Students Urged to Maintain an Open Mind on Sarah and James Bowdoin Day

Students Urged to Maintain an Open Mind on Sarah and James Bowdoin Day

Follow your interests and see where this takes you. This was the advice from Professor Danielle Dube in her address to students at the 2025 Sarah and James Bowdoin Day ceremony.

"While many students start college with a sense of their interests and long-term goals, in over eighteen years at Bowdoin I have witnessed student paths unfold in unexpected ways," she said. "Taking a course, pursuing an internship, or undertaking a research experience has changed the way they think, has gripped them and lit a passion that kept them wanting to know and learn more."

Dube, who is the Norma L. and Roland G. Ware Jr. Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry, delivered the Karofsky Encore Lecture at the annual ceremony, which was held on October 24, 2025, in Pickard Theater.

Sarah and James Bowdoin Day, which is part of Bowdoin's Family Weekend, is held to recognize Bowdoin's highest-ranking students-those with grade point averages in the top 20 percent of their class as determined by the previous year's record. The total number of Sarah and James Bowdoin Day Scholars among the students this year was 302.

Each scholar who earns a grade point average (GPA) of 4.0-the highest score awarded-also receives a Book Award, which bears a replica of the early college bookplate found on books in Hawthorne-Longfellow Library's James Bowdoin Collection. In this year's ceremony, 125 scholars also received this award.

Additionally, the College honored eighteen Phi Beta Kappa students from the Class of 2026, one of whom, Liliana Restrepo, also received the Almon Goodwin Prize, which is awarded to exemplary members of the academic society.

"As we celebrate the hard work that has brought you to this room and this moment," said Dube in her address, "I urge you to center why you're doing what you do [and] what you find personally fulfilling."

As she implored students to keep an open mind, Dube talked of her own experiences and how her academic journey developed in unexpected ways. "My own path was not premeditated," she said. "Instead, my path unfolded in response to an array of experiences that ultimately helped me arrive where I am today."

When she began college, as an undergraduate at Cornell, Dube said she had no thought of becoming a chemistry professor and was instead majoring in biology with the intention of going on to medical school. This all changed when she took the "infamous premed course" in organic chemistry and "the most unexpected thing happened-I LOVED organic chemistry. That class changed the way I saw things; it made molecules come alive to me, it helped me to understand why chemical building blocks react the way that they do, and how having a predictive level of information about chemical reactivity is instrumental in crafting life-saving drugs. I was hooked." This experience, combined with a "transformative" research project she undertook the following summer studying coral reefs off the coast of Mexico, caused Dube to come to an "awe-inspiring" realization: "Science is not a collection of facts in a textbook; it is instead a process rooted in exploring the unknown, seeking answers to questions, and having those answers reveal more questions."

Today, Dube leads her students in carrying out cutting-edge research into disease-causing bacteria, particularly the sugars that coat them, and looking for meaningful ways to contribute to science.

"While I do not know where each of your paths will take you," she told the students, "I have tremendous confidence in your capabilities, in your ability to find and pursue your passions, in your potential to add to our ever-growing body of knowledge, and in the unique lens that each of you offers based on your interests, training, and lived experiences."

President Safa Zaki got proceedings underway with her opening remarks to the audience, which also included students' families and other members of the Bowdoin community.

She paid tribute to the "intellectual curiosity, discipline, patience, and creativity of the students" being honored. "We ask our students to aim high," she added, "to solve opaque and difficult problems, to read sometimes impenetrable texts, and to explore complex questions that resist easy answers." This hard work often occurs in collaboration with others, Zaki continued, "but frequently happens alone, late at night, in libraries, in labs and dorm rooms, over coffee all across campus."

Zaki then introduced this year's student keynote speaker, John Punnachalil '28, an economics and computer science major. His address was titled "The Life of the Mind." Reflecting on the honor of being a Sarah and James Bowdoin Scholar, he said it reminded him that, while grades measure effort, "Growth often hides in places transcripts cannot see." Punnachalil talked of three ideas that have characterized his Bowdoin experience so far: curiosity, courage, and community.

Curiosity: "It is not a personality trait. Rather, it is a practice," he observed. "It is choosing to linger one more minute with a sentence that bothers you. It is raising your hand to say, 'I do not get it, but I want to.' It is walking across the Quad after an amazing seminar, where your whole worldview got a small wobble." Curiosity can also be a humbling experience, said Punnachalil, one that prompts you to ask questions as much as it does to find answers: "Questions like: Who is missing in this story? What does this dry statistic feel like to the people who live under it?"

Courage: When he talked about courage, Punnachalil was not referring to the "loud and brash kind," he said, but more to the courage to be wrong. "The courage to ask for help before the wheels fall off. The courage to care about something more than your own success." Courage also means integrity, he added. "An assignment is due, the deadline is close, the internet is full of 'shortcuts.' Your conscience is speaking in a small but clear voice. You do hear it. Choosing the honest path is not just about the honor code. It is about who you are becoming."

Community: "The great secret of academic achievement is that it almost never is a solo act," Punnachalil told the students. "In reality, it is a chorus. A friend who shares a Google doc at 1:00 a.m. with the reassuring title 'Okay, We Got This.' The professor who stays ten minutes late to make sure I get it. The roommate who put a muffin by your laptop and walked away. Even when you write your paper alone, you carry the voices of the people who have shaped your thinking."

Punnachalil closed his address with a prayer: "May our curiosity be deep and kind, our courage quiet and steady, our community wider than our comfort. May we use what we know to lift, to heal, to build, to delight. And, when in doubt, may we choose love."

Ceremonial music was provided by Beckwith Artist-in-Residence George Lopez on piano. He opened proceedings with Étude-Tableaux in E-flat Major by Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943). After the singing of the alma mater, "Raise Songs to Bowdoin," Lopez concluded the ceremony with a performance of Gigue from the French Suite No. 5 in G Major by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750). View the program.

Bowdoin began recognizing James Bowdoin scholars in 1941 to honor undergraduates who distinguish themselves by excellence in scholarship and to commemorate the Honorable James Bowdoin III (1752-1811), the College's first patron. James Bowdoin III-who asked that the institution be named after his father-was an agriculturist, art and book collector, and diplomat who served as Thomas Jefferson's minister plenipotentiary to Spain.

By faculty vote in 1997, this commemorative day and scholarly distinction were changed to recognize both Sarah and James Bowdoin, who were married from 1780 until James's death in 1811. Like her husband, Sarah Bowdoin gave many gifts to the College, including most of the Bowdoin family portraits, which were bequeathed to Bowdoin College upon her death.