The Campaign
Priorities: Academic Affairs
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Priority Update
We must protect our ability to attract and retain outstanding teachers and scholars in today’s extremely competitive marketplace by investing substantial new funds to create more and better opportunities for our faculty to advance their creativity and research, and thus to inspire and transform our students.
| Enrichment of Academic Program | $ | 37,500,000 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Faculty positions | (e) | $ | 35,000,000 |
| Bridge for endowed positions | (s) | $ | 2,000,000 |
| New curriculum funding |
(s) | $ | 500,000 |
| Faculty Career Development | $ | 10,000,000 | |
| Enhanced sabbatical leave | (e) | $ | 9,000,000 |
| Engagement with professional peers | (e) | $ | 1,000,000 |
| Enrichment of Intellectual Community | $ | 10,000,000 | |
| Coastal studies support | (e) | $ | 2,500,000 |
| Environmental studies |
(e) | $ | 4,000,000 |
| Bowdoin Scientific Station |
(e) |
$ |
1,000,000 |
| Symposia and visiting scholars | (e) |
$ |
2,500,000 |
| Enhancement of Centers of Academic Excellence | $ | 9,000,000 | |
| Student research fellowships | (e) | $ | 2,000,000 |
| Library resources | (e) | $ | 2,000,000 |
| Museum of Art | (e) | $ | 2,000,000 |
| Educational Technology Program | (e) | $ | 1,000,000 |
| Center for Learning and Teaching | (e) |
$ |
1,000,000 |
| Curricular development funds | (e) |
$ |
1,000,000 |
| Renovations of Academic Spaces | (r) | $ | 3,000,000 |
| Key: (c)=Construction (e)=Endowment (s)=Spendable (r)=Renovation | |||
Enriching Bowdoin’s Academic Experience
Today, Bowdoin College, with its 10:1 student/faculty ratio, competes successfully for students and academic reputation with larger liberal arts colleges and with universities that have even more varied and deeper curricula. Low student/faculty ratios allow colleges like Bowdoin to offer small classes, independent study, and research projects that bring students and teachers together in meaningful ways.
Twelve new faculty positions will be funded through this campaign. They will permit the College to deepen several existing programs, relieve enrollment pressures in several departments, help reduce class size to levels that are competitive with peer institutions, and help diversify the expertise of our faculty. The new positions fall into three broad categories: internationalizing the curriculum, strengthening the sciences, and supporting the arts.
Endowed chairs enable Bowdoin to recognize extraordinary faculty members for their teaching, scholarly research, and service to the College. They are important in recruiting and retaining faculty and they also offer an opportunity to recognize past faculty members who have been significant mentors to their students, by naming a chair in their honor. Endowed chairs can be named in specific departments, or they can be set up as rotating chairs open to any discipline, rank of professor, and term. Rotating chairs are extremely valuable because they provide the greatest flexibility for enabling Bowdoin to reward and recognize extraordinary junior faculty members for their teaching, scholarly research, and service to the College.
To date, the College has raised funds for eight new faculty positions, and five of those have been filled, including:
- An Islamic and Judaic studies position in religion
- A Spanish and Latino/Chicano studies position in Romance languages
- A position in theater and dance
- A comparative politics position in the government department
- An environmental studies position
A $35 million endowment will provide the resources necessary to fund the twelve new faculty positions and to replace expiring grant funding for two additional faculty positions.
An additional $2 million in spendable income will provide bridge funds necessary to begin the faculty hiring process immediately. We also seek $500,000 of spendable income to create a fund to support new curricular initiatives.
In addition to these new positions, we seek endowment to secure the long-term funding of two faculty positions in Asian studies — positions that were initially established through grants but need sustained funding.
Since campaign pledges may be paid over a five-year period, additional spendable income will provide bridge funds that will allow the College to immediately begin the faculty hiring process, before the new positions are fully endowed. This allows us to immediately create depth in areas of study that the College does not currently offer.
The academic program will be further enriched by funds to support new curricular initiatives. Both new and existing faculty members develop new course content on a regular basis, stepping outside of their previous teaching methods to cultivate new ways of learning. Support for new curriculum funding has a major impact on how faculty research is reflected in the classroom.
Faculty Career Development
Bowdoin must improve its support for vital faculty development opportunities. Our teaching load allows faculty the time to work intensely with students inside and outside the classroom – our first priority. Yet if we expect our professors to be both dedicated full-time teachers and successful scholars and artists, we must strengthen the College’s sabbatical and leave replacement policies to remain competitive with our peer institutions.
Support for faculty as teachers and also as scholars is one of the most important tools for recruiting and retaining professors whose work is changing the face of their disciplines. Sabbaticals provide vital professional opportunities for faculty, allowing them to engage deeply with peers and advance their research on a regular basis. Faculty members bring the results of their sabbatical research and learnings back to campus, which exposes students to cutting-edge ideas.
Increased funding is needed to place Bowdoin’s leave policies at a level comparable to peer institutions. The College offers one paid semester of leave after twelve semesters of teaching; many peer institutions offer sabbaticals at twice that frequency. For top scholars, this translates into the opportunity to write twice as many books in the course of a career at an institution other than Bowdoin. An endowed fund for faculty career development will help make the College’s sabbatical policies competitive, and will help Bowdoin continue to recruit and retain top scholars and teachers.
We must also create additional funding for engagement with professional peers, allowing our faculty the opportunity to work with other experts in their areas of teaching, research, and interest.
Enrichment Of Intellectual Community
Less than a decade old, Bowdoin's Coastal Studies Center has etched a distinctive place in the landscape of the College, and the scope of coastal studies has grown to incorporate research and teaching up and down the Maine coast, but the potential for learning remains vast. The College is in a unique position to enrich the global intellectual community by connecting coastal studies, Arctic studies, and environmental studies. With its place on the coast of Maine, its 147-year history of research and teaching about the Arctic, and its diverse group of outstanding faculty members interested in the issues surrounding global climate change, the College offers opportunities for students to study coastal issues in Maine and worldwide. Through interdisciplinary work, students and faculty explore problems from distinct perspectives, including policy, science, geology, philosophy, history, and education. Support for coastal studies will further the impressive work taking place and cement the College’s role as a coastal studies authority. Coastal studies at Bowdoin will be a multi-faceted program that incorporates long-term environmental monitoring, faculty-student research opportunities across the curriculum, technical support, fellowships for visiting experts, and interdisciplinary opportunities through symposia and workshops that will provide new ways of thinking about our coastline.
In addition, funding for the College's environmental studies program will enhance opportunities for students to undertake an interdisciplinary approach to exploring global environmental issues, one that recognizes that human activities are dependent upon natural processes. Our commitment to the study of the environment is highlighted in our mission statement: As a liberal arts college in Maine, Bowdoin assumes a particular responsibility to use nature as a resource for teaching and engaging students—notably to help them obtain a broad sense of the natural environment, local and global, and the effects and the role of human beings regarding it. Funding for this initiative supports an integrated approach that includes all branches of the College.
The Bowdoin Scientific Station on Kent Island in New Brunswick, Canada, was established in 1935 as a research facility and sanctuary for nesting seabirds. Students and faculty, as well as scholars from other institutions, continue this research today. Support for this initiative provides summer fellowships for undergraduates and also brings outside faculty members to the island to conduct research. Read the Winter 2008 Bowdoin Magazine story about Kent Island.
Bowdoin brings outside faculty to campus for symposia that enhance the scholarly conversations that are already taking place. In addition to supporting these events, funding for faculty fellowships brings visiting scholars to campus to engage with students for extended periods of time to explore the core issues that we face today. Currently, these symposia and visiting scholar opportunities are planned on an ad hoc basis. Funding will allow the College to plan on a multi-year level.
Enhancement of Centers of Academic Excellence
Student research is a growing component of a Bowdoin education, offering hundreds of students in diverse disciplines the opportunity for independent and collaborative research with faculty. Fellowships give students firsthand experience with productive scholarly work, and they provide faculty with an opportunity to provide direction on a project in their field of interest. Faculty and students are doing research in coastal studies, ecology, and environmental studies as well as the arts, humanities, and social sciences, and there is more demand for these opportunities than we can currently fund. Faculty play a key role in raising funds for their own research and that of their students from private foundations and federal agencies, but some of the grants require the College to provide matching support, particularly for the acquisition of research-related equipment. Funding supports student work and also allows the College to offer participants a stipend and housing allowance.
The Hawthorne-Longfellow Library is among the most distinguished undergraduate libraries in the country, and it acquired its one-millionth volume in the spring of 2006. The cost of library materials has escalated, particularly for the electronic resources that have transformed the modern library into a multifunctional facility that not only serves the academic and research needs of its students and faculty, but also provides a multi-media resource meeting demands for online scholarly journals, research databases, and digital and film databases in many disciplines. The high cost of these materials presents a significant challenge to meeting students’ needs and faculty research objectives, both long-standing points of pride for the library.
Similarly, the Bowdoin College Museum of Art is among the nation’s finest collegiate museums. With a multi-million dollar renovation complete, additional funding will provide the museum staff with the necessary resources to meet 21st-century standards and enhance the student experience within the remodeled building. The museum has a renowned permanent collection, and funding will enable the College to bring in visiting exhibitions. It will also greatly enhance teaching, providing all students with an opportunity to study artwork as part of their academic experience.
With these new technologies and resources comes the need to train people in how to utilize these tools. An educational technology program will provide funds for training and give students and faculty the necessary skills to access the ever-developing and growing technological resources. It will allow for new classroom technologies, increased access to digital resources, development of online teaching tools, and creation of multimedia materials.
Bowdoin’s Center for Learning and Teaching provides skill-building support for students, with a particular emphasis on first-year students. With a focus on peer mentoring, study groups, and tutoring, the center helps students explore new ways of learning and understanding, including writing, quantitative skills, and study skills. This experience ultimately allows students to leave Bowdoin with a true liberal arts education by helping them overcome intimidation surrounding unfamiliar subjects and skill requirements. While the center provides strong support for learning, support for teaching has not been as broad, and the College is currently unable to meet the demand. Funding for this initiative will provide support for teaching tools that will enable the College to more fully assess its curriculum.
Renovations/Building Needs
The challenges related to maintaining our historic campus are welcome, as the College takes seriously its role in preserving this part of our country’s history. With 120 buildings on campus, some built in the early 1800s, we face substantial costs in updating academic and office space to accommodate the diverse needs of those who work and study here, while respecting and preserving the architecture of our beautiful campus. The flexibility to address renovations of academic space is important to attracting top-level students and providing adequate and appropriate space for an ever-growing faculty.