Berry and Wuthmann 1

Erica Berry and Walter Wuthmann Professor Pearlman Collaborative Independent Study 23 December 2012

40 Years of Environmental Studies at Bowdoin College

Introduction:

Ten years ago, a committee of faculty members from Skidmore, Middlebury, and

University of North Carolina Chapel Hill reviewed Bowdoin’s Environmental Studies (E.S.)

Program. The program is uniquely special; in an extensive self-evaluation Bowdoin E.S. faculty wrote before external assessment, they noted, “Here the sprawling suburbs of the Northeast collide with rural America and 19th century industrial towns, in a community that is home to several strong state and regional environmental NGOs, many regional and national experts on environmental affairs and an engaged citizenry.”1

Last spring, when our E.S. advisor, Jill Pearlman, and the E.S. Program manager, Eileen

Johnson, asked us to research and write a history for the program’s 40-year anniversary, we agreed immediately. As E.S.-English coordinate majors, we saw this project as a means to apply our interest in storytelling to a history that directly affects both of us. The program’s next ten- year review is forthcoming, and in imagining progress for future years, we see a value in exploring the path that led us to where we are today.

When we began our research in early September, our goal was to construct a strong chronological narrative of the department’s genesis and growth at Bowdoin. The more we researched, however—and as we began to interview some of the most important actors in this story—we quickly saw this supposedly “narrow” story expanding into something that was much

1 “Self-Evaluation,” Bowdoin College Environmental Studies Program, January 2002, Property of the Bowdoin Environmental Studies Program, Bowdoin College, Brunswick, ME, 4.

Berry and Wuthmann 2 larger than a sequential study of the Bowdoin course catalogues. The history of the Bowdoin

E.S. program is a complex story of changing education in the United States. It’s a story of how influential students, professors, and administrators responded to national trends with the constant intent to create a program that could effectively prepare students to face the most pressing question of the modern era: how can humanity inhabit this world without completely degrading and destroying the very resources we depend upon for life? More than anything else, the pursuit of answers to this question has shaped the department. What sort of curriculum will be most effective at educating students of the various angles in this issue? What does it mean to go into the world as an Environmental Studies major, and what should these students be prepared to do?

As we pieced together this complex history, we tried to keep these questions in mind, putting significant weight on the near-twenty oral interviews we conducted. We spoke with people on campus, over the phone, and in a borrowed Bowdoin-branded Prius that carried us through the colors of late fall to the houses of former professors and administrators (it seems that most of the old guard retires in the Harpswell countryside—we don’t blame them). Thank you to everyone who engaged with us to help piece together this patchwork of social and institutional history, indulging our appetites for both ginger cookies and hot apple cider as well as personal anecdotes and recollections.

From our preliminary research in special collections, we noted trends of class enrollments and peaks in public relations material related to the program; this framework provided momentum and guidance to our interview questions as we tried to flesh out not just what happened in the last 40 years, but why and who made it happen. We relied heavily on the memories, thoughts, and perceptions of the people we talked to—this is their story much more than it is ours. Nonetheless, our history is not an accurate echo of some condensed past. It is told—however objective we have tried to make it—through our own lens as transient but Berry and Wuthmann 3 passionate students, in odd turns cynical and idealistic. We tried to fact-check dates, names, titles and places as thoroughly as we could, but we apologize for any existing errors. We regret that we only had a semester to spend on this unpredictably intricate story, so any errors and omissions are shortsightedness on our part, not the people who so generously donated their time and mental energies to our project.

In the program’s 2002 self-evaluation, Bowdoin E.S. professors quoted famed biologist

E.O. Wilson in noting that we were entering “the century of the environment.”2 Ten years later, this seems clearer than ever. Internationally, climate change has materialized as the primary environmental issue of the future, a problem scarcely realized at the time of the program’s formation forty years ago. Amidst calls for environmental literacy to be taught broadly across the academic platform, we don’t know what the course of an E.S. major will be in the next ten years.

“It’s hard to tell where the environment in terms of Environmental Studies is going,” said Phil

Camill, director of the E.S. program until 2012. Nonetheless, we believe interrogating the roots of Bowdoin’s construction of the environment is a step in the right direction.

Part I: A Climate of Ferment

The Impact of ’Nam:

The Vietnam War triggered the environmental movement at Bowdoin College. Not directly, of course, but the student response to the war and other pressing political issues of the time created a mindset where the birth of an Environmental Studies Program at a small, academically conservative liberal arts college in Maine was possible.

On the morning of Monday May 4, 1970, around 1,000 students gathered on the

Commons, a grassy gathering spot in the center of Kent State University in Ohio. The crowd

2 ““Self-Evaluation”,” 10. Berry and Wuthmann 4 came to protest the United States’ ongoing military involvement in Vietnam and Southeast Asia.

The students, “angered by the expansion of the war into Cambodia, … held demonstrations for the last three nights.” On the previous Saturday night a group of students had burnt the Army

Reserve Officers Training Corps building to the ground in an act of defiance, inciting the

National Guard to occupy campus under the declaration of martial law. On Sunday night, the

Guard drove students into their dorms and made 69 arrests. The morning after, the toll of the iron Victory bell on the campus Commons called all students to gather and continue what they understood as a peaceful protest. By noon, National Guard officers had broken up the crowd with tear gas, and began forcing crowds of students towards the dormitories. The largest crowd was followed as “a platoon of guardsmen, armed—as they have been since they arrived here with loaded M-1 rifles and gas equipment—moved across the green and over the crest of the hill, chasing the main body of protesters.” About 500 students regrouped in a parking lot, picking up rocks and throwing them at the Guard. As the guardsmen reached the top of the hill cresting the parking lot, they formed a skirmish line and opened fire onto the crowd, choking the afternoon air for a full minute of smoke and gunfire. When the firing ceased, “a slim girl, wearing a cowboy shirt and faded jeans, was lying face down on the road at the edge of the parking lot, blood pouring out onto the macadam, about 10 feet from this reporter.” When all the smoke had cleared, three students lay crumpled, dead on the ground. One more would die in the hospital.

Eight more were severely wounded.3

At 2:10 pm, President Robert White ordered Kent State to be closed indefinitely, and began to make arrangements for students to evacuate dormitories and bus out-of state students to

3 John Kifner, “4 Kent State Students Killed by Troops,” The New York Times, May 4, 1970, accessed December 5, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/0504.html. Berry and Wuthmann 5 nearby cities.4

Seven hundred and fifty seven miles away in Brunswick, Maine, Bowdoin College students awoke on Tuesday to these ghastly headlines. A small group of students met at noon to discuss the tragedy, but the meeting quickly “mushroomed into an evening meeting of about 350 people” and a forum for heated student discussion about both the Kent State murders and the wider invasion of Cambodia. That day’s issue of the Orient said the consensus of this meeting

“seemed to be that these events finally brought the present American situation home to the minds of Bowdoin students.” One student, the aptly named John Locke, said, “I’m greatly puzzled by what my country is doing in Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, and at Kent State. Now is the time to demand some answers. In light of the last few days, attending college has become irrelevant.”5

This buzzword—irrelevance—echoed over and over in meetings through the course of the day. In a hand vote, “all but 12 people agreed to strike for one day and organize a mass meeting to consider an indefinite, all-college strike.” John Cole, a former President of the Student

Council, attempted to preserve “constitutionality” and argued that sending mass telegrams and letters to President Nixon would be a more “responsible action” than a campus-wide strike. The vast majority of students, however, “felt that the time for talk had ended.”6 An Orient editorial affirmed this belief the next day: “ We are saying that our concern has reached a level at which normal life becomes impossible.”7

By the end of Tuesday evening, student leaders had organized a five-point strike platform to discuss at the next day’s meeting:

4 Kifner, “Kent State Students Killed.” 5 “Shut It Down!,” The Bowdoin Orient, May 5, 1970, 1. 6 Ibid. 7 Orient Editorial Staff, “Editorial,” The Bowdoin Orient, May 6, 1970, 1. Berry and Wuthmann 6

The strike leadership feels that a strike is the most effective means of voicing opposition to the federal government and Bowdoin College’s policies of implicit war support. The strike is being held in conjunction with the nationwide student movement to oppose the latest escalation of the war in Indochina, the killing of the four students, and to oppose the attacks by the government on the Black Panther Party. The leadership of the strike feels that to be effective the strike must go on until all the points spoken to are effectively answered by both the government and the administration.8

In response to the strike platform, President Roger Howell and Student Council President

Geoffry Ovenden called an all-college meeting that night at 8:00 p.m. in Morrell Gymnasium.

When President Howell was asked why he had gotten on board with students demands, he answered, “What we had hoped to do was open the meeting to make it an all-college meeting and involve the whole community. We want to say we’ve called the meeting.”9

In the triumphant lede of Wednesday’s Orient, the reporter states that “the Bowdoin community voted overwhelmingly last night to strike for an indefinite period in demand of

‘immediate cessation of all American military activity in Southeast Asia,’ and ‘a reaffirmation by

OUR government of the freedoms enunciated in the Declaration of Independence, the

Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Salute to the American Flag.’”10 Students, faculty, and staff pledged “constructive activity during the strike,” insisting that the strike period was “not to be a vacation but a period of serious work to try to get some response to the strike platform.”11

This was not merely a triumph in political activism for Bowdoin; Ovendon said “he had been contacted by the Colby Student Council and was convinced that schools in Maine were looking to Bowdoin for leadership.”12

The definition of “constructive activity” was interpreted in a variety of ways. On Tuesday the 5th, the day the strike had been called, student and veteran of Vietnam and Laos “Brownie”

8 “Shut It Down!,”1. 9 Ibid. 10 The Bowdoin Orient, May 6, 1970, 1. 11 “Strike Vote,” The Bowdoin Orient, May 6, 1970, 1. 12 The Bowdoin Orient, May 6, 1970, 1. Berry and Wuthmann 7

Carson held a successful strike forum on the steps of the Walker Art Museum. Approximately

400 students and faculty attended the somber-toned event. Orient writer Fred Cusick recalls how

“the usual jeering, belching, and name-calling, the traditional Bowdoin response to all political demonstrations, were absent. The students actually listened to the speakers.”13 It was discovered later that tear-gas-equipped policeman had been hiding in a truck during the event.14 Contining the serious sentiment set by Carson’s rally, professors held seminars on key political issues on

Thursday, such as “Pollution,” “U.S. Involvement in Southeast Asia,” and “R.O.T.C.”15 On

Friday, May 8, 32 students and residents from Bowdoin and Brunswick “left from Bowdoin

College’s Moulton Union for a massive demonstration planned in front of the White House to protest the Cambodian intervention.”16

But this strike hit at the end of the school year, and momentum inevitably died as the campus emptied for the summer. Jay Robbins ’74, the first Environmental Studies major to graduate Bowdoin, remembers the strike as a mix of “partying and soul searching.” Students could essentially negotiate a grade with their professor, pack up, and leave for the summer.

Nonetheless, the Bowdoin strike was not without lasting impacts. Reflecting on the event

Robbins said he believes, “the administration [ceded] some power and control to students.” The strike was living evidence that students could really do something about social and political issues that they felt made “normal life…impossible.” 17 It showed that not only were there were issues beyond the bubble of Brunswick worth being angry about, but that there were solid ways to change the world—such as closing your college and thus challenging the tenets of education in the name of what you believe is right. And Vietnam and Kent State were not the only political

13 Fred Cusick, “Opinion,” The Bowdoin Orient, May 6, 1970, 2. 14 “ROTC Hit At AD Rap,” The Bowdoin Orient, May 12, 1970, 1. 15 “Seminar,” The Bowdoin Orient, May 6, 1970, 1. 16 John Asatrian, “Bowdoin Students At Capitol,” The Bowdoin Orient, May 12, 1970, 1. 17 Jay Robbins, interview by authors, digital recording, Brunswick, ME., 26 November, 2012. Berry and Wuthmann 8 issues worth protesting. As John Rensenbrink, former government professor and principal founder of the Green Party of the United States, says, the “ferment” surrounding Vietnam War protests coalesced in the ’70s to “create a climate where the word ‘environment’ began to come up.”18

The Big Teach-In:

A few months before Kent State, in February of 1970, the Orient published an article called “Campus Attention Turns Towards the Environment.” The writer of the article attests that the “predominant theme of campus conferences, conventions, and dialogues and teach-ins is shifting from ‘campus unrest’ to ‘the environmental crisis.’” The article continues on to sketch out a large nationwide effort called the “Environmental Teach-In” for April 22 of that year, spearheaded by Senator Gaylord Nelson (D-Wis.) and loosely based on of the model for the

Vietnam Moratorium. The teach-ins were to showcase the effect of a “national idea developed on a local level,” similar to other events happening nationwide. Ecology Action in Berkeley,

California, for example, was planning a 500-mile walk from Sacramento to Los Angeles to

“exhibit models of ecologically sound life-styles.”19 In short, the April 22nd event—soon to be known as Earth Day—was supposed to inspire widely attended events, much like what would happen with Bowdoin’s strike. It was meant to combine environmental concern with political fervor.

These grand plans, however, did not immediately translate into a well-represented environmental movement on the Bowdoin campus. The first Earth Day, widely regarded as the birth of the environmental movement nation-wide, was scarcely noticed at Bowdoin. The school

18 John Rensenbrink, interview by authors, digital recording, Brunswick, ME., 8 November 2012. 19 “Campus Attention Turns Toward Environment,” The Bowdoin Orient, February 20, 1970, 4. Berry and Wuthmann 9 that would lead Maine schools to strike during Vietnam could barely muster a crowd to recognize this historic day. A cynical Orient journalist deftly satirized Bowdoin’s attempt at Earth

Day in an article titled “Mighty Androscoggin Sampled.” The writer states that

massive rallies took place across the continent and Congress adjourned for the day so politicians could speak on this most uncontroversial of topics. Here in Brunswick a last minute ‘event’ was hurriedly organized on the banks of the Androscoggin… some fifty people, mostly from town with a few students and college faculty, showed up to watch State Representative Mrs. Coffey from Sagadahoc fill six flasks with the polluted river water.20

The six flasks were sent to five of the Androscoggin’s major point source polluters, and the sixth was sent to the Maine Water Improvement Commission at the State House for analysis.

Representative Coffey felt that the Androscoggin’s pollution levels were actually lower than the

“D” rating assigned to the river by the State, meaning that the companies polluting it should have been paying heavy fines. Although the event was a powerful symbolic demonstration, the writer ends the article with a harsh bite of reality: “it is not very encouraging when no demonstrations whatsoever are planned in the State’s own Capital… and no official recognition is given to this ‘Earth Day’ by any group on the Bowdoin campus where academic concern for our environment is supposedly high.”21 So even though environmental awareness was “in the air” – as displayed by campus lectures by prominent speakers like Senator Edmund Muskie in

1970 and President of the Sierra Club David Brower in 1972 – the resounding outcry for environmental action around the country was more of a murmur at Bowdoin.22 This is perhaps best captured in the words of a 1972 article in the ever-wry Orient: “As most upperclassmen will readily agree, it requires a fairly strong issue to fire Bowdoin students up over virtually anything,

20 Randy Curtiss, “Mighty Androscoggin Sampled,” The Bowdoin Orient, April 24, 1970, 3. 21 Ibid. 22 John McKee, interview by authors, digital recording, Brunswick, ME., 13 November 2012; The Bowdoin Orient, March 13, 1970; The Bowdoin Orient, April 7, 1972. Berry and Wuthmann 10 with the possible exception of the hockey season.”23

Nevertheless, concern about the environment “hitchhiked” on the heightened political sensitivity of Vietnam.24 According to Robbins, “People were protesting against a lot of negative things… [they] were looking for a forward moving protest. They began to question notions of land, food, and housing.”25 There was student interest, and a noticeable demand for classes with environmental focus. Professor of Economics Rick Freeman began teaching the environmental economics class, “Resources, Conservation, and the Quality of the Environment,” in 1969, before the first Earth Day. Featuring the class a semester before Williams College added a similar one to its catalogue, Bowdoin became the first college in the country to offer an environmental economics course.26 Following Earth Day, Freeman attests that his usual enrollment of 15-20 students spiked to over 50.27 Even though Bowdoin students were not quick to go picket Androscoggin paper mills, they were very academically engaged in learning more about the “ecology issue,” to use the words of Senator Muskie.28 Professor Rensenbrink recalls that there was a “groundswell of expectation” on the students’ part for more environmentally focused course listings.29 In an Orient op-ed written in February of 1970, Jed Burtt attempts to explain to students what the trendy new word “ecology” means scientifically, framing it as a call- to-arms to “change our concept of the land.” Burtt describes ecology as “now a respectable grassroots movement… once considered a radical ideology.” He insists that “an understanding of ecology would help us in taking corrective measure toward avoiding pollution and cleaning up

23 The Bowdoin Orient, October 9, 1972. 24 Richard Morgan, interview by authors, digital recording, Brunswick, ME., 15 October 2012. 25 Robbins Interview. 26 Rick Freeman, interview by authors, digital recording, Brunswick, ME.,18 October 2012. 27 Ibid. 28 Fred Cusick, “Morrell Gym Filled As Muskie Calls for Environmental Cleanup,” The Bowdoin Orient, March 13, 1970, 1. 29 Rensenbrink Interview. Berry and Wuthmann 11 our environment.”30

This rhetoric relies heavily on the activist sentiments infused by Vietnam protests in order to inspire readers to consider the environment as a serious issue. Concerned students like Burtt, as well as speakers like Muskie and Brower—Muskie described man’s position on earth as being

“caught between the blackness of earth’s core and the blackness of space”—sought to raise concern about the environmental crisis to such “a level at which normal life becomes impossible” for students.31 These leaders were trying to tap into the lifeblood that fueled the anti- war activism. But instead of a Vietnam-style activism taking hold, a few faculty members responded to the tentative student interest with a more academic pursuit. In the words of John

McKee, “The faculty interested in [environmentalism] were saying let’s not just parade, let’s not just tear up confetti, let’s figure out what we are doing…it was more than just cleaning up beaches, it was more the idea, what can we do long-term.”32 The environmental issue was not going to have an obvious answer like demanding immediate evacuation from Vietnam. Answers to the environmental issue were going to have to involve politics, economics, science, and new understandings of man’s relationship to the natural world. A concerned group of Bowdoin professors saw a new Environmental Studies program as the best way to begin tackling this global crisis.

Changing Traditions:

“If, as often been alleged, Bowdoin College is indeed a country club (or a large noisy hotel in the case of the Senior Center), then the College’s attitude toward the implementation of coeducation could hardly be more appropriate,” writes Don Westfall, in an October 1971 Orient

30 Jed Burtt, “Survival Now,” The Bowdoin Orient, February 13, 1970, 5. 31 Cusick, “Morrell Gym Filled,” 1. 32 McKee interview. Berry and Wuthmann 12 op-ed.33 That fall, 134 women arrived at Bowdoin as first year, transfer, and exchange students.

The previous year, the College had opened its doors to the Twelve-College Exchange Program, allowing twelve female students onto campus as part of a test-run in coeducation.34 Westfall accuses the “Howell Administration” of casting Bowdoin as “the gracious host” to its new students, where women—present at a one-to-three ratio to men—were given a status that is

“separate but less equal” and viewed as impermanent “visitors” instead of a serious component of campus intellectual culture. “None of the traditional resources for males were shifted to females,” recalls Robbins, instead, “you had to increase the size of the College.”35

In deciding to accept women as full-time students, the College was forced to reimagine campus accommodation, extracurricular activities, and academics. The Pierce Report of 1969, which recommended the transition, predicted that, “women would have undoubtedly have a

‘civilizing effect’ at Bowdoin.”36 Viewed in light of the strikes and student-vocalism of the

Vietnam era—the “balmy days of the ’60s” in the words of Professor of English emeritus

Franklin Burroughs—the College’s decision to accept women factors into a more general alteration of how education was conceived throughout America.37

In 1969, at 33 years old, Roger Howell Jr. ’58 was inaugurated as the youngest college president in the country. Riding on the coattails of a new administration, the College became the first in the nation to make SAT scores optional for admission, putting more emphasis on an

33 Don Westfall, “Bowdoin: “The Gracious Host”,” The Bowdoin Orient, October 8, 1971, 4. 34 “Exchange Students at Bowdoin For Fall Semester, 1970” TMs, The Twelve College Exchange [4.1.14 Folder 2 Box 1], Department of Special Collections & Archives, Bowdoin College Library, Brunswick, ME. 35 Robbins Interview. 36 “Coeducational Housing Arrives at Bowdoin,” Forty Years: The History of Women at Bowdoin, last modified 2012, http://research.bowdoin.edu/forty-years-the-history-of-women-at-bowdoin/process-of- coeducation/coeducational-housing-arrives-at-bowdoin. 37 Frank Burroughs, interview by authors, digital recording, Brunswick, ME., 11 November 2012. Berry and Wuthmann 13 individual’s personality and accomplishments in secondary school.38 “Bowdoin had gone from having a very, very structured curriculum to, just within having a year or two, to having almost no requirements of any sort beyond the major,” recalls Burroughs. The professor arrived at the

College in 1968, amidst “a great, great effort to informalize education” and an institutional momentum “to put the experience of the student simply by virtue of being young, on par with the authority of the faculty member.”39

Rensenbrink describes a similar reimaging of what higher education was for. “The word that comes to my mind that was very strong in different circles that I was engaged…was

‘relevant.’ We want education to be relevant,” he said. “That’s where the students came in, because they were asking questions like that about the whole system.”40

As traditional standards of education loosened, interdisciplinary programs began to gain traction. The major in Afro-American studies (now Africana Studies) was formed in 1968-69, built around a core of junior and senior seminars and a program goal of linking the academic with extracurricular service projects and minority support groups on campus.41 Rensenbrink describes a “whole call for interdisciplinary work” across the curriculum—the 1970s sparked innovative cross-disciplinary programs in biochemistry and creative visual arts as well42—which in turn created an awareness for the possibilities of a burgeoning Environmental Studies program.43

The birth of these innovative interdisciplinary offerings went hand-in-hand with

38 “Roger Howell, Administrative Records Overview” Bowdoin Library Archives online, accessed December 11, 2012, http://library.bowdoin.edu/arch/archives/rhg.shtml. 39 Burroughs Interview. 40 Rensenbrink Interview. 41 “Faculty Committee: Official Report, November 7, 1970,” Faculty: Records, Minutes and Reports [1.7.3, Box 3], George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections & Archives, Bowdoin College Library, Brunswick, ME. 42 “1977 Bowdoin College: A Guide to Campus,” Office of Admissions: records and publications [2.2.4, Box 1], George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections & Archives, Bowdoin College Library, Brunswick, ME. 43 Rensenbrink Interview. Berry and Wuthmann 14 infrastructure renovations to support them. The sixteen-floor Coles Tower—built at the foresight of President James S. Coles during 1963-64—was christened as “The Senior Center” and imagined as a forum to blend residential living space, a dining hall, special programming, and advanced current-events seminars for senior students. Secretary of Development and College

Relations John Cross ’76 remembers it as “physical expression of an experiment to provide an outward intellectual focus and create class cohesiveness for students in their senior year,” though it became viewed retrospectively more as an effort to emphasize college class over fraternity bonds.44

In understanding the emergence of an institutionalized Environmental Studies program at Bowdoin, acknowledging the wider climate of shifting educational culture in the 1960s and

1970s is crucial. “That whole system turmoil…was really a shaking up that needed to happen,” says Rensenbrink.

College on the Coast:

Maine is one of four states in the country—along with Vermont, Alaska, and Hawaii—to have banned billboards along its highways. This lack of in-your-face commercialism has not always been so: in 1966, lifelong photographer and Bowdoin French professor John McKee shot a series of images that captured the advertisements’ skeletal shapes strung across the landscape.45

During a pause from teaching, McKee recalls being approached by the Bowdoin Art museum director at the time, Marvin Sadik, who told him—in McKee’s words—“We’ll commission you to do a photo study of the Maine coast, it’s going to hell.”46 McKee agreed immediately. His

44 John Cross, “Towering Inferno,” Whispering Pines (blog), The Bowdoin Daily Sun, January 24, 2011, http://www.bowdoindailysun.com/2010/08/whispering-pines-as-maine-goes. 45 John Cross, “As Maine Goes,” Whispering Pines (blog), The Bowdoin Daily Sun, August 30, 2010, http://www.bowdoindailysun.com/2010/08/whispering-pines-as-maine-goes. 46 McKee Interview. Berry and Wuthmann 15 collection, “As Maine Goes,” both recalled the state’s 19th century bellwether political status and imagined the state as the first domino in national environmental collapse.

Intermingling full-color photographs of the serene shores with black-and-white shots of bent and rusted cars beached at Popham Beach or viewpoints obscured by Keep Out signs,

McKee tapped into a national anxiety that America’s natural beauty was being squandered by urban expansion. Though McKee’s photographs did little to outline a clear recovery path for the coastline, coverage of the exhibit opened the eyes of citizens across the country, garnering a mention in The New York Times and a title by then-Governor John Reed as “the McKee report.”47

Supreme Court Justice William O. Justice penned a call-to-arms for environmental protection in the introduction to the exhibit catalogue, a testament to the social collateral of the exhibit. “I didn’t start anything in the state of Maine, but it was at a time where it was in the air very much,” says McKee. 48

John Cross argues that the photographs did more. Calling the exhibit’s influence on public opinion and policy “immediate and profound,” Cross says the images led local communities to target the clean up of beach junkyards and refuse piles, and inspired residents to rally behind enforcement of the Federal Highway Beautification Act of 1965—the very act that originally demanded billboard removal.49 In turn, the national spotlight widened its focus from

McKee onto Bowdoin as a hub of environmental awareness. In the aftermath of the exhibit’s launch, the College received a “great big grant of federal money” to fund a three-day symposium on the problems of shoreline access and protection raised by McKee’s photographs.

Spearheading the symposium, McKee became the Director of Resource Studies from 1968-69, a new and ephemeral program, facilitating speakers and overseeing the post-symposium

47 McKee Interview. 48 Mckee Interview. 49 Cross, “As Maine Goes.” Berry and Wuthmann 16 publication of pamphlets synthesizing the lectures with his photographs. “I don’t remember actually seeing the exhibit, but I remember the book, and I still have it,” said Robbins. “It showed the luminescence and the beauty of the Maine scene…those images seemed to resonate.”50

Maine’s “Vacationland” slogan first emblazoned the state’s license plates in 1936, but rhetoric of the state as a tranquil escape from the ever-increasing urban grind heightened in the

1970s and was channeled into the College’s public relations campaign.51 The Official Report from the Faculty Committee of June 1971 states that 2,900 applicants applied for the Class of

1975, a 47 percent increase from the previous year and 147 percent up from three years before.

The report attributes the dramatic swell to “the ecology scare” and “our physical location” alongside national publicity and the switch to coeducation. 52 In Howell’s President’s Report for the 1971-72 school year, he wrote, “New interest in environment and ‘life lived closer to nature’ has dramatically reversed the trend [of urban vs. rural college],” further explaining the increase in applicants.53 In the words of Burroughs, “Bowdoin always seemed a little apologetic about its location” but in the last quarter of the century, administrators realized the school’s location “had a good deal to recommend it beyond the fact that it was only two and a half hours from

Boston.”54

With McKee’s photos accentuating both the natural beauty and fragility of Bowdoin’s surroundings, the College received nation-wide recognition as a nucleus of environmental awareness. If the focus on Maine’s endangered splendor was “in the air,” the promise of Bowdoin

50 Robbins Interview. 51 “Greetings from the State of Maine, Vacationland, ca. 1935,” Maine Memory Network, Maine Historical Society, http://www.mainememory.net/artifact/66095. 52 “Faculty Committee: Official Report, June 1, 1971,” Faculty: Records, Minutes and Reports [1.7.3, Box 3], George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections & Archives, Bowdoin College Library, Brunswick, ME. 53 “President’s Report 1971-1972,” Roger Howell, Administrative Records [1.2.10.2, Bulletin #385], George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections & Archives, Bowdoin College Library, Brunswick, ME. 54 Burroughs Interview. Berry and Wuthmann 17 as gateway to this treasured landscape resonated for interested students in the years surrounding the formation of the Environmental Studies program.

Part II: The Birth of the Environmental Studies Program

From Confetti-Throwing to Curriculum:

On September 29, 1972, the Orient ran the wry editorial “Zzzz!,” bemoaning a lack of relevant subject matter for commentary. “You can’t leave it blank because it looks terrible, as if someone wasn’t doing his homework. Besides, the paper would look like one of those censored dailies in Saigon. Saigon?” opines the editorial board in the first paragraph of the tongue-in- cheek piece. After writing off both Vietnam and Nixon as null topics, they attack the campus environmental movement—or, rather, lack of it. “Even the environmental issue doesn’t make the front pages anymore. Students spend much more time devising ingenious schemes of making and investing large sums of money after graduation from law or business school than they do discussing ecological lawsuits or ethical investment. So no editorial on the environment.”55

Rensenbrink remembers that on campus, “the 1970s became much more staid;” he calls the decade “a leveling off…a downbeat after the heady ’60s.”56 Nonetheless, the lingering post-

Vietnam momentum failed to completely fizzle out, and the environment did make the front page mere weeks later. On October 20, during its first day of circulation at Bowdoin, a petition to organize a campus chapter of the Maine Public Interest Research Group received 65 percent of the student body’s signatures, a “display of student support unequaled on the Bowdoin campus

55 “Zzzz!” Editorial, The Bowdoin Orient, 29 September 1972, 16. 56 Rensenbrink Interview. Berry and Wuthmann 18 in recent years.”57 A front page, top-of-the-fold Orient article describes the proposed organization as a “Ralph Nader-style research, lobbying and publicity organization” with a “primarily consumerist and environmentalist” focus. Noting that Bowdoin organizers were at the forefront of a network of Maine institutions tackling the issues, the article states that the group’s immediate goals would be grappling with solutions for the pollution of the Androscoggin, the immense corporate purchases of “dirt-cheap” land in anticipation of a housing boom, and the construction of Maine electricity generating plants sited without environmental consideration. Riding a wave of post-Vietnam student activism, the environmental movement at Bowdoin spilled beyond a fringe of activists and into the mainstream of campus awareness for a moment, leading professors to take note.

Chemistry professor Sam Butcher describes a conversation he had in 1971 with similarly environmental-minded colleagues—William Shipman in Economics, Chuck Huntington in

Biology, and McKee—about channeling the student passion of the late 1960s and early 1970s into the classroom. “We talked about bringing some of these questions to focus in an academic program,” he said. “What we were trying to do was open up opportunities for students within the curriculum, not create a grand program,” he added.58

McKee voiced similar sentiments, noting a desire to connect student’s extracurricular environmentalist efforts with the faculty research and interest already occurring behind the scenes. “We’re not Greenpeace on campus,” said McKee. “We have to know something so that when we get through and get a sense for that issue we’ll be able to contribute, but not just throw confetti from skyscrapers,” he said, referring to this focus on educating—not just inspiring—

57 John Medeiros, “PIRG is Immediate Campus Success,” The Bowdoin Orient, 20 October 1972, 1. 58 Samuel Butcher, interview by authors, digital recording, Brunswick, ME., 29 November 2012. Berry and Wuthmann 19 environmental activism-minded students.59

In a survey by the Curriculum and Education Policy Committee in fall of 1971, ten departments—from Art to Sociology to Government to Chemistry—had all listed at least one course that could be relevant to an Environmental Studies focus.60 Knowing that an academic foundation already existed, the movers behind the early Environmental Studies program decided that the addition of an introductory class and a capstone senior seminar could bookend an environmentally-focused course load. Professors Dick Morgan and Christian Potholm led a senior seminar in spring of 1972 called “Politics of Environmental Change,” while Freeman’s

“Resources, Conservation, and the Quality of the Environment”—first taught in 1969—was approved as a regular curriculum course. By fall of 1972, hoping to build a more substantial program on this preexisting foundation, the professors—along with Alton H. Gustafson, Arthur

M. Hussey, II, Robert E. Knowlton, and three undergraduate students—formalized their group into a Committee for Environmental Studies.61 Other engaged faculty members included John

Howland (Biology/Biochemistry) and Edward Gilfillan (Chemistry).

A few months before, Clerk of the Faculty Walter Moulton had described “extensive interest among students and faculty in secondary schools regarding our offerings in

Environmental Study.”62 This suggests an awareness that the program’s founding would attract prospective students, and, from its origins, was viewed as a selling point for the College. Bowdoin was in the first wave of academic Environmental Studies programs, following Middlebury

College (1965), the University of Wisconsin at Madison (1967), and University of California at

59 Mckee Interview. 60 “Minutes of the Curriculum and Education Planning Committee: January 4, 1972,” Faculty: Records, Minutes and Reports [Volume 3], George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections & Archives, Bowdoin College Library, Brunswick, ME. 61 “Minutes of the Curriculum and Education Planning Committee: January 4, 1972.” 62 “Minutes of the Curriculum and Education Planning Committee: January 1, 1971,” Faculty: Records, Minutes and Reports [Volume 3], George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections & Archives, Bowdoin College Library, Brunswick, ME. Berry and Wuthmann 20

Santa Barbara and Dartmouth College (1970).63 Notes from the January 1972 Curriculum and

Educational Policy Committee minutes describe faculty gravitating more towards the approach of Williams College—with interdisciplinary courses framed in a coordinate major—than to

Colby College’s one-year-old program, which was comprised of a freestanding major.64 This choice was echoed in a survey the Committee did of E.S. programs around the country, which showed that early programs were generally appended to already existing and relevant departments and not created anew.65

The rhetoric behind designing a coordinate major program—instead of a freestanding one—also tied into wider concerns of what exactly a degree in E.S. would mean for students leaving the College. The January 1972 Curriculum and Education Policy Committee minutes reflects fears that “[t]he environmental movement as a whole is a recent phenomenon. Whether a significant number of colleges will shortly develop extensive undergraduate Environmental

Studies Programs remains to be seen,” with the E.S. Committee remarking, “We believe that the effect of treating Environmental Studies as an independent discipline at the undergraduate level at Bowdoin might well be to limit the options available to students after graduation, particularly those interested in advanced study.”66

Butcher—who unofficially helmed the early program through the 1970s—remembers this general uncertainty, and the concern that to “put a wrinkle like Environmental Studies” on a diploma and resume would complicate a student’s job prospects because it had “zero tradition.”

Given that the program emerged from a 1960s climate that questioned and reimagined the broader relevance and structure of higher education, it is worth noting how this rhetoric echoes

63 “Self Evaluation,” 6. 64 “Minutes of the Curriculum and Education Planning Committee: January 4, 1972.” 65 Ibid. 66 “Minutes of the Curriculum and Education Planning Committee: January 4, 1972.” Berry and Wuthmann 21 forty years later. “I’m not sure today we know what an Environmental Studies person should be,” says Butcher, stressing the ongoing importance of considering the role of majors in the post- grad world in a way perhaps not necessary in the more entrenched fields of Economics or

Chemistry, for example.67

In this sense, the creation of the coordinate major program “wasn’t just…based on what resources we had,” according to Butcher, but was a “conservative path” to ensure that graduates were trusted specialists in one field but able to view these issues with an environmental awareness.68 Reflecting in the early ’80s on its decision to create a coordinate major, E.S. faculty asserted that “Environmental Studies” is not a useful discipline in itself either academically or professionally; “there are chemists, resource economists, urban planners, etc., rather than

‘environmentologists.’”69

The Committee’s original plan outlined how students would take the intro class, E.S. 1— to be taught by Butcher, focused broadly on global issues but with local examples—and then would meet with their E.S. advisor to decide a course plan of cross-listed courses, before finishing their degree with an E.S. 51 capstone interdisciplinary senior seminar.70 According to the 1972

E.S. Committee, the goal of the program was twofold: to give the non-specialist a grounding in environmental literacy by offering preexisting cross-listed courses as well as the intro class, and, secondly, to prepare prospective specialists for graduate study or further employment, well-versed in both their own discipline and E.S.71

67 Butcher Interview. 68 Ibid. 69 “Proposal for Environmental Studies At Bowdoin College in the 1980s: The Second Decade,” Bowdoin College Environmental Studies Program, 1981, Brunswick, ME. 70 “Minutes of the Curriculum and Education Planning Committee: January 4, 1972.” 71 Ibid. Berry and Wuthmann 22

“Maine’s Infamous Contribution to the Ecology Crisis:”

Jay Robbins recalls coming to Bowdoin in 1969 to an Androscoggin River foaming with a rainbow of pollutants, where homeowners living alongside it had to paint their houses every two years because the fumes curled the paint off.72 On October 27, 1972, the top-half of the Orient was devoted to a feature article and photo of the Topsham bridge arching above the river, dubbed “Maine’s infamous contribution to the ecology crisis.” The article—“Visit to

Androscoggin Results in Frustration”—is a meditative rant on the industrial pollution of the river and the failed impetus for cleaning up what was, at the time, the 8th most polluted waterway in the nation. Reporter Drew Hart describes how “yellowish white islands of foam float serenely along. Shimmering oil slicks coat the surface, the unnatural blotches reflect sickly purple and blue petroleum excesses,” concluding that none of the towns along its banks—including Brunswick—

“seem to feel any obligation to repay the river that has provided their subsistence for all these years.” 73

But Bowdoin Biology professor Chuck Huntington did feel an obligation to the river. His father, who been in the first wave of geographers in the early 20th century, had traveled down the

Euphrates river in a goat-skin raft, instilling an appreciation for the wild in Huntington that the professor carried to his post at Bowdoin.74 In imagining the format for senior seminar E.S. 51, the first official E.S. class listed in the 1971-72 catalog alongside E.S. 1, Huntington took the reigns for “The Androscoggin River: A Case Study.”75 With a goal of exploring the river basin from historical, physical, biological, economic, and political viewpoints, the Senior Center course would be open to juniors with permission, as well as seniors. Nonetheless, in a break from

72 Robbins Interview. 73 Drew Hart, “Visits to Androscoggin Results In Frustration,” The Bowdoin Orient, 27 October 1972, 1. 74 Chuck Huntington, interview by authors, digital recording, Brunswick, ME., 16 October 2012. 75 “Self-Evaluation”, 7. Berry and Wuthmann 23 academic convention, Huntington wore the hat of coordinator and not professor, orchestrating a class that paired weekly student-run seminars—where the skills of students specializing in different disciplines would offer their own expertise to environmental problem-solving—with field trips and weekly lectures by both professors and environmental specialists in the state.76

McKee describes the course as an immediate “big hit,” inspired by a similar Hudson

River-focused class taught in upstate New York; the seminar teased out global concepts of point source pollution and land use but also centered on the specific local tensions of Maine’s third- longest river. He remembers ten outside lecturers coming down from Augusta at no charge, representing the Natural Resources Council as well as the State government. “It was one of the early successes of the program…suddenly the students were introduced to a bit of real-life activities,” he recalls.77

Biology-loving English major Robbins was one of Huntington’s advisees, and remembers the professor asking him if he would be interested in taking the Androscoggin class as a junior.

He recalls fellow classmate Kevin Tierney—the nephew of Maine State Representative James E.

Tierney—asking Huntington whether he might make a call to Augusta and arrange to “get some planes” for the students to fly up to the river headwaters. Figuring he had nothing to lose,

Huntington put in a call, and was met with enthusiasm from Fish and Wildlife Services, who chartered three planes for students to spend the morning seeing the waterway at a birds-eye- view.78

According to Rensenbrink, the first year of the program “immediately struck a nerve.

The proof was in the pudding.”79 The enrollment of sixteen students in the 1972 Androscoggin

76 “Minutes of the Curriculum and Education Planning Committee: January 15, 1971.” 77 Huntington Interview 78 Huntington Interview; Robbins Interview. 79 Rensenbrink Interview. Berry and Wuthmann 24 seminar rose to 28 students in the 1973 class, while enrollments in the introductory course climbed from 59 to 107 to 176 in its first three years.80

Agreeing to pre-dawn wake-ups for Huntington’s ornithology class as a sophomore,

Robbins had since balanced Biology courses with his love for the regional literature of Willa

Cather and Ruth Moore and Thoreau as taught by Burroughs.81 After Robbins completed the seminar his junior year, Huntington asked him as a senior if he would be interested in becoming the school’s first E.S.-coordinate major. “I had done the work, so I figured out I might as well get credit,” Robbins recalls. Though a student at the cusp of the program’s creation, his academic career had taken advantage of Bowdoin’s environmentally-related opportunities: he had pursued a student job filing journals in the ornithology library, and remembers a pre-official-E.S.- program ecology class where a final project had been creating a text for distribution in area high schools called “Recycle This Book.” Without formally taking classes that integrated his two majors, he nonetheless received a hyphen linking English and Environmental Studies on his 1973 diploma, crowning him the first graduate of the burgeoning program.

Part III: Teenage Redefinition

Malnourished and Understaffed

Not all was happy in the early years of the program, however. As early as 1974, the E.S.

Committee expressed preliminary concerns in its report to the faculty. The Committee cited that there was no “well-defined ‘core’ to the program,” and they were “not at all satisfied with the sensitive way in which the success of the program depends on the will of academic departments

80 “President’s Report 1973-1974,” Roger Howell, Administrative Records [1.2.10.2, Bulletin #393], George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections & Archives, Bowdoin College Library, Brunswick, ME. 81 Robbins interview. Berry and Wuthmann 25 which may have other priorities.”82 So although student interest only rose in the program’s early years, curriculum and staffing remained in the hands of disparate departments. Even though the professors of the E.S. Committee were passionate about the new program, they all had responsibilities and duties to fulfill back at their home departments, and as a consequence could not fully dedicate their time to jump-starting the program.

In 1978, Professor Edward Gilfillan wrote a review of the environmental sciences at

Bowdoin. At the beginning of the report, he writes that “the basis of environmental problems lies in man’s physical or biological environment,” and thus “the environmental sciences are the core of any Environmental Studies Program.” Gilfillan asserts that a “student is handicapped in planning an E.S. major by this lack of continuity,” conceding at the end of the report that “the

E.S. program at Bowdoin is guided by an appropriate philosophy. However, the execution of that philosophy is not very good,” and “the program is not doing the job that it was intended to do.” Finally, Gilfillan warns that measures must be taken to remedy these issues, because “to terminate the E.S. program would be to fly in the face of clear student and faculty interest in

Environmental Studies and the obvious advantages offered by Bowdoin’s location.”83

A year after this report was published, the E.S. Committee submitted a memorandum to the Dean of Faculty regarding Gilfillan’s findings. The Committee responded to the report by saying that, “on an average, E.S. courses are probably more heavily subscribed than courses in any other department at the College.” So it did not make any sense that “many of the coordinate majors have some difficulty finding suitable courses and there is no way a student can

82 Faculty Committee: Official Report, February 6, 1974,” Faculty: Records, Minutes and Reports [1.7.3, Box 3], George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections & Archives, Bowdoin College Library, Brunswick, ME. 83 Edward S. Gilfillan, “A Review of the Environmental Sciences at Bowdoin College,” December 20, 1978, Property of the Bowdoin Environmental Studies Program, Bowdoin College, Brunswick, ME. Berry and Wuthmann 26 count on a course being available in any given year.”84 This theme is presented over and over again in the annual faculty reports from 1979 to 1981.85 When Professor of Geology Ed Laine came to direct the E.S. program in 1986, he remembers many students referring to E.S. as “the accidental program.”86

How did such a promising program, a program born from ambitious faculty players and high student interest, quickly meet such an understaffed fate? Professor McKee suggests that some departments were not excited to see “encroachments on their territory.” Departments saw the act of lending their professors to a loosely defined E.S. program as “expertise diluted.”87

Burroughs remembers the members of the program “going to other departments with its hat in its hand asking if they could offer courses that would be cross-listed.”88 Additionally, because

E.S. lacked a full-time director, there was no one designated to conquering these existing shortcomings. The 1979 memorandum argues that “the present arrangement of direction by a committee chairman carrying a full teaching load errs on the side of neglect.”89

Finally, in the 1981-1982 faculty report, the Committee writes that it has prepared a

“final version of [a] revitalization proposal to be submitted for Faculty vote in December.”90 The outcomes of this significant report would result in a significant expansion of the “accidental program.”

84 Environmental Studies Committee, “Memorandum to: A. H. Fuchs, Dean of the Faculty,” March 6, 1979, Property of the Bowdoin Environmental Studies Program, Bowdoin College, Brunswick, ME, 1. 85 Environmental Studies Committee, “Annual Report to the Faculty 1979-1980,” Presented at the January 1980 meeting of the Faculty, Property of the Bowdoin Environmental Studies Program, Bowdoin College, Brunswick, ME.; Environmental Studies Committee, “Annual Report to the Faculty 1980-1981,” Presented at the January 1981 meeting of the Faculty, Property of the Bowdoin Environmental Studies Program, Bowdoin College, Brunswick, ME. 86 Laine Interview. 87 McKee Interview. 88 Burroughs Interview. 89 E.S. Committee, “Memorandum,” 1. 90 Environmental Studies Committee, “Annual Report to the Faculty 1981-1982,” Presented at the January 1982 meeting of the Faculty, Property of the Bowdoin Environmental Studies Program, Bowdoin College, Brunswick, ME, 2. Berry and Wuthmann 27

New Decade, New Self:

Like any young adolescent experiencing growing pains in its self-definition, the E.S. program began comparing itself to its peers a decade after its genesis. Swelling student interest was clear: 194 students enrolled in E.S. 1 in the spring of 1980. 91 But despite the ambitions of student and faculty leaders, “it was a program in only the loosest sense” remembers Butcher.92 In looking forward, the E.S. faculty wanted that which had made the program stand out at Williams

College: an administrative director, a set of core classes, and an all-encompassing building to house studies. In its 1981 “Proposal for Environmental Studies: The Second Decade”, the

Committee also imagined breaking the major into three sections—environmental science, social science, and “humanistic concerns.”93

This emphasis on the environmental humanities has set Bowdoin apart from many peer schools through the years, though Burroughs calls that faction a “particularly impoverished relation,” with the goal of adding “depth and resonance” to the other sciences instead of supplying direct real-world preparation.94 “Your job as a humanist was not really to introduce a third way,” remembers Burroughs. “It was more to sort of…I don’t want to say mediate, but to sort of ask questions…to try to keep academic professionalism from taking over.”95

A member of the English department since 1968, Burroughs grew up in the “cypress swamps and black river waters” of northeast South Carolina, amidst a “kind of ancient hereditary resistance to writers like Emerson and Thoreau.” His lack of experience in youth with the writers reversed when he went to graduate school at Harvard amidst the deep tradition of the

91 E.S. Committee, “Annual Report to the Faculty 1981-1982,” 1. 92 Butcher Interview. 93 Environmental Studies Committee, “A Proposal for Environmental Studies at Bowdoin College in the 1980s: The Second Decade,” Property of the Bowdoin Environmental Studies Program, Bowdoin College, Brunswick, ME. 94 Allen Springer, interview by authors, digital recording, Brunswick, ME., 18 October 2012; Burroughs interview; Burroughs interview. 95 Burroughs Interview. Berry and Wuthmann 28 transcendentalists. At Bowdoin, he sensed a dearth of representation for writers deeply connected to geography, and began offering an environmentally-focused freshman seminar (“Going Wild”) and then eventually mid-level courses in the American landscape (“Making Literary Landscape”) and non-fiction writing. “By that sort of indirect method, I found myself becoming a small part of the Environmental Studies faculty,” says Burroughs. Though he says many of his literature students may have started out with a “softer interest” in the environment—an appreciation for books focused on nature—they were eager to learn and “if not to make themselves into scientists or economists, at least to master enough of those perspectives to be of practical use.”96

With the addition of humanities, the early-1980s revision of the program saw a clearer definition of the path for majors post graduation, with an E.S. information sheet for the program outlining a goal of preparing students to enter fields of “public policy... research... communication and education... planning and management” as well as for making “personal choices in defining life style.”97 These proposals called for administrative and curricular rejuvenation of the E.S. program, a revamping played out in a front-page public relations rush.

The standard admissions handout for 1981 notes that there was a major E.S. curriculum review in progress, while a Facts About Bowdoin brochure from the 1982-1983 year prominently lauds “an expanded E.S. program.”98

Beyond calling for three divisions of E.S. study, the 1981 proposal had asked for a program director whose “administrative duties would preclude full-time teaching,” but could teach several versions of the introductory E.S. 1 as well as a handful of advanced field courses, who would be autonomous and not a member of a present department, and who had the tenure-

96 Burroughs Interview. 97 “Bowdoin College Environmental Studies Program General Information 1980-81,” Office of Admissions: records and publications [2.2.3, Box 1 Folder 4], George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections & Archives, Bowdoin College Library, Brunswick, ME. 98 “Bowdoin College: The 1970s,” Office of Admissions: records and publications [2.2.4, Box 1], George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections & Archives, Bowdoin College Library, Brunswick, ME. Berry and Wuthmann 29 track credentials to teach in more than one department.99 These wishes were crystallized in the form of Ed Laine, who arrived in 1986 when a PEW grant allowed the program to hire the research oceanographer as the first official E.S. director. “It was an amazing rush those first few years,” remembers Laine. “Kids were coming out of high school wanting to do [E.S.]…they’d had that one course from that one teacher that got them excited,” he said, confirming the admissions material that pinpointed E.S. as a popular prospective student focal point.100

Under Laine’s direction, the department expanded to six core courses as well as extensive cross-listing, graduating 8-12 majors per year from its hub in the Curtis Pool building. Late-

1980s program literature describes an emphasis on topics such as “quality of the atmosphere, climatic change, population growth, depletion of fresh water, loss of soil productivity, energy resources, wilderness values, loss of genetic diversity, toxic contamination, waste disposal, air and water pollution, and tropical deforestation,” with the program goal of promoting “a more sustainable society in which economic and cultural systems enhance and support the conservation of resources and a high quality of life.” 101 This rhetoric encompasses issues from harder to softer disciplines, emphasizing “cultural systems”—an apparent echo of the

“Humanistic concerns” E.S. track—alongside the social science “economic” systems.

In 1985, the first environmental law course was added, taught by professors Potholm and

Morgan.102 But even as professors committed to teaching more classes in the E.S. curriculum, they continued to flex their environmentalist-minded muscles off-campus. In the aftermath of the

German Green Party winning 27 Parliamentary seats, government professor Rensenbrink remembers hearing about the first-ever Green Party meeting in Canada in 1983, and thinking,

99 E.S. Committee, “A Proposal for Environmental Studies.” 100 Laine interview. 101 “Bowdoin College Environmental Studies Program General Information 1987-1988,” Office of Admissions: records and publications [2.2.3, Box 1 Folder 4], George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections & Archives, Bowdoin College Library, Brunswick, ME. 102 “Self-Evaluation,” 7. Berry and Wuthmann 30

“that sounds good.” Joining forces with fellow Brunswick resident and anti-nuclear activist Alan

Philbrook, they launched the American movement in Augusta a year later; he remembers thinking, “I just want to make sure we get the name before anybody else has it.” Stepping down as chair of the government department in 1989, he said Bowdoin made it “financially possible” for him to balance continued teaching with extensive involvement with the Party. 103

In a strain of activism less tied to partisanship, College professors were also at the forefront leading Maine’s largest environmental nonprofit, the Natural Resources Council of

Maine. Butcher served as director in the mid-1970s and professors such as McKee, Huntington,

Freeman and Vail were also closely involved on the board.104 “A lot of people were engaged outside of the college,” remembers Rensenbrink.105 While these extracurricular connections enhanced the authority of Bowdoin’s professorship and inarguably lent real-life insight to classroom teaching as well as providing connections for students, the debate over the “role of activism in an academic setting” heightened in the 1980s. While many of the programs “born in the late 1960s and early 1970s had an unabashedly activist agenda,” a few years down the road, assumptions that “strong political positions [were] evidence that E.S. was prejudiced or even intellectually bankrupt” threatened to upset the program’s authority in the institution.106

“You don’t want to protrude your biases [on students], but at the same time you want to make sure that education is taking place,” says Rensenbrink. “In order to do that, you need to be very clear about your own beliefs and your own knowledge…. I just hope that I plant seeds and don’t pose [my beliefs] on the student.”107 Butcher viewed the professor’s role as more neutral, recalling “I never saw student activism as being on my agenda [or] as something that I should

103 Rensenbrink Interview. 104 McKee Interview; Butcher Interview. 105 Rensenbrink Interview. 106 “Self-Evaluation,” 6. 107 Rensenbrink Interview. Berry and Wuthmann 31 promote,” though he also said he never meant to discourage it. "At some times activism is a little more effective if it just happens, [rather] than if it is just pushed all the time,” he added.108

A solution for merging social concerns and intellectual discipline came with the arrival of

Laine, who, alongside colleagues in the Geology department, began integrating service and field- based learning into their E.S.-cross-listed courses, a focus on “common good” that has only intensified in later years.109 In 1968, the College purchased Coleman Farms, a saltwater farm with a white farmhouse three miles from campus; it housed student artists until, according to a

1987 Orient article, “they were caught growing marijuana and the house was closed to Bowdoin students.”110 By the 1980s, the farm was primarily a recreation ground for the field-based learning promoted by Laine, and the Orient notes the role of both Laine and Huntington in launching the off-campus movement.111

The Campus Learns to Walk its Talk:

In the aftermath of midnight on March 24, 1989, the Exxon Valdez tanker beached itself on Bligh Reef in Alaska’s Prince William Sound in a soured attempt to avoid looming icebergs.

Pouring 10.9 million gallons of crude oil into the ocean—and becoming the largest spill in U.S. history at the time—the accident globally raised red flags in the name of environmental stewardship.112 A few months later, across the country in Maine, the surprise cutting of 92 pine trees near Cleaveland Hall for the construction of a parking lot and Hatch Science Library sparked its own outcry, leading to an “heated…emergency meeting between former president A.

108 Butcher Interview. 109 “Self-Evaluation,” 9. 110 Alan Harris, “Having fun with science and nature in salt marshes,” The Bowdoin Orient, 11 December 1987, 6. 111 Ibid. 112 Elizabeth Bluemink, “Size of Exxon Spill Remains Disputed,” Anchorage Daily News, 5 June 2010, http://www.adn.com/2010/06/05/1309722/size-of-exxon-spill-remains-disputed.html. Berry and Wuthmann 32

Leroy Greason and concerned students, faculty, staff, and community members” which ignited

“charges of environmental irresponsibility” on the part of the College.113 Hoping to mollify complaints of nearsighted planning and failed communication between campus constituencies, the president appointed faculty members to an Environmental Impact Committee (EIC) for Fall

1989, with the aim of creating a “‘sounding board’ for issues of environmental consequence.”114

E.S. director Laine headed the Committee, and the Orient quotes him saying that

“There’s a lot of goodwill out there, but environmental concerns just aren’t programmed into the way the college decision-making process is set up.”115 In the next few years, the EIC offered leadership in facilities and dining projects—working to plan sustainable options for the proposed

Druckenmiller Hall and student centers and make recommendations for off-campus college lands—as well as academically, hearing presentations on E.S. students’ research projects. In the

Orient, Laine asserted his goal to green the campus decision-making processes, noting that environmental responsibility would be rewarded in long-term financial savings for the College.116

With the addition of program coordinator Becky Koulouris in 1987 signaling a step forward in the program’s solidity within the College framework, this institutionalization of the

College’s environmental mindset crystallized in the formalization of campus sustainability measures. The town of Brunswick adopted a mandatory recycling program in 1989, leading campus leaders to place metal trash cans marked with “Recycle It!” stickers on each dorm floor and in every lounge. A 1991 environmental-themed issue of the Orient featured a spread of articles spotlighting student environmentalists—such as Marshall Carter ’91, whose independent study led to the creation of a Bowdoinham-Bowdoin College Pilot Compost Project—and green

113 Dana M. Stanley, “Environmental Impact Committee: What has it done?,” The Bowdoin Orient, 22 February 1991, 3. 114 Ibid. 115 Ibid. 116 Ibid. Berry and Wuthmann 33 activist groups. The Orient reports that the Druids, which began in 1986 as the Bowdoin

Recycling Club, had shifted a campus focus to global initiatives, holding letter-writing campaigns and petitions to raise awareness. Meanwhile, Earth House, the “Environmental Action and

Recreation Theme House,” remained a “meeting area for students who want to live a more environmental life,” according to member John Wright ’93.117

With environmentalist factions beginning to gain a normalized place in the Bowdoin community, increased stability of the E.S. program itself seemed to follow. In 1991, an Orient full- page spread on interdisciplinary funding issues amidst the budget crisis highlighted the relative security of the E.S. program in comparison to its peers—headlines cried that “Women’s Studies on uncertain ground,” “Asian Studies in peril,” and “Afro-American Studies under review” but

“E.S. running smoothly.”118 The E.S. article notes that as of publication, 92 students were registered E.S. coordinate majors, listing their reasons for choosing as both the genuine desire for environmental problem-solving as well as an recognition of future job potential “in light of the larger community’s increasing awareness of the destruction which has been wrought upon nature.” The article quotes student satisfaction with close student-professor relationships, and notes that capstone senior seminars have the potential to be one-on-one or five-to-one classes, an anomaly among standard departments.119

The Rise of Science and Place:

In the minutes following tense trustee meetings, Robert Edwards would walk into the pines surrounding campus, and, leaning his back against the thick trunk of a tree, take a minute to decompress. Inaugurated president of Bowdoin College in 1990, Edwards was born in

117 Julien Yoo, “Bowdoin groups do their part to raise awareness,” The Bowdoin Orient, 3 May 1991, 2. 118 Dana M. Stanley, “Interdisciplinary Programs,” The Bowdoin Orient, 1 February 1991, 1. 119 Jamie Gillette, “E.S. running smoothly,” The Bowdoin Orient, 1 February 1991, 9. Berry and Wuthmann 34

London, but moved to Middletown Ohio at an early age, where the former-Boy Scout grew up biking, swimming, and bird watching in the thick woods, away from a land of supermarkets and malls. “What we consider to be concern for the environment…a lot of people at the time…a bit took for granted,” he remembers, characterizing his early belief in endless wilderness that has since been proven shortsighted.120

It’s no surprise that when Edwards came to Bowdoin, he saw a lot of value in the school’s location—its proximity to the coast, and the community’s “ability to access the woods and streams.” Edwards saw that fostering a new perception of Bowdoin’s location could bolster its image, and lead students to “fin[d] comfort rather than terror of the woods.” 121 Director of the

Bowdoin Outing Club (BOC) Mike Woodruff affirms that the time was right for this shift in perception, saying that, “outdoor activity began to get trendy in the ‘90s.”122 Maine’s rivers, peninsulas, and mountains could be a major strength of the college, distancing it from the perception of it being a school only two and half hours from Boston. Professors on the E.S.

Committee had already been encouraging exploration of Maine’s outdoors for quite a while.

Professors Samuel Butcher and Franklin Burroughs helped to write a proposal for a revitalized

BOC in 1984. As a result, the College hired football coach Jim Lentz as the full-time, paid director of the club.123 Woodruff, who graduated Bowdoin in 1987, vividly remembers the canoe trip that changed his life. Lentz and Butcher took a group of dedicated BOC members,

Woodruff included, up north to learn to paddle whitewater. Woodruff recalls that they were

“really tame rapids,” but the feeling of paddling in swift moving water made him completely dedicate himself to the BOC, devote his professional career to whitewater paddling after college,

120 Robert Edwards, interview by authors, digital recording, Brunswick, ME., 31 October 2012. 121 Edwards interview. 122 Mike Woodruff, interview by authors, digital recording, Brunswick, ME., 4 October 2012. 123 Ibid. Berry and Wuthmann 35 and finally return to direct the Outing Club at Lentz’s request in 1991.124 The BOC took over responsibility of pre-orientation trips in 1992 with the intent of using Maine’s natural beauty as a way to introduce students from all over the country to the college.125

The early ’90s also parallel a change of place-centered rhetoric in admissions material.

One college pamphlet from this era is a fold-out, illustrated map of Maine, showing little cartoon students sea kayaking the coast off of campus and hiking up Katahdin in the north.126 Another pamphlet, decorated by a scene of fall leaves on the quad, declares that “yes, Maine means rocky shores, lobsters, L.L. Bean, and winter snows. It also means spectacular fall color and cool summers, concern for clean air and water, and inspiration for countless artists and authors.”127

Under the deep-seated nature-appreciation of Edwards, the administration supported a re- imagination of the college’s location in Maine as a key selling point for the school, linking the landscape to developments in the Outing Club and E.S. program in a stronger way than had first occurred in the 1970s.

Another of Edwards’ first initiatives was to bolster Bowdoin’s science departments. He specifically viewed Biology as “the discipline of our time.”128 With the aim of hiring more professors and building more labs, lecture halls, and seminar rooms for the sciences, he and the administration devised a campaign to expand the school by 400 students over four years.

Edwards called the mission a “great opportunity for the most lively programs at the college,” specifically the programs that tended to go “beyond their disciplines.” Much of the money from this campaign was channeled into the construction of Druckenmiller Hall, which provided lab

124 Woodruff Interview. 125 “The Beginnings of the Bowdoin Outing Club,” accessed December 6, 2012, http://www.bowdoin.edu/outing/about/history/beginnings.shtml. 126 “Come Visit Bowdoin!,” Maps, Brochures, and Posters, 1944- [2.2.4, Box 2, Folder 1], George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections & Archives, Bowdoin College Library, Brunswick, ME. 127 “Bowdoin College,” Maps, Brochures, and Posters, 1944- [2.2.4, Box 2, Folder 1], George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections & Archives, Bowdoin College Library, Brunswick, ME. 128 Edwards Interview. Berry and Wuthmann 36 and classroom space not only to Biology, but also to departments like Chemistry, Geology, and the E.S. program.129

Meanwhile, national attention on Bowdoin’s environmental scientists, ecologists, and biologists came via the Bowdoin Scientific Station on Kent Island in Canada’s Bay of Fundy.

Though the island had been College property since 1934, Wheelwright took the helm as director in 1987, and soon after it became a member of the Organization of Biological Field Stations.

“My phone has been ringing off the hook with calls from researchers from various universities, interested in hiring enthusiastic, well-rounded young field assistants. They see Kent Island as a training ground,” Wheelwright told a 1991 Orient reporter for an article about the station.130

With six or seven Bowdoin students spending summers conducting scientific research there— joined by a handful of students from other colleges and the first official summer artist-in- residence scholar appointed in 1997—the island facilitated a “marriage of the sciences and the arts” through the lens of the unique ecosystem of the Grand Manaan archipelago. Despite an emphasis on hard science research, Wheelwright said “it is inevitable that people who are doing

Field Biology are thinking about policy implications,” describing a clear climate of interdisciplinary environmental problem-solving concurrent with the mission of the E.S. department but over 500 miles from the College itself.131

Edwards’ new priorities of bolstering the natural sciences and emphasizing Maine’s landscape convened closer to home with the construction of the Coastal Studies Center. In

1981, Irma and William Thalheimer donated their 118-acre farm on Orrs Island in Harpswell to

Bowdoin. The couple charged that it was “to be protected in its natural environment and used

129 Edwards interview. 130 Rich Littlehale,“Federal fellowships granted to senior ecology students,” The Bowdoin Orient, 3 May 1991, 8. 131 Nat Wheelwright, interview by authors, digital recording, Brunswick, ME., 12 December 2012. Berry and Wuthmann 37 as a research and teaching resource for faculty and students.”132 For over a decade, the College’s administration was at a stand-still about what to do with the property. When Edwards arrived, however, the property had the potential to supplement his “strategy to create signature programs along the coast that would involve the sciences.”133 The property, and its old farmhouse and barn, could be developed into a place-based research station to study Maine’s ecology, geology, and hydrology. The College already owned a small facility on Bethel Point in Cundy’s Harbor, but this was essentially a shack with a small woodstove and an underfunded marine lab.134 The

Thalheimer property, however, had the potential to become an important resource for

Bowdoin’s science departments, and could be a major selling point for Bowdoin’s unique Maine location. It would tie the campus to the coast.

According to Bill Torrey, who served as Senior Vice President for Planning and

Development from 1987 to 2012, the College drafted a plan for Leon Gorman, the Chairman of

L.L. Bean, for a monetary gift to support the development of the Thalheimer property in

1992.135 In the proposal, Torrey remembers the College stressing that “we needed to take advantage that we’re on Maine’s coast.” Bowdoin also needed “to make people more environmentally aware… there [is] huge interest on the part of students in Environmental

Studies, and we thought it was the future.”136 Persuaded by the College’s need for developing a research center closer than Kent Island, and one that was so specific to the Maine landscape,

Gorman donated enough money to build a terrestrial lab and a marine lab with running seawater on the island. The new Coastal Studies Center opened in 1998.137

132 “Coastal Studies Center,” Last updated 2011, Accessed December 9, 2012, http://maineanencyclopedia.com/coastal-studies-center/. 133 Bill Torrey, interview by authors, digital recording, Brunswick, ME., 9 November 2012. 134 Wheelwright Interview. 135 Torrey Interview. 136 Ibid. 137 “Coastal Studies Center,” http://maineanencyclopedia.com/coastal-studies-center/. Berry and Wuthmann 38

Two E.S. Professors and an environmentally-oriented Outing Club director also saw a way to improve Bowdoin’s resources for Environmental Studies even closer to campus. Professor of Biology Nat Wheelwright, Professor of Economics David Vail, and Mike Woodruff, the

Director of the BOC, thought that something could be done about the Bowdoin Pines. The

College had owned this 33-acre parcel of land since 1791, but had never really developed it to facilitate student use. The site is truly extraordinary; some of the White Pines on the property are more than 125 years old, and a symbol of college life engrained in the psyche of Bowdoin alumni from the 18th century to today.138 In Morituri Salutamus, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem for the fiftieth anniversary of the class of 1825, Longfellow writes, “O ye familiar scenes, - ye groves of pine, / That once were mine and are no longer mine.”139 It’s possible that some of the pines standing in the grove today were alive during Longfellow’s address. By the time the trio decided the pines were in need of a makeover, the site had degraded considerably since

Hawthorne and Longfellow’s days at the College. Vail recalls that the site as dominated by a scraggly understory of second growth, and was a favorite sleeping place for the local homeless people.140 In 1997, Vail, Wheelwright, and Woodruff secured funding from the school to hire a consultant in trail design to plan out a system for the pines to facilitate more student, faculty, staff, and community patronage of the pines. The original plan was to also build an interactive trail guide to explain important natural history features of the site, but the funding was too slim.141 The trails by themselves, however, were still enough to make the pines accessible, a space that could be used to collect samples for Biology, Ecology, and Geology labs as well as a place to harbor contemplation in the pine-scented air.

138 “The Bowdoin Pines,” Accessed December 10, 2012, http://www.bowdoin.edu/environmental- studies/places/html/pines.shtml. 139 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “Morituri Solutamus: Poem for the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Class of 1825 in Bowdoin College,” Accessed December 10, 2012, http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173905. 140 David Vail, interview by authors, digital recording, Brunswick, ME., 15 December 2012. 141 Ibid. Berry and Wuthmann 39

Professor David Vail, who had been teaching E.S.-Economics cross-listed courses since the late ‘80s, became the chair of the E.S. Committee in 1994 under the directorship of Ed

Laine. Professor Laine was planning on stepping down at the end of the 1995-96 academic year.

President Edwards asked Vail—who had had an influential voice and vision for the program’s future even before he became chair—to become director of the program after Laine, as he

“shared [Vail’s] vision that we had potential to be a really strong program.”142 Vail accepted, on the condition that it be an interim position because of his heavy research agenda in Sweden, and on the condition that the department be allowed to write a proposal to “remake” the E.S. major, to make it “genuinely interdisciplinary.”143 Edwards agreed to Vail’s requests. Professor

Freeman served as acting director after Laine stepped down in 1996-97, and then Vail picked up the position the next year. In 1998, the E.S. Committee drafted a new mission statement. This statement aimed at redefining the program to make it more equally interdisciplinary between the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities, no doubt partially influenced by the College’s recent and increased attention towards the sciences, especially the natural sciences that meshed with Edwards’ “coastal strategy.” This sweeping mission statement, which fleshed out a new and more nuanced approach to the program’s interdisciplinary structure, did not sit well with all who were involved. The debate that ensued over the structure of the program pointed to the very fluid definition of what Environmental Studies was and should attempt to do, and the thoughts that emerged from the discussions would shape the direction of the program as it progressed into the 21st century.

142 Vail interview. 143 Ibid. Berry and Wuthmann 40

Part IV: The New Millenium

“Academic Turf Wars”

In the words of Professor of Philosophy Larry Simon, E.S. is a “problem-driven area of academic interest”—any student who has taken E.S. 101 with him can easily recall him posing this deceptively difficult question: “What is the problem?”144 The 1998 mission statement, which

Vail says was a product of “a years’ worth of discussion,” begins by re-identifying how to address the ever-advancing environmental problem.145 The writers of the proposal say that “liberal arts education should promote environmental literacy; an understanding of the world around us – the built and the natural, the local and the global, our role in it, and our effects upon it.”146 This thematic key phrase, “environmental literacy,” guides the rest of the mission statement. To achieve this goal, the Bowdoin E.S. Program encourages a “multi-disciplinary environmental literacy by applying analytic techniques and integrating insights from natural scientists, social scientists, and humanists.”147 To use the metaphor posed by Professor Simon, the E.S. Program operates like a “three-legged stool,” supported equally by the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities.

The “three-legged stool” model is essentially what the mission statement seeks to attain.

This model of equal attention given to all three of the stool’s legs is defined by the way the environmental problem must be addressed outside of Bowdoin: “Responding wisely to the environmental challenges humanity is certain to face… will require collaboration among experts in many fields: elected officials, government staff, environmental advocates, business leaders,

144 Larry Simon, interview by authors, digital recording, Brunswick, ME., 12 December 2012. 145 Vail interview. 146 Environmental Studies Committee, “Bowdoin College Environmental Studies Program: MISSION,” May 29, 1998, Property of the Bowdoin Environmental Studies Department, Bowdoin College, Brunswick, ME, 1. 147 Ibid. Berry and Wuthmann 41 scientists, lawyers, consultants, architects, religious leaders, and many other professionals.”148 In the opinion of the E.S. Committee, a strong, “genuinely interdisciplinary” education in undergraduate E.S. is the most effective way to train effective professional leaders. Yet the

Committee recognizes that “effective, farsighted environmental governance [will require] more than professional expertise.”149 So then the challenges for E.S. at Bowdoin are “twofold.” The program should seek to “encourage broad environmental literacy through course offerings and co-curricular activities available to all students,” as well as “build a solid foundation for diverse environmentally-related career paths many of our graduates will follow.”150

To attain this redefined philosophy for interdisciplinary studies, the Committee proposed necessary changes that should be made to increase the efficacy of the department. First, and possibly the most significant, was the redesign of the E.S. 101 course. Previously taught primarily by science professors, the new course was to be “team taught by a humanist, a scientist, and a social scientist.”151 The course would investigate major environmental issues through lectures and small group work, but also through attending public talks and symposia to bring students into contact with “experts, advocates and policy makers in fields such as fisheries management, land use planning, regulatory enforcement, and conservation biology.”152 The first section of the new E.S. 101 course was taught by Professor of Philosophy Larry Simon, Professor of Geology

Peter Lea, and Professor of Economics Rick Freeman. Simon argues that even today, it remains

“the most interdisciplinary course on campus.”153

“A mastery of subject matter,” however, would not be enough to obtain true

148 E.S. Committee, “MISSION,”1. 149 Ibid. 150 E.S. Committee, “MISSION,”1. 151 E.S. Committee, “MISSION,” 3. 152 Ibid. 153 Simon Interview. Berry and Wuthmann 42 environmental literacy, because ultimately, “it is a way of thinking, experiencing, and acting.”154

The Committee identifies building an endowment to fund internships for students as a “high priority.”155 Valuable field experience could also be gained by taking advantage of Bowdoin’s

“exceptional” facilities: the Coastal Studies Center, the Bowdoin Pines, Coleman Farms, and the

Scientific Research Station on Kent Island.156 Finally, the Committee addresses the need for a new physical space. At the time, the program was confined to a couple of spaces in Hatch

Science Library.157 The library was created “with neither the program’s functions and space needs nor the ecological design principles in mind.”158 To fit the new mission, the program would need a building with “grounds suitable for teaching and learning activities such as landscape design and organic gardening.”159 Additionally, the “ideal” E.S. Center would have space for staff and faculty offices, seminar rooms, a computer lab, a library and resource center, a spacious common room, residential accommodations for students, and a kitchen.160 It needed a space that physically expressed the program’s presence and importance to the College – a program that united disparate disciplines, was relevant to the school’s Maine location, and addressed “some of the 21st century’s most difficult moral and policy questions.”161

This sweeping new mission statement was not unanimously accepted, however.

Specifically, some professors in the science departments saw the rededication to a more equally interdisciplinary structure as usurping the important role the natural sciences played in the structure of E.S. The ensuing debate focused on a single, burning, idea: what does E.S. actually encompass, and what is the role of the sciences in this? Professor Rensenbrink, who held an

154 E.S. Committee, “MISSION,” 4. 155 E.S. Committee, “MISSION,” 5. 156 E.S. Committee, “MISSION,” 2. 157 Vail Interview. 158 E.S. Committee, “MISSION,” 5. 159 Ibid. 160 Ibid. 161 E.S. Committee, “MISSION,” 1. Berry and Wuthmann 43 office right outside the place these discussions took place, recalls that “some of it was pretty intense… as I looked over and my door was open they would get grimmer and grimmer. It was pretty hot in that room.”162 Professor Burroughs sums up the debate well in just three words:

“academic turf wars.”163 Wheelwright says he “intellectually…never quite understood it because it seemed to imply that the sciences held primacy over the other aspects of the Bowdoin curriculum and the strength of the E.S. program;” he roots the heart of the issue in often personal and insubstantial quibbles.164 The argument eventually reached such a peak that a few science professors drafted a proposal for a new Environmental Science major and submitted it to the college-wide Curriculum Committee.165 The divide between the competing ideas was so stark that President Edwards eventually called an emergency Saturday afternoon meeting, sitting down the members of the E.S. Committee and, in the words of Freeman, saying: “There’s not room on this campus for two environmental programs. Work it out.”166

Soon after this meeting, the majority idea—the idea drafted so clearly in the ’98 mission statement—was supported, and the “defeated” science professors kind of “drifted off” after the resolution of the schism.167 Many continued to teach cross-listed E.S. courses, but many also dropped off of the E.S. Committee for good.

In 1999, Vail’s hopes for creating a new home for the program in the former-Psi Upsilon fraternity—now Quinby House—fell short, as the administration integrated the house into the new College House system instead. “The president of the college and the trustees had a totally different idea, which was to make it part of the College house system,” said Vail. “You’ll see places where they just have these knockout E.S. centers…gardens, bioenergy projects…we aren’t

162 Rensenbrink interview. 163 Burroughs interview. 164 Wheelwright interview. 165 Vail interview. 166 Freeman interview. 167 Vail interview. Berry and Wuthmann 44 there yet and I don’t know if that’s even an item at discussions with the administration,” he added, calling the institutional response “several cuts down from the ambitions we had at that point.” Though asked to continue for another year as director, Vail said he “decided [he] wasn’t the right person for the job,” noting frustration with Edwards’ early promises to the E.S. program that, in his eyes, “didn’t rise to the level of priority” he would have hoped.168

(Re)evaluation:

Looking to bolster the social science leg of the E.S. stool and supplement the academia of the major with a more “professional” perspective, the Committee hired Dr. Dewitt John to replace Vail as the new director of the program in 2000. 169 John landed in Brunswick after fifteen straight years of policymaking in Washington D.C., most recently at the National

Academy of Public Administration where he had headed work under a $5 million government grant to evaluate the efficiency of the Environmental Protection Agency—“Loads of fun…an exciting time,” he recalls. He remembers that he had “never met a philosopher in my life!” nor worked directly with scientists, but he had always wanted to teach; his first semester on campus, he taught the policy branch of E.S. 101.170

"What did I know about what my other two professors were teaching? Not a lot,” he remembers. He said he thought, “this is interesting, but there’s nobody in Washington...that worries about any of this, except maybe that [aspect of interdisciplinary environmental problem- solving]...and that…and that…oh, sugar, that’s what we were arguing about.” Even as John stressed the relevance of an interdisciplinary approach and its real-world applicability, he bore witness to the complications of melding these disciplinary outlooks in the program’s post-

168 Vail Interview. 169 Craig McEwan, interview by authors, digital recording, Brunswick, ME., 6 November, 2012. 170 Dewitt John, interview by authors, digital recording, Brunswick, ME., 26 October 2012. Berry and Wuthmann 45 redefinition. "It was a real challenge to reach out and try to understand and communicate with everybody,” he says.171

Nonetheless, a looming external program review in 2002 forced the faculty to find common ground as they prepared their own preliminary self-evaluation. “That helped a lot, because it was a task that we all had to work on,” remembers John. The self-evaluation introduces the E.S. program as “one of the largest majors at Bowdoin” with 10% of graduates majoring each year since the early 1990s. Noting that the first few years of the millennium brought a groundswell of change, it refers to an increased financial commitment to the program by the college, including both a two-year grant from Northeast Educational Services to support the integration of service learning into five E.S. courses and a Mellon foundation grant to enhance field study, hire adjuncts and bring lecturers.172 As a result, the E.S. faculty swelled, and the program received both a new location in Adams Hall and updated E.S. core classes.173 John arrived the same year as E.S.-Biology/Ecology professor John Lichter, and then spearheaded the hiring of Program Director Eileen Johnson, Program Coordinator Rosie Armstrong, and

Environmental History professor Matthew Klingle a year later.174

Furthermore, though Vail’s hopes for a comprehensive building and grounds to house the program never materialized—as the 1998 mission statement had aimed for—the program received a new home in the name of the renovated Adams Hall in 2001. With a team of student planners working alongside visual arts majors (who designed the kidney-shaped planter) and

Mike Veilleux from facilities (a former nuclear engineer discovering a passion for green architecture) the reconstructed space emerged as an embodiment of the program’s identity and

171 John Interview. 172 “Self-Evaluation,” 27. 173 “Self-Evaluation,” 4. 174 John Interview. Berry and Wuthmann 46 goals.175

“We needed [a lounge] because the students don’t know each other if they have different majors. If you’re going to have conversations between philosophers and scientists, you’re going to need to have a place for them to sit down,” said John, highlighting the importance of an interdisciplinary living room where not only students, but teachers in different fields, could share common ground. The planning committee also tailored the physical materials of the renovation to the program’s goals, replacing a non-environmentally sound carcinogenic rug, buying sustainably made furniture, and building with Northern Maine wood. 176

Even though the E.S. program was not able to secure the old Psi Upsilon house for its new quarters, it did find a way to benefit from the property. As of May 2000, the College had completely phased out fraternities, following an administrative decision to replace the Greek system with a new campus “College House” system, collapsing a pillar of the school’s social community that had stood strong since the early 19th century.177 Some dedicated members of the fraternity, in conjunction with E.S. professors, secured some of the funds from the sale of the

Psi U house to establish the Kappa Psi Upsilon Environmental Studies fund. This fund provides

$4,000 to Bowdoin students each summer to “explore their interests in the environment by placing them in stipended summer fellowships with Maine non-profit organizations and governmental agencies.” The Logan Fellowship increased this funding in 2002 to facilitate even more student internships (one of the authors was fortunate enough to receive this fellowship to work for the Nature Conservancy of Maine last summer).178 So although the dissolution of the fraternities did not give the E.S. program a new center, the program was able to fulfill another

175 John Interview. 176 Ibid. 177 “Fraternity Membership Policy,” Accessed December 11, 2012, http://www.bowdoin.edu/studentaffairs/student-handbook/college-policies/fraternity-membership-policy.shtml. 178 “Sustainability,” Accessed December 11, 2012, http://www.bowdoin.edu/sustainability/activity/2010/psi-u.shtml. Berry and Wuthmann 47 important aspect of the mission. The Psi U and Logan fellowships “not only give students a taste of environmental work, they also allow students the chance to explore their unique environmental interests in a meaningful way.”179 They allow students to get a real taste of how their academic interests can take shape in the professional world, connecting the themes of E.S. gleaned from Bowdoin’s professors, courses, and facilities, and combining them with the larger

Maine environmental community: blending global themes with tangible local action.

In the classroom, curricular changes—such as the addition of core environmental policy and environmental science classes—sparked an increase in major requirements to nine courses in one of five new concentrations (“Student-Designed Concentration,” “History, Landscape,

Values, Ethics and the Environment,” “Interdisciplinary Environmental Science” (proposed),

“Environmental Economics and Policy,” and “Ecology and Environmental Science”).180 Beyond the more normalized Geology, Biology, Economics and Government faculty cross-listings, E.S. classes blurred in the fields of Women’s Studies (Rachel Groner), Classics (James Higgenbotham),

History (Matthew Klingle and Jill Pearlman), Sociology/Anthropology (Anne Henshaw, Nancy

Riley, Pamela Ballinger, Joe Band, Susan Kaplan), and Visual Art (Christopher Glass), though

Burroughs’ 2002 retirement left a gap in the English cross-listings.

In the wave of change that accompanied John’s hiring and the remediation of late 1990s tension, the external team of professors who reviewed the E.S. program in 2002 called it

“exceptional,” asserting that “its excellent reputation on campus and nationally is well- deserved.”181 The report goes further than merely applauding the program, advising the College to embrace it in a full court press of public relations and to “not resist the effort to promote

179 “Sustainability,” http://www.bowdoin.edu/sustainability/activity/2010/psi-u.shtml. 180 “Self-Evaluation”, 15. 181 Judy Halstead, Christopher Klyza, Douglas MacLean, “Report of the Environmental Studies Program Review Team,” Bowdoin College, 2002, 2. Berry and Wuthmann 48

Environmental Studies as one of the outstanding programs at Bowdoin” because “continued strong support….will enhance the reputation of Bowdoin and bring many benefits to the college.”182

The reviewers apply the standard “S” pattern of E.S. major enrollments nationwide to the College, saying that the 1990s emphasis on creating new E.S. programs nationally—at Bates,

Harvard, and Vassar, for example—parallels a growing number of majors within the first wave of 1970s-established programs (at Bowdoin the 19 majors of 1990 swelled to 48 majors in 1998 then back down to 41 in 2000 and 2001).183 Nonetheless, the report posits that mid-1990s growth was unsustainable, and that the stabilizing decline may actually “give the program some breathing room…and to focus some of its attention on environmental education at Bowdoin beyond the major.” In another example of Bowdoin echoing national trends, the reviewers note the “low level of enrollment of students of color,” urging the program to develop courses exploring environmental issues in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, to sponsor interdisciplinary symposiums dealing with environmental justice, and to add to the diversity of the E.S. faculty. 184

Following the external review, the program added an E.S. minor track, created an E.S. course development fund, agreed to allow E.S. majors to take appropriate science courses beyond the standard geology classes, and pledged to work to link E.S. and departmental majors more closely.

While many of the external review’s curricular changes were relatively simple to implement, suggestions affecting the program’s role in the College itself proved more difficult.

Addressing concerns of politicization and indoctrination present in the late 1980s, the report takes a firm position on the role of environmentalist activity within the academic program, saying

182 Halstead et al, “Report of the Environmental Studies,” 2. 183 Halstead et al, “Report of the Environmental Studies,” 3. 184 Halstead et al, “Report of the Environmental Studies,” 4. Berry and Wuthmann 49

“We encourage the continued support of Sustainable Bowdoin, but suggest that it continue not to be a formal part of the academic program” because it could “invit[e] controversy…by appearing to be politically activist.” As a solution, the Committee recommended that the Bowdoin administration “defuse concerns about appearances of political partisanship by endorsing

Sustainable Bowdoin and making it a campus mission.”185 Sustainable Bowdoin was created in the late 1990s after environmentalist-minded group “The Greens”—under the guidance of

Rebecca Clark ’98, who had done an independent study with David Vail— pressured the school to perform a professional audit of campus sustainability. A survey by Dartmouth graduate students on how green various campuses were had ranked Bowdoin poorly and at the bottom of the list, and, aware of looming bad publicity, the school created Sustainable Bowdoin to target

“green” campus reforms.186 Keisha Payson was hired as the Sustainability Coordinator in 2000 under the stipulation that she save the school enough money via increased efficiencies to pay her own salary.187 Though the turn of the century brought a shift in the institutionalization of sustainability on campus, the issue became a separate—but not all-encompassing—campus mission, as the external review might have hoped.

Speaking to his reign at the College, President Edwards said, “I never wanted Bowdoin to be called the ‘environmental college’” believing the institution to be “too great for any single label.”188 Today, current President Barry Mills echoes Edwards, emphasizing that the school’s focus must continue to be on the ‘Common Good’—a title he believes encompasses environmental awareness—but that the College can’t dilute this priority by branding itself as specifically environmental as well.189

185 Halstead et al, “Report of the Environmental Studies,” 13. 186 Vail Interview. 187 Freeman Interview. 188 Edwards Interview. 189 Barry Mills, interview by authors, digital recording, Brunswick, ME., 11 October 2012. Berry and Wuthmann 50

Section 5: Where are we now?

Student Networkers:

When Katherine Kirklin ’07 came to Bowdoin, she didn’t think she would be involved with E.S. She describes taking the introductory class in an attempt to “dip my toe into science and policy without treading too heavily” but says plans changed when she “just absolutely fell in love with [the program] from that course.” An English-E.S. major, O’Brien spent her senior year working on an independent study with her friend Holly Kingsbury ’07 under Professor John, developing a blueprint proposal for President Mills on how the campus could decrease greenhouse gas emissions to zero. “He agreed to that proposal eventually, it wasn’t overnight, and certainly sent us back to really do a lot more research,” she said. But when he did agree, he signed the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment, catalyzing the creation of Bowdoin’s current Carbon Neutrality Plan in a sea change of institutional commitment.190

“It felt like there was a lot of student energy and engagement, mostly centered around the

Environmental Studies department,” O’Brien says. In 2007, students across the country were writing letters to politicians and waving signs en-masse with the launch of the grassroots Step It

Up campaign, urging Congress to cut emissions by 80 percent by 2050. She attributes much of the campus momentum to this national climate, where the possibility of acknowledging global warming hovered at the edge of the policy agenda. In Brunswick, environmentalist-minded students like Kingsbury and O’Brien were networking with peers at Middlebury, College of the

Atlantic, and Yale to discuss renewable energy opportunities and trade ideas on campus

190 Katherine Kirklin [O’Brien in marriage], phone interview by Erica Berry, 16 November 2012. Berry and Wuthmann 51 neutrality plans. Bowdoin hosted the “Maine Summit on Climate Action,” while O’Brien was one of a few students who received funding and vans from the E.S. program to travel as part of a student delegation to the U.N. climate negotiations in Montreal 2005. Even as the national conversation shaped those happening in Brunswick classrooms, so the voices of environmentalist

Bowdoin students also found a place in the national dialogue.191

In his 2007 commencement speech, Mills commended a handful of environmentally- minded students (including Kingsbury and O’Brien) by name, praising their ability to apply academia to activist pursuits and to see “beyond political rhetoric,” “translat[ing] science into policy and economics, finance and practice.”[3] With the successes of motivated E.S. students under the College spotlight, and with Bowdoin acknowledging climate change prevention in its future planning, the inarguable significance of the E.S. program--not just to majors, but to the wider school and community--was crystallized.

Globeplotting Awareness:

In 2008, with the entrepreneurial goal of “tak[ing] an already great program and think[ing] of new things to do,” Phil Camill moved into John’s footsteps. Initially hired as a joint professor in Biology and E.S., Camill was drawn to Bowdoin from Minnesota’s Carleton College because it was “clear [to him]… Bowdoin had one of the best programs in the country.” He attributes this success to the College’s complementary strengths in Arctic Studies, geology and earth sciences, and E.S., as well as the interdisciplinary liberal arts grounding in critical thinking and problem-solving. He characterizes the E.S. program as going beyond “training foot soldiers to go out and fight climate battles,” and praises its wider aims of “creating a generation of

191 O’Brien Interview. Berry and Wuthmann 52 serious, creative-thinking people who…like nuance, and are able to navigate nuance…it’s not cut and dry.”192

One of the ways Camill defined his tenure was by connecting E.S. faculty research to the larger national and international research scene. The program hosted a handful of Mellon

Global Scholars, bringing Lance van Sittert to campus from South Africa in spring of 2007 to teach African environmental history; renowned Indian environmental justice activist Ashish

Kothari to teach “Development and Conservation in India” in fall of 2008; and Kenya’s Dr.

Evans Mwangi to teach “Biodiversity and Conservation in Africa” in fall of 2009. These appointments culminated in a variety of semester-end symposiums meditating on the intersections of social and environmental justice on an international scale.193 Illustrating the community interest in these co- curricular synergies, the symposia also brought Bowdoin’s E.S. program into dialogue with a national audience as featured speakers wrote papers and journal articles in the aftermaths.

Camill views the purpose of these initiatives as double-layered. The first layer asserts that a more comprehensive curricular framework bolsters the breadth of the program and thus enhances understanding of environmental issues and critical thinking capacities for E.S. majors and minors. The second layer is an attempt to break E.S. out of its institutional “silo.” Camill believes that “It’s easy to silo and almost ghettoize E.S,” writing off all mention of environmental issues as “belonging,” de facto, to E.S. professors and majors. Yet he stresses that the whole point of environmental literacy is that these issues transcend any one discipline and require an informed conversation across the disparate spheres of academia, the professional workplace, the government, and its citizens.194

192 Phil Camill, interview by authors, tape recorder, Brunswick, ME., 30 November 2012. 193 “Mellon Global Scholars Grant,” Environmental Studies online, Bowdoin College, accessed 20 December 2012. www.bowdoin.edu/environmental-studies/symposia/mellon-international-grant/index.shtml. 194 Camill Interview. Berry and Wuthmann 53

Auden Schendler ’92, Vice President of Sustainability at Aspen Skiing Company, agrees with this across-the-curriculum approach. “Climate is the key environmental challenge of our time, and it frames and includes all other issues. All students will be grappling with the problem in some way, regardless of what they study,” he says. “So all students, I'd say ALL students...ought to know climate science and policy solutions.”195 In the same vein, Vail hopes to see a graduation requirement for environmental literacy in future years.196 For Camill, the process of cross-curricular environmental literacy is more complicated than just integrating one environmentally-aware book into a Gender and Women Studies course, for example. “It’s a new mindset of how you live and operate,” says Camill, stating his ongoing goal was to “get it on

[professors] radar and think about how they might teach things” that were traditionally perceived as only relevant to E.S.197

Camill’s doctrine of facilitating co-curricular synergies was not unique to the history of the program. Rensenbrink, who worked to facilitate an interdisciplinary Race, Justice, and the

Environment symposium in 2002, had emphasized the importance of reaching out to other departments not merely for cross-listing but also to infuse the curriculum with a pervasive environmental awareness. “I would ask the sociology department, how important is the environment to your discipline? Because I think that everything is connected,” he said.198

Nonetheless, Camill arrived at a time when these buzzwords of sustainability and climate change were permeating both administrative buildings and dorm rooms, which provided a powerful wave of public interest for his environmental literacy aims to spill out of the “silo” of the E.S. classrooms.

195 Auden Schendler, email interview by Erica Berry, 1 October 2012. 196 Vail Interview. 197 Camill Interview. 198 Rensenbrink Interview. Berry and Wuthmann 54

Looking ahead:

When John talks about the future of Bowdoin’s Environmental Studies program, he talks about the future of the environmental movement. He describes how many in the second wave of environmentalism—which peaked, uncoincidentally, around 40 years ago—aspired to work for environmental factions of the government: the Environmental Protection Agency, the Bureau of

Land Management, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association. “But what’s happening, in all those agencies,” he says, “These people who have been with the agency their whole life...they’re leaving.” His response? Not just “What are we going to do now that they’re gone?” but, instead, “What can we get done now that they’re done?”199

In Spring of 2013, John is teaching a class on corporate sustainability, acknowledging a prediction he has that the role of business may surpass government in future environmental negotiations. Describing how money-strapped college graduates may seek business instead of government careers, he thinks a “a whole new generation of policy” is beginning to emerge, based around contemporary efforts to balance corporate profits with sustainable missions.200

Camill agrees that the future of the E.S. program will address the nuances of our socio- ecological systems: “it’s not jobs and the environment in this old-fashioned dichotomy,” he says.

He also believes the program should continually seek not just old methods of environmental problem-solving, but to inspire ingenious ways to reimagine current policy standstills. “If cap and trade isn’t working, we can do other things,” he says. “It’s always good to stir the pot a bit,” he

199 John Interview. 200 Ibid. Berry and Wuthmann 55 added, emphasizing the importance of critical thinking in academic spheres for environmental innovation.201

In looking ahead, Mills voiced concerns that the current coordinate major structure may lead some prospective students to question the program’s seriousness, though he expressed that he believes it is clearly a “very mature, serious part of the College” that complements a major’s

“substance in [an]other discipline.”202 The Bowdoin College Admissions Tour Guide Manual for

2012-2013 states that there are currently 58 E.S. majors, representing 7.5 percent of declared students; E.S. is listed as the fourth most popular major for graduates of the Class of 2011.203

Nonetheless, the scripted sentence about the program falls short of providing comprehensive information to match this clear high interest: “ The E.S. major is only offered as a coordinate major; most common coordinates are E.S.-Biology and E.S.-Government, although in the past students have completed Visual Arts-E.S. majors or Spanish-E.S. majors.”204

We do not think many curious, passionate prospective students would take this as a dead- end sign to their dreams of graduating Bowdoin as E.S.-psychology or E.S.-history majors. But we do hope that the strengths, not the limitations, of this coordinate major program continue to be emphasized. We think Butcher’s explanation for the “conservative” coordinate major structure of 1972 holds true forty years later: we still don’t know what exactly an Environmental

Studies major should be able to do. We are not trying to be all-encompassing

“environmentologists,” but we are trying to be educated citizens and leaders, living in a world defined by an ever-intensifying cycle of climate feedback.

201 Camill Interview. 202 Mills Interview. 203 “Bowdoin College Admissions Tour Guide Manual 2012-2013,” Bowdoin College Admissions, September 2012, 4. 204 “Tour Guide Manual,” 38. Berry and Wuthmann 56

President Mills says he “doesn’t really care what [other colleges] do” on the environmental front because it’s “not an arm’s race.”205 We disagree: in a world of U.S. News and World Report rankings, we hardly believe the school is inward facing, and we think that

Bowdoin has the resources, location, and accomplished and passionate faculty needed to distinguish itself from its peers in the E.S. realm. With issues like fossil fuel endowment divestment at the forefront of activist student agendas today, we see a reverberation of the same fervent desire for change that led to both the Public Interest and Research Group Petition in

1972 and that followed the Cleaveland Hall pine tree-massacre of 1991, and we’re curious to see what student interest—fueled by the faculty’s hard questions and academic expertise that make the program so substantial—will accomplish.

205 Mills Interview.