Volume CXXXII, Number 3 September 27, 2002 f

Virtue, piety, and Convocation
TODD BUELL
COLUMNIST

This year's convocation was the first time in many years that the ceremony was not held in a church. President Mills discussed why he moved the service out of First Parish Church in the most recent issue of The Patriot. He said: "there are a significant number of people who…feel uncomfortable attending Convocation in a church." I believe that this College should respect people's religious sensitivities. However, to remove both Convocation and potentially Baccalaureate ceremonies from First Parish Church disrespects Bowdoin's long-standing relationship with the church and religion in general.

This weekend I read parts of Prof. Ernst Helmreich's book Religion at Bowdoin College. He wrote this short work in 1981, after he had retired from his post as a professor of history. The book explains Bowdoin's storied, yet often ambiguous and confused relationship with religion.

Contrary to popular belief, Bowdoin was not founded as a "Congregational School." Rather it was eight Congregational ministers who first successfully petitioned the General Court of Massachusetts to charter Bowdoin. Unlike many colleges in those days, the school's first charter lacked any reference to educating ministers or preaching the gospel as a goal of the new college.
However, all of Bowdoin's early presidents were Congregational ministers. Therefore it is no surprise that President McKeen's inaugural address in 1802 defined the role that religion would play in Bowdoin's early years: "The governors and instructors of a literary institution owe to God and society the sacred duty of guarding the morals of the youth committed to their care."

Bowdoin, as was the collegiate custom in those days, believed that morality and religion were inextricably tied. Their policies manifested the words of eighteenth century Yale president Timothy Dwight, who wrote, "Where God is not worshipped, his character will soon be disregarded; and the obligation founded on it, unfelt, and forgotten." Students in Bowdoin President Appleton's day (1807-1819) were forbidden from drinking, playing cards, smoking cigars, or associating with "any person of known dissolute morals."

These historical facts may seem trivial as we discuss the location of important school ceremonies. I discuss these stories to show critics of holding Baccalaureate and Convocation in First Parish why they should not be offended by the location. Religion in Bowdoin ceremonies sanctifies good behavior and does not mandate Christian worship. Today we still have inviolable principles that deserve ceremonial veneration. Bowdoin of 2002 concerns itself more with plagiarism and intolerance than playing cards and "dissolute morals." But we are remiss if we think that the Bowdoin of 1802 shares nothing with Bowdoin of 2002.

Our social and academic and honor code would have some resonance with Bowdoin's early presidents. To use language from the early days, it is still illegal on campus for one to be "challenging, assaulting, or fighting with any person." Today we get in trouble with our proctor/RA if we "cause a disturbance…by playing an instrument, or making any noise or tumult" instead of being fined twenty cents.

Even though our Social and Honor Code explicitly states that it "imposes no specific morality on students," it is a product of an implicit Judeo-Christian morality. We could cover all incidents of potential code violations if we substituted the current language with "Thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not lie," and "do unto your neighbor as you would have done to you." Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that our social and honor code imposes no "theology" instead of "morality."

Holding school ceremonies at First Parish Church also does not impose a theology. Rather it reminds us of our school's history-of those who have come before us, signed the book, sat in the pews, walked the quad, etc. We are placed in a context that transcends our own time here at Bowdoin.
Holding Convocation and Baccalaureate in a church that has been an historical friend to the college for 200 years is important because it can uphold modern "virtue and piety". Though today we understand those words more liberally than our forefathers did two hundred years ago, a solemn ceremony can reinforce a similar idea.

Our predecessors believed that God's law and school law were conjoined. Today we should hold our important ceremonies in buildings laden with tradition to remind us that violating our standards insults not only ourselves but also the thousands of men and women whose lives Bowdoin has affected. First Parish Church is a historical and appropriate location for solemn ceremonies and it would be an insult to our history to change that tradition.