History & Facts

History & Facts

Traditions

For 204 years, Bowdoin College students have handed down values, beliefs, and customs by word of mouth or by example from one generation to another. These are the traditions that bind each class with those that have gone before and with those that will follow.

Students sign the Matriculation BookDuring their first week on campus, Bowdoin students sign the same Matriculation Book signed by Hawthorne, Longfellow and Peary. In succeeding years, they learn the value of using their skills and knowledge not for personal gain, but for the common good. They come to know and appreciate the symbols of Bowdoin -- the sun, the pines, the polar bear. They find a love for Maine and its Atlantic coast and they come to understand Maine's reputation as a place of beauty and adventure and integrity. When students leave Bowdoin, it is with a sense of being part of something big, something of value. It is with a feeling that they are part of an institution shaped by the great events and personalities of all of American history and culture and with the knowledge that their work and their ideas are now a part of the Bowdoin tradition.

Commencement

The first Bowdoin commencement was scheduled for September 1, 1806, but was postponed a day due to torrential rain and gale-force winds. On a wooden platform made especially for the event, just seven graduates took their degrees.

Until 1877, every graduate had a speaking part. Addresses were given in Latin, German, and occasionally Greek or Hebrew. The custom of selecting student Commencement speakers through competition began in the 1880s. To this day, the College does not bring in an outside Commencement speaker but instead has two graduates deliver speeches, and those receiving honorary degrees each give a short address.

Chandler's Band, a local marching band, leads the commencement procession around the Quad and has done so each year for more than 100 years.

In the early years, students who had received degrees from one institution of higher learning could receive reciprocal degrees from another. In 1806, apparently concerned that they might need further credentials, 13 Harvard graduates also took Bowdoin degrees.

Student receiving degree at commencement

The Offer of the College

To be at home in all lands and all ages; to count Nature a familiar acquaintance, and Art an intimate friend; to carry the keys of the world's library in your pocket, and feel its resources behind you in whatever task you undertake; to make hosts of friends...who are to be leaders in all walks of life; to lose yourself in generous enthusiasms and cooperate with others for common ends -- this is the offer of the college for the best four years of your life.

Adapted from the original "Offer of the College," published in 1906 as the forward to "The College Man and the College Woman" by William DeWitt Hyde Seventh President of Bowdoin (1885-1917)

Bowdoin's seventh president, William DeWitt Hyde, wrote the "Offer of the College" in 1906, not long after Bowdoin's centennial celebration. Hyde's offer, nearly a century later, still serves not only as a guiding principle at Bowdoin, but also describes in large measure the aim of an entire segment of American education, that of the small, residential academic community, the liberal arts college.

The Common Good

The importance of public service -- of putting one's education to work for the betterment of society -- has been drummed into the consciousness of Bowdoin students ever since President Joseph McKeen's admonition to eight members of the first entering class in September 1802. Generations of Bowdoin students have felt a kinship with this ideal -- it is exemplified by the large number of students who volunteer in the community and in the serious commitment of several student organizations to the environment. Many students also cite "the Common Good" as a powerful force behind their decisions to enter public service, to teach, to pursue the study of medicine, or simply as an ideal that affects decisions they make in their private lives. In 1993, Bowdoin created the Common Good Award to honor alumni who best personify the idea of the common good as set forth by McKeen. The awards honor "...those who have demonstrated an extraordinary, profound, and sustained commitment to the common good, in the interest and for the benefit of society, with conspicuous disregard for personal gains in wealth or status."

Included among the 10 recipients to date are: Ellen Baxter '75, who directs the development of permanent housing for New York City Homeless; Geoffery Canada '74, a leader and crusader of programs for disadvantaged children; and Barbara Hendrie '80, relief worker and researcher of survival mechanisms in Africa.