Academics
Bowdoin is consistently ranked among the top ten liberal arts colleges in the United States by U.S. News and World Report. In the 2012 edition of the rankings, Bowdoin ranks sixth. In the late 1990s it was ranked as high as fourth. In 2006, Newsweek described Bowdoin as a "New Ivy", one of a number of elite colleges and universities outside of the Ivy League. Bowdoin is also part of the SAT optional movement for undergraduate admission. Bowdoin was the first college to be named "School of the Year" by College Prowler.
The Government & Legal Studies Department, whose prominent professors include Michael Franz, Allen Springer, Paul Franco, Richard E. Morgan, Chris Potholm and Jean M. Yarbrough, was ranked the top small college political science program in the world by researchers at the London School of Economics in 2003. Government & Legal Studies was the most popular major for every graduating class between 2000 and 2009. Other departments are also strong, including economics, the natural sciences, and English.
In 2010, Bowdoin's art history program was ranked as the top in the nation by U.S. News and World Report.
Course distribution requirements were abolished in the 1970s, but were reinstated by a faculty majority vote in 1981, as a result of an initiative by oral communication and film professor Barbara Kaster. She insisted that distribution requirements would ensure students a more well-rounded education in a diversity of fields and therefore present them with more career possibilities. The requirements of at least two courses in each of the categories of Natural Sciences/Mathematics, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Humanities/Fine Arts, and Foreign Studies (including languages) took effect for the Class of 1987 and have been gradually amended since then. Current requirements require one course each in: Natural Sciences, Quantitative Reasoning, Visual and Performing Arts, International Perspectives and Exploring Social Differences. A small writing-intensive course, called a First Year Seminar, is also required.
In 2002, the faculty decided to change the grading system so that it incorporated plus and minus grades. Previously, only grades of A, B, C, D, and F, were given, without the "+" or "–" modifications.
Other prominent Bowdoin faculty include (or have included): Edville Gerhardt Abbott, Charles Beitz, John Bisbee, Paul Chadbourne, Thomas Cornell, Kristen R. Ghodsee, Eddie Glaude, Joseph E. Johnson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Elliott Schwartz, and Scott Sehon.
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Famous quotes containing the word academics:
“Almost all scholarly research carries practical and political implications. Better that we should spell these out ourselves than leave that task to people with a vested interest in stressing only some of the implications and falsifying others. The idea that academics should remain “above the fray” only gives ideologues license to misuse our work.”
—Stephanie Coontz (b. 1944)
“Our first line of defense in raising children with values is modeling good behavior ourselves. This is critical. How will our kids learn tolerance for others if our hearts are filled with hate? Learn compassion if we are indifferent? Perceive academics as important if soccer practice is a higher priority than homework?”
—Fred G. Gosman (20th century)