Bowdoin College

Posted on Thursday, February 3, 2011

This was posted in Universities in Maine

Bowdoin College founded in 1794, is a renowned national elite private liberal arts college located in the coastal New England town of Brunswick, Maine. As of 2010, U.S. News and World Report ranks Bowdoin 6th among liberal arts colleges in the United States.At times, it was ranked as high as 4th in the country. It is widely considered as a small Ivy League. In 2011, its admission rate was 19%. The college enrolls approximately 1,700 students and has been coeducational since 1971. It offers 33 majors and 4 additional minors; the academic year consists of two four-course semesters, and the student-faculty ratio is 9:1.

A liberal arts education at Bowdoin isn’t about being small and safe—it’s about having the support to take surprising risks. Students undertake this journey with faculty members who are scholars and artists of distinction who actively shape their fields. From their first-year seminar through their senior year, students are immersed in subjects with teachers who illuminate their learning with their own passion for their discipline. Faculty and students work together in small classes, in labs, in performance halls, and in the field where students are active participants in performing real-world research.

Huguenot merchant James Bowdoin I arrives in Boston and begins the business career that will make him one of the richest men in North America. The family name of “Baudouin” is anglicized to Bowdoin, pronounced “BO-dun.”

Bowdoin College was chartered in 1794 by Governor Samuel Adams of Massachusetts, of which Maine was then a district, and was named for former Massachusetts governor James Bowdoin, whose son James Bowdoin III was an early benefactor. At the time of its founding, it was the easternmost college in the United States. It is thought that the Bowdoin seal, created in 1798 by Joseph Callender, was a sun because it was the first college in the United States to see the sunrise. In 1806, 13 Harvard graduates opted to accept a Bowdoin degree along with their diploma from Harvard.

A liberal arts education at Bowdoin isn’t about being small and safe – it’s about having the support to take surprising risks. That means caring more about the questions than giving the right answers. Discovering you’re good at something you didn’t think was your strength. Making connections where none appears to exist.

Courses Offered