Report of the President, Bowdoin College

20 Pages·1992·1.5 MB·English

by  Bowdoin College. Office of the President

ANNUAL REPORT
OF THE
PRESIDENT
1991-1992
BOWDOIN COLLEGE
BRUNSWICK, MAINE
Digitized by the Internet Archive
2013
in
http://archive.org/details/reportofpresiden19911bowd
ANNUAL REPORT
OF THE
PRESIDENT
1991-1992
TO THE GOVERNING BOARDS, ALUMNI, believed powerfully in the university's mission of
—
PARENTS, AND FRIENDS: seeking knowledge for its own sake not for utili-
—
This
is the Annual Report ofthe President tarian reasons and in the grounding values of
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ofBowdoin College the second I have free inquiry and total, unremitting academic hon-
had the honor to present to the Govern- esty. Pelikan, in his restatement, underlines these
ing Boards and alumni ofthe College. To set a virtues, and the vital qualities oftoleration, civility
context for the year, and for the annual reports of and rationality, but when he has done so he is
the Dean for Academic Affairs and the Vice Presi- drawn into all our current university and college
dent for Finance that follow, I propose to set down duties offinancial fairness, non-discrimination,
some thoughts about the idea ofBowdoin College. public accountability, community service, and the
It has been a livelyyear, with much debate about duty to change and grow, and thus he swiftly
our essentials and our values. In balancing budgets leaves the haven ofprinciple and enters the world
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and revisiting the role offraternities and sororities, ofcontroversy. This is the world a world ofpro-
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the year has, in fact, been about what Bowdoin cess and mediation in which colleges, and college
College stands for and how the nature ofthe presidents, find themselves, fascinatingly and tur-
Bowdoin community is defined and represented. bulently, today.
I could be too heavy about all this. Beyond the Perhaps more helpful in explaining the nature of
debates, there has been the wonderfully robust colleges, although some distance from our mis-
concreteness ofBowdoin, the density and flow of sion, is a political scientist, Benedict Anderson. In
its life. I've come in my second year to know more describing the historic, global struggle ofhuman
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faculty and more students seen and rejoiced in beings to establish sovereignties, or nation states,
their research on Kent Island, their musical and he recounts the efforts ofpeoples to create what
dance performances in Pickard, their exhibitions of he calls "imagined communities." 2 Sovereign
painting and photography in Adams Hall studios states are human artifacts, he says, creative con-
and in New York, and in their doings on the ath- structions ofshared recollections, beliefand lan-
letic field. It is the concrete expressions ofvital, guage. We may see again the irreducible elements
creative human beings that build attachment, af- ofnational sovereignty as we witness the dissolu-
fection, and pride, and I'm determined not to let tion ofthe USSR, Yugoslavia, Sudan, and Ethiopia
the abstractions and the pressures absent me from into hopeful and proud, but also vengeful and
these felicities in the years ahead. murderous, sub-national communities, or as we
But it's hard to report on the College, interpret watch a country like Pakistan struggle to create a
it for the Governing Boards, without relating it to nation out ofpowerful, defensive, linguistic, ethnic
some ofthe broader forces that are shaping all of and religious subgroups, each with their own rec-
America's colleges and universities today. It is no ollections, ecologies, fears and beliefs. Human
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accident, in these fractious times, that the Yale beings are unendingly inventive, restless and
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scholarJaroslav Pelikan, in his just-published book protective about institutions that embody and
A
The Idea ofthe University: Reexamination 1, turns express their hopes and sense ofthemselves.
back toJohn Henry Newman, whose own Idea of A college is not a sovereignty, but it too is a
a University was published in 1873. Newman human artifact, an act ofhuman imagination that
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ANNUAL REPORT
OF THE
PRESIDENT
1991-1992
is created by each generation. Pretty much until establishyour culture only by the accepting embrace of
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the 1960s, American colleges and not only those your given nature, or race, or heritage oftradition
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that were all male caused their undergraduates to that individual acts ofimagination, proposingworlds
assimilate mainly elements ofthe great Western that have notyet been, can create their own new, plural
tradition: what, confidently and unquestioningly, communities around them, and that these in turn can
Matthew Arnold called "the best that has been form a different kind ofsociety."
thought and known." Despite the arrival ofwar
veterans on the GI Bill, private higher education It is not hard to see, on this theory ofart as
was grounded in a triad: familiar values, the canon, impertinence, why judgments about contempo-
We
and social class. assigned a sort ofirreducible rary art arouse such public discomfort, fury and
cultural significance to the great texts and works we Congressional ire. And ifcolleges and universities
studied, in the same way that we assimilated the have been, for roughly a generation, conducting
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national mythology ofeconomic progress and, their affairs in this same spirit bursting intellec-
without defining what it meant, the national "melt- tual conventions, building major non-Western
ing pot." The most self-confident ofour disci- studies programs, accepting into their scholarly
plines, the natural sciences, led the social sciences ranks more women, blacks, native Americans, and
— —
even the humanities to adopt scientific critical foreign-born minorities than ever before, many
theories, based on certainty and knowable fact with radically different perceptions and collective
upon which all could agree. memories, is there any reason why boards of
Our condition today in colleges and universities, trustees and the public as a whole find us difficult
however, has rather less to do with certainty, inher- to grasp? The imaginers oftoday's collegiate
itance and transmission, although the quattrocento "imagined community" have been formed by a far
frescoes, the Goldberg Variations, King Lear, and greater variety ofsocial, racial, and gender experi-
the Federalist Papers are still wonderfully there. ences. Our scientists themselves burst not only
Intellectually, we have been invaded by many ofthe with new knowledge, new, inventive ways of
forces that gave birth to the phenomenon ofmod- knowing, but also with new uncertainties.
ern art, as KirkVarnedoe, the curator ofpainting For both the colleges and their supporters, as
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and sculpture at the Museum ofModern Art, de- exciting as all this is, and as inevitable as it is for
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scribed them in a recent talk. 3 it is the spirit ofthe age it is excitement that has
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We
risks and costs. can be seen to be and be
"In the lineage that unrolls from Cezanne and Van uncritical and self-indulgent. For ifthere is no
. . .
Gogh to the present, there is a remarkable idea: the community ofshared purpose, how does an insti-
radical idea that living with uncertainty and open- tution define what is expected ofa faculty mem-
endedness—in fact, embracing it, creating it when it ber? Ifwe are reluctant to discuss the ideas and
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wasn'twanted could produce something sustaining, a skills a graduating senior should command, how
culture ofits own thatwould satisfy the soul and serve then do we define our intellectual mission? Ifwe
social life as well .... treat everything as equally important and there-
And embedded in this conception ofart is the larger, fore equally fundable, while our resources are
wholly modern notion that as an individual you don't limited, how do we define financial integrity?
^KirkVarnedoe, Stanford CommencementAddress,June 14, 1992.
See alsoVarnedoe and Adam Gopik, ModernAitandPopularCulture,
NewYork, 1990
ANNUAL REPORT
OF THE
PRESIDENT
1991-1992
My
colleagues and I are aware ofour dual obli-
gation both to encourage inventiveness and to
build solidly, and assigning responsibility and de-
fining Bowdoin's core educational ideas are, in fact,
what the past year has been about. The following
reports by Charles Beitz on the academic program
and by KentJohn Chabotar on finance give pal-
pable examples. But as they also dramatize, the
redefinition ofbudgetary and curricular centralities
has required elaborate, time-consuming mobiliza-
tion ofthe college, to "imagine" this community
creatively and optimistically. So we have mobilized
forums, committee meetings, seminars and work-
shops without number.
Which takes us to the score card for the year. I
have measured success by one major touchstone.
We
were successful to the extent that the year's
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actions put in train processes and aroused excite-
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ment and passion to strengthen discourse at
Bowdoin about its great purposes, about what is
vital and what Bowdoin can do best within its fi-
nancial limits for students who will spend lives and
We
careers in the twenty-first century. have been
unsuccessful to the extent that we have taken ac-
tions that have left members ofthe College believ-
ing that decisions will be made by others, that they
are exempt from the dual burdens ofshared power
and responsibility, or that they are marginal.
As Beitz and Chabotar narrate, we have made
successful beginnings in creating a genuinely seri-
ous forum on finance and academic affairs. In fi-
nance we still have tough issues ahead, but we have
plotted the way to a balanced budget. Even when
we achieve that goal in 1993-94, however, we will
be successful only ifwe have established mecha-
nisms to engage the community in a con-tinuing
process ofmaking judgments and trade-offs be- Top: Bowdoin's ConcertBandprovidesmusicatthe
JamesBowdoin Day Exercises. Above: Entering
tween the excellent and the good, the vital and the studentsstillsign the matriculation booksatNathaniel
merely important. Hawthorne'sdesk in the President's Office evetyfall.
ANNUAL REPORT
OF THE
PRESIDENT
1991-1992
In the academic domain, we shall in an impor-
tant sense never be "there." But I believe we have
begun at Bowdoin a new habit ofinstitution-wide
discourse and an organizing theory ofa student's
four years. The values ofNewman, reexamined by
Pelikan, underlie all we do, and they probably need
to be underlined more often and publicly. But the
dean for academic affairs and the students and
faculty on the Curriculum and Educational Policy
Committee have outlined with fresh clarity the
educational qualities that will inform Bowdoin's
tradeoffs in the curricular domain: that basic writ-
ing and quantitative skills need fresh attention; that
the students' four years should have a cumulative
structure; that they should move a student con-
sciously from apprenticeship toward mastery,
probably demonstrated by independent work; that
the association between student and faculty mem-
ber should be close, intellectually intense, and
generous; and that the student, with guidance,
should have an increasing hand in the design and
navigation ofhis or her academic voyage, since the
world will require, more than anything else, an
ordering capacity and an ability to synthesize and
thinkindependently.
This past year these concerns for the shape ofa
student's four-year education at Bowdoin played
out against exhaustive reviews, with external con-
sultants, oftwo major, and quite different, substan-
tive curricular domains. The first involved the
scrutiny and the strong encouragement oftwo, still
experimental, but vital programs: Afro-American
Studies, which seek to explore, depict and "imag-
ine" the experience oftwo hundred years and be-
yond ofAmerica's black community of 32 million
people; and film studies, which explore historically
and through student creations the power ofthe
Top: Discussiongroupswithfacultyare an
visual image that has done so much to inform,
importantpartofOrientationfornewstudents. — —
Shown here, Associate ProfessorofEducation manipulate, inspire and diminish the twentieth-
Penny Martin. Above: TheMuseum ofArt century mind. These are vital programs, old
welcomesvisitorsin allseasons.
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ANNUAL REPORT
OF THE
PRESIDENT
1991-1992
enough now to be reexamined and refined. The
second involved a searching examination into
Bowdoin's needs in an area ofgreat historic
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strength at the College the natural sciences
and a year-long planning effort by the dean and
chairs ofscience departments on new science
space requirements.
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Here in finance and the educational pro-
—
We
gram I believe we were successful. have
drawn a great variety ofBowdoin's members and
subgroups into a discourse that will define the
constant "becoming" that a good college must be.
In one domain we were not successful: in devis-
ing satisfactory ways for the community to discuss
its future regarding single-sex fraternities and
sororities. The issue, the administration and Gov-
erning Boards believed, had already been decided
in principle by the College in 1988, when the
Governing Boards adopted the Merton Henry
Commission recommendation that all fraternities
should be coeducational by September 1991 or
lose College recognition. When, in fact, a second
single-sex fraternity purchased a house in 1991,
joining the one existing non-recognized all-male
fraternity, with the prospect ofmore all-male
chapters swiftly following, the Boards decided to
close the loophole status of"nonrecognition" by
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the College and require a uniform policy al-
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ready accepted by eight fraternities ofnon-
discriminatory coeducational membership.
In a literal, legal sense the issue had indeed
been decided. The policy change was a minor
adjustment, confirming Bowdoin's benign view of
fraternities so long as they observe basic principles
and practices. But in an immediate, campus sense,
it had not been decided. The 1988 Henry Report
was not reargued; we discovered that it was pre- Top: ProfessorofGeologyArthurHussey, an authorof
history to 1992's campus. Neither was the the Bedrock GeologicMap ofMaine, reviews the
geology ofastudent'shonorsresearch area.
College's duty and right to prescribe its collective Above:MembersofBowdoin'swomen's tennis team
identity and institutional values reargued in full, preparefora match at thePickardFieldcourts.
ANNUAL REPORT
OF THE
PRESIDENT
1991-1992
and our assumptions were countered by a number
ofstudents who argued, with a sense offresh injury
and unrequited logic, their own right to choose to
associate with whomever they wanted in whatever
organization they wanted. The issue, as it happens,
arose on a campus where the sensibilities ofstu-
dents were already ruffled. In their three-year "liv-
ing memory," the faculty had voted a change in the
—
grading system after elaborate discussion and
debate but to considerable student disapproval; two
popular faculty members had not received reap-
pointments; and budgetary constrictions had
pinched or redefined some student services and
athletic teams.
The fraternity issue is uniquely difficult, for
several reasons: fraternities have played a major
part in Bowdoin's residential and social life over
the years; they stand on independently owned real
estate; and they are part ofnational organizations
with their own systems ofconvictions and rules. In
addressing the fraternity question in 1992, the
College underlined two principles that seem both
essential and unexceptionable: that it should have
control over its own institutional social and resi-
dential life; and that the fundamental services,
activities, and organizations ofthe College should
be available freely and without discrimination to all
students. Notwithstanding, the incomprehension
and anger precipitated by the decision are evidence
ofa real failure ofprocess. Devising more effective
ways to engage students in the institution-defining
and decision-making processes ofthe College re-
mains unfinished and important business. Fraterni-
ties are only one example.
In specific ways, the College evidenced great
Top: Renovationsin SearlesScience Building
have includednew ventilation systemsfor health and enjoyed some marvelous achievements.
severallaboratories. Furtherimprovements The Development Office, reorganized under the
have beenfundedthrough agrantfrom the leadership ofVice President for Development and
NationalScience Foundation. Above:
Bowdoinfieldsa totalof29men'sand Alumni Relations William A. Torrey, buoyed by a
wofnen'sintercollegiate teams. magnificent effort from its Alumni Fund class
ANNUAL REPORT
OF THE
PRESIDENT
1991-1992
agents and spearheaded by the giving ofthe re- bicentenary. One ofwhich I am particularly proud
union classes, raised $3 million for the Alumni involved the leadership oftwo Bowdoin profes-
Fund, in an environment clouded by economic sors, William H. Barker ofmathematics and Dale
uncertainty and unhappiness about fraternities. Syphers ofphysics, and Katharine B. Bunge ofthe
Our Parents Fund has increased by 38 percent in Development Office, in helping to organize the
two years. Overall the College raised over $10.5 Maine Mathematics and Science Alliance and
million in the year 1991-92, the fourth largest assisting the alliance in winning a $10 million
total in Bowdoin's history. grant from the National Science Foundation to
The Admissions Office, under the new leader- improve the quality ofmathematics and science
ship ofDean Richard E. Steele, secured an im- education throughout the State ofMaine. I now
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provement in our "yield" the percentage ofstu- chair the executive committee ofthe alliance, a
dents we have accepted who accept Bowdoin's remarkable group ofpublic school educators, state
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offer ofadmission by two percentage points, and officials, business representatives, and state uni-
we will be admitting one ofthe most able and versity administrators. I feel privileged to be able
selective classes in recent years. Aided by the to help tie Bowdoin and its vital intellectual life
strengthened BASIC network, research on into the rejuvenation ofeducation widely in the
Bowdoin's applicant pool, a new program ofgroup state, in an experiment that could attract national
recruiting nationwide with peer colleges and uni- attention.
versities, and a new set ofpublications, Steele's There are in train a number ofstudies and
extremely lively Admissions Office approaches the planning exercises that will be ofvital importance
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new year in a state ofhigh optimism and with to Bowdoin's future concerning the size ofthe
inquiries about the College up by 2,000. College, the redesign and renovation ofHyde
On campus the most dramatic physical change, Cage as a campus center, financial aid, and other
thanks to the $742,000 anonymous donation ofan issues. I shall report on these matters after the
alumnus, was the replacement ofthe rink and the year ahead, to which I already look forward.
redesign ofthe facilities in the Dayton Arena, after It was, in sum, a year ofhard work, imagina-
two precarious seasons in which this 35-year-old tively and loyally performed by many at the Col-
facility verged on breakdown. In Cleaveland Hall, lege—from those in our service departments,
thanks to the scientific leadership ofProfessors operating with fewer staff, to my senior adminis-
Dana W. Mayo and Samuel S. Butcher, the trative colleagues and faculty and students who
world's first undergraduate organic chemistry ran the policy committees. As ever, the willing-
microscale laboratory was completed, with a grant ness ofBowdoin alumni to stick with their Col-
of$400,000 from the Pew Foundation. In athlet- lege, in spirit and financial support, even when
ics, it was the year for cross country and track and troubled by it, has been inestimably valuable. To
field. The men's cross-country team won them and members ofthe Governing Boards, who
NESCAC, and the women's track team won the have given their understanding and support, my
NESCAC
league in the spring. warmest thanks.
Finally, we had a number ofexpressions of
Bowdoin College's commitment to the "Common Robert H. Edwards
Good," the theme ofBowdoin's coming President
8
ANNUAL REPORT
OF THE
PRESIDENT
1991-1992
REPORT OF THE DEAN FOR ACADEMIC AFFAIRS
This
report marks the end ofmy first year supervised a series ofreviews ofthe College's
as a member ofthe Bowdoin faculty and academic departments and the principal interdis-
as its chiefacademic officer. Above all ciplinary programs.
else, it has been a year oflistening and learning, of The cycle came to an end in the year just fin-
appreciating the College's impressive heritage as a ished with the completion ofreviews ofthe Afro-
teaching institution and ofunderstanding its aspi- American Studies Program and the program in
rations for the future. At a time when the College film and communication studies. Very different in
has been preoccupied with regaining its financial their subject matters, these programs have two
equilibrium, there was encouraging movement in important points in common: they signify the
the academic program: we have completed some College's ambition for curricular breadth, and
important items ofold business and set out on given our small size, they have had to operate with
several new initiatives aimed at building on our fewer resources than would be desirable. The
strengths. This briefreport is a highly selective committee found that, in spite ofthese limita-
overview. tions, both programs valuably enrich the academic
experience ofBowdoin students, and it com-
Curriculum, mended those members ofthe faculty who have
The position I hold is different from that ofmy been instrumental in sustaining them. The CEP
predecessors. The change oftitle (from dean of urged increased support for the Afro-American
the faculty) recognizes a shift that has been in the Studies Program, including recruitment from
making for several years. Responsibility for the outside the College ofa new director who would
coherence and integrity ofthe curriculum now be appointed to the tenured ranks. It also advised
clearly resides in the same office as responsibility that the film and communication studies program
for the administration offaculty affairs. The hope be reconstituted as a Department ofFilm and
is that this arrangement will make for a more Video and that funds be sought to increase its
coherent curriculum and more uniform standards faculty staffing from one to two.
ofexcellence across the College. Looking beyond departmental reviews, the
One reflection ofthis shift is that the academic CEP began a discussion ofbroad issues ofcon-
dean now serves as chair ofour Curriculum and cern relating to the curriculum as a whole. At a
Educational Policy Committee (CEP), a role time when other campuses are engulfed in culture
formerly played by the president, who continues wars, our curriculum committee resisted ideologi-
to serve as a member ofthe committee. The other cal and political perspectives and concentrated,
members include a half-dozen faculty members, instead, on the quality and sequence ofacademic
three students, and the dean ofthe College. The life at Bowdoin as students experience it. Our
CEP advises both the faculty and the administra- thinking was enriched by several interviews with
tion on curricular policy and, through its New small groups offirst- and fourth-year students.
Course Subcommittee, supervises the process of There emerged three topics for further explora-
curricular change. It serves as our principal forum tion: the effectiveness ofthe program for the first
for searching discussion about the structure and two years, including the distribution requirement,
direction ofthe educational program. It has also first-year seminars, and introductory courses in