, the Truman Capote Fellow for Creative Writing and Law at Yale Law School and co-host of the Slate Political Gabfest podcast.
After 14 months of research, Professor of Anthropology Krista Van Vleet shared her book published in 2019, “Hierarchies of Care: Girls, Motherhood, and Inequality in Peru,” with the Bowdoin community in a webinar-style book talk on Wednesday.
In a three-part virtual programming series, Lex Horwitz ’19, a queer, non-binary transmasculine LGBTQ+ educator and activist, and a former member of the Bowdoin men’s squash team, has returned to Bowdoin to share their knowledge and experiences with the Bowdoin athletic community, providing insight into how to cultivate a more inclusive and supportive environment for all.
A College employee who works in Rhodes Hall tested positive for COVID-19 in Wednesday’s testing, COVID-19 Resource Coordinator Mike Ranen announced in a community-wide email Thursday afternoon. According to Ranen, this case is the second positive reported in Rhodes Hall in seven days.
More students are expected to live on campus next semester than in past years, primarily due to returns from personal leaves of absence, gap years and decreased participation in study abroad. Despite the projected increase in the on-campus student population, the College is positioned to meet increased demand for housing because of the recent openings of Harpswell and Park Row Apartments.
One student tested positive for COVID-19 on Tuesday, COVID-19 Resource Coordinator Mike Ranen announced in an email to the community. Through contact tracing, three additional students were identified as close contacts and have been moved to quarantine housing.
Two students tested positive for COVID-19 on Monday. The cases are not believed to be “connected to each other or to any of the cases reported last week,” COVID-19 Resource Coordinator Mike Ranen wrote in an email sent to the Bowdoin community on Tuesday afternoon.
One College employee tested positive for COVID-19 in Wednesday’s testing, COVID-19 Resource Coordinator Mike Ranen announced in an email to the Bowdoin community on Thursday afternoon. This case marks the fifth on campus in the last week, after three students and one employee tested positive on Friday.
Students who meet certain criteria can now seek approval from the Office of the Dean of Students to leave campus for a COVID-19 vaccination, COVID-19 Resource Coordinator Mike Ranen wrote in an email to all students on Monday.
In an email to the campus community, COVID-19 Coordinator Mike Ranen announced that three students and one employee tested positive for COVID-19 this morning. The College has identified eight students who were in close contact with the students who tested positive.
In the third installment of the College’s “After The Insurrection: Conversations on Democracy” series, Myrna Pérez, director of the Brennan Center’s Voting Rights and Elections Program, visited Bowdoin virtually on Thursday for a talk moderated by Adjunct Professor of Government George Isaacson.
Marking a reversal from a previous announcement, graduating students will each be able to have two guests attend the College’s Commencement Exercises on Saturday, May 29, President Rose wrote in an email to graduating students and their families on Friday.
On Monday night, in collaboration with the Phi Beta Kappa visiting scholars program, 2020-21 Carl F. Cranor Visiting Scholar Professor Corey Brettschneider came to Bowdoin for a virtual visit and lecture on his book “The Oath and the Office: A Guide to the Constitution for Future Presidents.” Brettschneider, a professor of political science at Brown University and a visiting professor of law at Fordham Law School, spoke to members of the Bowdoin community about the constitutional powers and limits designated to the President of the United States.
After spending much of the past year away from campus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, students are reconsidering their plans to study off campus during the 2021-22 academic year. The Office of Off-Campus Study received fewer applications for study away this year than in previous years, with a majority of applications being for the spring semester rather than for the fall.
On Wednesday, Sunrise Bowdoin hosted “Envisioning Climate Justice: A Progressive Policy Panel.” The event featured Hannah Vogel, staffer for Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey; Arjun Krishnaswami from the National Resources Defense Council and 2020 Green Party presidential candidate Howie Hawkins.
Following an order issued by Maine Governor Janet Mills on March 5, Bowdoin has modified its rules for travel related to official College purposes, COVID-19 Resource Coordinator Mike Ranen announced in an email to all students and employees on Wednesday.
On Tuesday, faculty voted in favor of approving a motion to revise teaching criteria for tenure and promotion. Starting in the 2022-23 academic year, candidates for tenure and promotion will be evaluated on the basis of whether they “demonstrate inclusive excellence in teaching,” replacing the current “demonstrate excellence in teaching.” “This change is not just about simply using the right terminology, but really using something action-based,” Stanley F.
Just over a year after celebrating its 50th anniversary, the Africana Studies Program is now recognized as a full-fledged academic department. The change—effective immediately—was announced at Tuesday’s faculty meeting. The transition was headed by the department’s four full-time faculty members: Peter M.
Despite Maine’s relatively efficient rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine—the state is currently ranked tenth nationally in percentage of the population that has been fully vaccinated—the state’s transition to an age-based distribution plan has placed many Bowdoin students at the end of the line, resulting in a sense of uncertainty, disappointment and a scramble to find alternate solutions.
The College expects to resume Orientation trips and activities for the Class of 2025 this upcoming fall, President Rose announced in an email to the Bowdoin community on March 4. He also wrote that similar class-building activities may be offered to the Class of 2024, which did not have Bowdoin’s typical orientation programming this past fall due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Despite the challenges of engaging students studying remotely and abiding by COVID-19 restrictions to reach those on campus, the Student Activities Office and Bowdoin Student Government (BSG) are working to continue fostering community through campus programming.
In an email to the community sent on Saturday afternoon, COVID-19 Resource Coordinator announced that an employee of the College tested positive for COVID-19 in Friday’s on-campus testing. The employee is isolating at home. One other employee was identified as a close contact through contact tracing and is now quarantined at home.
President Clayton Rose sent an email to the campus community on Thursday afternoon announcing that the College expects to welcome all students back to campus in the fall. Rose also outlined plans for commencement and summer on-campus activity.
With indoor gatherings limited by low occupancy limits in private residential common rooms, the Bowdoin Student Government (BSG) recently partnered with Facilities to purchase outdoor fire pits as a means to give students another option to safely socialize—the most recent initiative to enhance the student social experience in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Last Thursday, 1,369 donors made gifts for BowdoinOne Day, the College’s annual giving campaign, exceeding the College’s target of 1,200 donors for the day. Rather than a multi-week campaign concluding in April, as it has been in past years, this year’s BowdoinOne Day was a single day of giving.
The Joseph McKeen Center for the Common Good has launched a new program for students who are independently volunteering this semester to connect and reflect on their experiences. The eight-week program, called Together in Community, will consist of weekly video challenges and an end-of-semester pizza party.
Suzanne Nossel, free speech advocate and Chief Executive Officer of PEN America, a nationwide organization that strives to protect free expression, virtually visited Bowdoin on Monday evening to participate in the College’s “After the Insurrection: Conversations on Democracy” series that explores the current state and future of the country’s democracy.
This weekend, the fifth annual production of “RISE: The Untold Stories of Bowdoin Women” will be available for students to watch remotely. The production, put on by the student-led club fEMPOWER, includes over 30 student performers and will be streamed at 7 p.m.
Bowdoin Dialogues, a group led by Assistant Dean of Student Affairs for Inclusion and Diversity Eduardo Pazos and Associate Dean of Students for Inclusion and Diversity Kate Stern, launched its most recent series of discussions focusing on issues surrounding race and class this week.
This semester, the Student Activities Funding Committee (SAFC) has $270,000 to allocate to student activities. The budget includes $55,000 rolled over from the SAFC’s $165,000 fall budget. The budget for the 2020-21 academic year is $380,000—a dramatic decrease from the $810,000 allotted for the 2019-20 academic year.
