Report of the President, Bowdoin College 1985-1986

Bowdoin College Bowdoin Digital Commons Annual Report of the President Special Collections and Archives 1-1-1986 Report of the President, Bowdoin College 1985-1986 Bowdoin College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.bowdoin.edu/presidents-reports Recommended Citation Bowdoin College, "Report of the President, Bowdoin College 1985-1986" (1986). Annual Report of the President. 95. https://digitalcommons.bowdoin.edu/presidents-reports/95 This Book is brought to you for free and open access by the Special Collections and Archives at Bowdoin Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Annual Report of the President by an authorized administrator of Bowdoin Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Report of the President 1985— 1986 BOWDOIN COLLEGE Brunswick. Maine Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2013 http://archive.org/details/reportofpresiden19851bowd Report of the President 1985— 1986 BOWDOIN COLLEGE Brunswick, Maine Composed by the Anthoensen Press, Portland, Maine Printed by Penmor Lithographers, Leiviston, Maine Report of the President To the Trustees and Overseers of Bowdoin College: I have the honor ofsubmitting thefollowing reportfor the academicyear ipSj- 1986. IN JUNE I completed my fifth year as president of Bowdoin College. It seems appropriate, therefore, that my annual report not only review the events of this past year but also reflect upon those of the last five, especially those that highlight the direction in which Bowdoin has been moving and will, I hope, continue to move in the years im- mediately ahead. As is always the case with my annual reports, I am much indebted to my administrative and office staffs for the invaluable background work they have done. Their assistance is gratefully acknowledged. I do not intend to retell the somewhat troubled times during which I was elected to office. Everyone then was aware that only a collective effort would see this College well under way again. Everyone helped. The Governing Boards reshaped their structure and processes to en- sure responsible continuity and understanding; the faculty strength- ened the curriculum to provide students with a basic introduction to the major divisions and foreign studies and to offer more interdisciplinary programs; the students served helpfully and responsibly on a variety of College committees, and when protest seemed the order of the day—as it has since time immemorial with students—they carried it on with a blend of conviction and civility that will always be to their credit; alumni rallied to assist their College not only through increased support to record-setting Alumni Funds but also through career coun- seling, admissions interviewing, and a variety of Alumni Council programs. The greater Brunswick community too, saw itself, quite un- derstandably, as another constituency of the College, benefiting as it does from the library, athletic facilities, lectures, concerts, and courses. This perception found formal expression in the Association of Bow- doin Friends, a society now developing programs of its own and sup- porting the College in a variety of ways. In dealing with all consti- tuencies, the administrative officers of the College worked hard. In short, I did not want for help. The most evident sign of support has been the successful evolution of the Campaign for Bowdoin, the capital campaign that began with my report to the Governing Boards in 1 98 2 on the needs of the College. 3 4 Report of the President A review conducted by the Strategic Planning Committee led to es- tablishing a goal of $56 million, exclusive of the Alumni Fund, for scholarships, teaching chairs, a science facility, an athletic facility, building renovations, and general endowment. Today, after nearly two years of a five-year undertaking, the Campaign has raised $36 million. I am confident that the goal will not only be reached but exceeded. Such is the good will that characterizes Bowdoin today. With this as a general introduction, the sections that follow will address in greater detail the changes that have occurred in the various areas of the College. In the final section, lest I be perceived as wearing rosier spectacles than befit even a college president, I shall discuss some of the issues that confront this College and the tensions that give them urgency. Faculty Concerns The scholarly and other professional activities of the faculty are recorded and published annually. This spring the records for the last several years were assessed and compared with the records of faculties at other institutions. In gathering the comparative data, we discovered that many colleges were unable to supply similar records; that this College has reported annually on the work of the faculty shows the importance Bowdoin places upon this part of the faculty's work. In recognizing such activities, the College is in no way diminishing the importance of teaching, the value of participation in other aspects of intellectual and cultural life on campus, or the need of service to departments and committees. In the months ahead, the faculty will consider this comparative study, both as to what it shows about Bowdoin relative to other schools and what it tells us about Bowdoin itself. There will, I believe, be agreement in principle that all the characteristics of a successful faculty member are important, that none will substitute for another, and that although there may be some variation from individual to individual in relative strengths, the criteria for both teaching and research should be high. Less agreement will be found in what the report says about the performance of Bowdoin faculty relative to that of other faculties. Some may note that the data are soft and thus inconclusive. Others will lament that Bowdoin does not make a stronger showing compared to certain other schools. In any case, the present review will prompt a serious look at the values and goals the faculty and admin- istration should adhere to in meeting their responsibilities to the programs and the mission of the College. Report of the President 5 Whatever the results of this discussion of professionalism, the faculty has many achievements to its credit. The number of books and scholarly articles is substantial. Faculty participation at professional meetings, as presenters of papers, as chairs of symposia, as members of professional organizations, attests to a high level of involvement and to the wisdom of the College's policy that provides travel and other support for faculty members to attend such meetings. Currently under study is a proposal to grant sabbaticals to untenured faculty to provide them with an opportunity to prepare as fully as possible for the demands of tenure review. Faculty achievement has been recognized through the support of scholarly work by grants of fellowships or research funds from the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Research Corpo- ration, and the National Science Foundation. Members of the Bow- doin faculty are clearly able to articulate their needs for research support. At the same time that a distinguished record in scholarship has been achieved, the faculty has voted to utilize student opinion forms of classroom performance as a means of improving teaching. Student opinions thus gathered have clearly indicated that the faculty teach well and are deeply interested in their students. Faculty concerns about the size of departments, the number of students in classes, and the quality and diversity of the curriculum have been addressed through a series of reviews of academic departments conducted by the Curriculum and Educational Policy Committee. Where there has been a pressing need for additional faculty, we have been fortunate to obtain foundation grants to fund them. Thanks to the Charles A. Dana Foundation, Dana Faculty Fellows have been added to the Departments of Art, Chemistry, Computer Science and Information Studies, and Economics. A grant from the Pew Memorial Trust provided funds to initiate the position of Director of Environ- mental Studies and two positions in Romance languages. From the Charles E. Culpeper Foundation, a grant has enabled us to begin funding a position in the Department of Computer Science and another in the operation of the Computing Center. It is expected that these positions will continue with endowment generated by the Campaign. The Russell and Janet Doubleday Fund has endowed the new position of Director of the Arctic Studies Center, who is also a faculty member in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology. A Luce Lecturer 6 Report of the President in American Art and Literature has been made possible for three years by funds from the Henry Luce Foundation, and a visiting professorship in alternate years in government or the arts has been established by Donald M. Zuckert '56. Funding has begun in support of the James R. and Helen Lee Billingsley Professorship of Marine Biology, a new chair in music to be named in honor of Professor Robert K. Beckwith, and a chair for the Director of the. Museum of Art. These additions to the faculty and the prospect of other chairs to be announced soon are welcome to a faculty that has not expanded in proportion to the increase in size of the student body. Not only does the faculty need to be larger to restore a better balance between the number of faculty and the number of students, but also an increase in size is appropriate to continue to meet changing em- phases and directions within academic disciplines, particularly the move toward interdisciplinary research and teaching. The Environ- mental Studies Program and the Afro-American Studies Program are examples in which faculty members contribute courses to their academic departments and to an interdisciplinary program. Through grants from the Andrew W.

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