Showing 191 - 200 of 436 Items
Interview with Richard Adams (Class of 1973) by Aisha Rickford
Date: 2019-11-10
Creator: Richard Adams
Access: Open access
- Richard Adams ‘73 talks about lobbying during his senior year of high school in Pittsburgh to make Martin Luther King Jr’s birthday a national holiday, shortly after Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination in 1968. He chose Bowdoin for its liberal proclivities, believing it would be place for him, an avid activist by the time he graduated high school. Adams’s activism followed him to Bowdoin, where he was active in the African-American Society, finding a home in the black community at Bowdoin and in Maine at large, and how his passion for activism defined his time at Bowdoin and beyond.
Interview with Janelle Charles (Class of 2006) and Dudney Sylla (Class of 2008) by Aisha Rickford
Date: 2019-11-10
Creator: Janelle Charles, Dudney Sylla
Access: Open access
- Janelle Charles ‘06 and Dudney Sylla ‘08 talk about their differing paths to Bowdoin. Sylla grew up in Boston, attending a Jesuit high school, and being a recipient of the Posse Scholarship. Charles talks about growing up in San Francisco, California and finding out about Bowdoin through fly-in programs. Both talk about the difficulty of transitioning to Bowdoin’s academic rigor, particularly as first-generation college students, and the freedom and independence that came with having an open college schedule. They also detail what it was like to leave their home communities and craft new communities at Bowdoin. Charles and Sylla both talk about the resources at Bowdoin and the leaders and professors that encouraged them and helped them feel seen at Bowdoin, particularly Shelley Roseboro, and reflect on their favorite memories and their own enduring friendship.
Interview with Osakhare Fasehun (Class of 2018) by Marcus Williams
Date: 2019-11-09
Creator: Osakhare Fasehun
Access: Open access
- Osakhare Fasehun '18 recounts his first introduction to Bowdoin through the ‘Bowdoin Experience’ weekend, and the ways that this both excited him, but ultimately led to disappointment in realizing the lacking diversity on campus. Fasehun goes on to share how his passion for academics landed him at Bowdoin, and how ultimately he was able to fully nurture his intellectual engagement during his four years. Beyond academics, he shares how the Gangster Party influenced his time at Bowdoin, and how this act of virtual blackface pushed him to interact more heavily with AfAm. He described the difficulties he found in navigating campus as one of very few men of color in his class. Finally, Fasehun shares the biggest lessons he learned from Bowdoin, largely being the necessity to advocate for oneself amidst a system that may not always advocate for you.
Interview with Carroy Ferguson (Class of 1968) by Marcus Williams
Date: 2019-11-09
Creator: Carroy Ferguson
Access: Open access
- Carroy Cuf Ferguson ‘68 talks about being offered a free ride to Bowdoin and deciding between Bowdoin and Morehouse College. He shares stories about growing up in the segregated South and having near zero contact with whites, having to be bussed across town to attend high school despite living a block away from an all-white high school. He talks about being the first student of color to be admitted into the fraternity Sigma Nu, which had a discriminatory clause in it forbidding students of color from joining, and what it was like to fight that clause with his fraternity brothers. Ferguson shares stories about how it felt to have the “weight of [his] race on his shoulders), navigating Bowdoin in the mid- to late- sixties, and the pressures that came with that.
Interview with David Dickson (Class of 1976) by Aisha Rickford
Date: 2019-11-09
Creator: David Dickson
Access: Open access
- David Dickson '76 shares some remarks on his father, David W. D. Dickson, who graduated from Bowdoin in 1941, and his uncle who graduated in 1935. He talks about how the Bowdoin of their era had segregated fraternities that did not allow black students or Jewish students, and details his father’s experience with the emotional tax that such a reality posed. Dickson also talks about the importance of having the safe space of the African-American society that behaved as an “island on a lily-white campus.” He also talks about the former student organization, All Races United (ARU) and how students of marginalized backgrounds as well as “independent mainstream” students could come together in activism. Finally, Dickson shares how his experiences at Bowdoin affected the development of his racial identity.
Talia Cowen '16 interviews Hugh Cipparone '19
Date: 2016-01-01
Creator: Hugh Cipparone
Access: Open access
Interview with Sandra Martinez (Class of 2013) by Marina Henke
Date: 2019-11-10
Creator: Sandra Martinez
Access: Open access
- Sandra Martinez ('13) recounts life at Bowdoin as a Latina woman. She describes Bowdoin as a space where she came more into her cultural identity, while also being where she felt the limitations and challenges of being a minority on campus. Additionally, Martinez discusses the simultaneous division and alliance between the African American Society and the Latin American Student Organization, and the various means students went to in bridging or instating this distance. As a math major, Martinez confronted the realities of a faculty lacking in diversity, and explored how this impacted her academic career and confidence in the classroom. Finally she speaks to the way that she learned to command her opinions, against at times people’s wishes, and gives advice to future Bowdoin women of color for how they can make space for themselves.
"A Day in the Life" by Maddie Hikida (Class of 2022)
Date: 2020-01-01
Creator: Maddie Hikida
Access: Open access
- A day in the life of a Bowdoin student (class of 2022) during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ivette Pala '16 and Zachary Watson '16 Interview Each Other
Date: 2016-01-01
Creator: Zachary Watson, Ivette Pala
Access: Open access
Statement by James Tierney collected by Heather Westleigh on November 19, 2014
Date: 2014-11-19
Creator: James Tierney
Access: Audio recording permanently restricted