The Bowdoin Orient

As part of the capital campaign, College administrators are in the process of developing the Center for the Common Good, an expanded vision for the future of service at Bowdoin. The center would not be a physical building on campus, but rather a continued pledge to service made by the Bowdoin community to unify academics and community service.

Director of the Community Service Resource Center Susan Dorn defined her vision for the Center for the Common Good in an interview with the Orient.

"We will see students coming together with faculty and staff to work with community partners on projects that have real-life implications," Dorn said.

"We want to weave the common good into the very fabric of this institution, which means connecting it to the academic program of the College," she said.

According to Dean of Student Affairs Craig Bradley, the goal of the center is to fuse community service and academics. The center will provide the funding necessary to join the student-led Community Service Resource Center with service learning courses and community-based faculty research.

"The goal of the center is to encompass and weave together these three parts," Bradley said.

Associate Professor of Sociology and Anthropology Joe Bandy stressed the importance of providing opportunities to join academics and service.

"The center will acknowledge the mutually supportive relationship between intellectual development and an engagement in public life," Bandy said. "It also is a reflection of the desire of many at Bowdoin to engage more actively in public issues and improvements to outside communities," he said.

With this emphasis on academics in combination with community service, administrators are hoping to add more service learning courses to the curriculum as well as allow faculty to engage in more research projects affecting the community.

"Service learning courses and direct community service shouldn't be in competition," Bradley said. "I believe this thing is one whole operation."

The ideas and goals behind the Center for the Common Good are just now starting to develop.

"The process involves taking what you have, looking around and studying what is missing and getting a lot of input from a lot of people on campus, in the field of public service and in the community," Dorn said.

Administrators anticipate that the center will continue to grow and flourish.

"You start with this, and it evolves," Bradley said.

By serving the college community through education and service learning opportunities, Bowdoin administrators expect to see individuals continue to serve the greater community in the long-run.

"We've seen a lot of people from Bowdoin use their experiences and move into non-profit work," Bradley said. "This center will expose [students] to a set of opportunities they may not have thought of before," Bradley said.

"Serving the common good is why Bowdoin was created?it's historically a core aspect of our identity and our mission academically," he said. "Students coming here have so much going for them?one thing that is so important is to recognize what you have to share."

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