Bowdoin College
EN-2: Student Orientation

All incoming students are apprised of the importance of sustainability on campus. One important step that all incoming students are required to do before they are allowed to register for courses includes reviewing specific documents and forms through Canvas. The Office of Sustainability has worked with the Office of the Dean of Students to include materials within this important step that share brief information about Bowdoin’s new climate action plan and ways students can get involved with our eco rep programs, and encourages students to think about the impact they can make, with an emphasis on waste reduction, as they start packing items and preparing to join our campus community. Incoming students are also made aware of our FreeCycle program. Additionally, upon arriving on campus, sustainability student employees are there to greet students and families at each of the waste stations during move-in to answer questions and provide guidance about zero-sort recycling.

All Bowdoin students participate in some type of orientation trip. Orientation trips are either run through the Bowdoin Outing Club, which composts the food waste from the trips and provides information and training on Leave No Trace principles to all participants. The other Orientation trips are run by the McKeen Center for the Common Good and have more direct service-learning focuses, often highlighting different aspects of sustainability. One trip each year (sometimes more) has sustainability as its specific focus. The sustainability office staff serve as advisors for students leading this trip. Recent trips have worked in the Bowdoin Organic Garden, done trail work with local land trusts, and learned about the ecology of local communities and conservation efforts.

The sustainability office works with the residential life student staff to provide a basic grounding in Bowdoin’s sustainability initiatives during training that takes place before first-year students return from their Orientation trips.

The first meal for first-year and transfer students after all Orientation trips have returned to campus is a special dinner in the largest dining hall. Dining works hard to provide almost exclusively local Maine foods and ingredients at this dinner, including products from the Bowdoin Organic Garden. Sustainability office staff works with dining to create a PowerPoint shown throughout the dinner highlighting the locality of the meal, hosts a table at the dinner with additional information about sustainability on campus, and solicits interested students to apply to work for the sustainability office.

The Office of Sustainability also tables as a part of the Health and Wellness Fair during on-campus orientation programming to provide free LED lights and personal compost buckets. The FreeCycle program opens up to incoming students during Orientation so that they can stop by to collect school supplies and items for their rooms and meet with sustainability office student employees.

Based on data relating to 2022–2023.