When attempting to apply the concept of a cosmopolitan canopy to Bowdoin College, it was evident the College intended to represent the concept from the exterior.\u00a0 When viewed from a student\u2019s perspective, rather than a visitor\u2019s [or anyone not familiar with Bowdoin], the class agreed that Bowdoin did not truly represent a cosmopolitan canopy.\u00a0 Bowdoin is an \u201cimagined community\u201d based on the shared experiences of going to the College; however, it may not be a cosmopolitan canopy even though the College hopes to cultivate itself into one.<\/p>\n
As a class, we acknowledged Bowdoin as a product of the administration.\u00a0 Cosmetically, the College is increasingly diverse in the terms of characteristics that comprised a class of different people, from different backgrounds, with different ideas which play an integral part in the education and the growth of individuals within our community. \u00a0This image, designed by the administration, intimated a cosmopolitan canopy; however, due to the barriers of entry (education, upbringing, and admissions criteria), Bowdoin lacked the ability to function as a cosmopolitan canopy.\u00a0 The College attempts to create a cosmopolitan canopy by admitting a diverse student body and by hiring a diverse faculty and staff, but as Anderson elaborates, although all racial groups may be present they may not be present proportionally (16).\u00a0 In relation to the College, this under representation of racial groups combined with the lack of neutral or commercial spaces within the campus perpetuates a large white space.\u00a0 Consequently, this negates any cosmopolitan canopy from occurring outside of a limited range of spaces on campus.\u00a0 The College does not adequately provide enough neutral spaces that would allow for a cosmopolitan canopy, although Bowdoin tries to promote this image through their media portrayal of HL, Smith Union, Buck Fitness Center, and the dining halls on campus.<\/p>\n
Within these spaces, students tend to cluster in groups of similarity rather than engage in folk ethnography.\u00a0 This occurs because these places do not necessarily provide safe spaces for students (especially white, upper-middle-class, straight students) to test their assumptions and ideas about communities of color regarding aspects of the iconic ghetto.\u00a0 Likewise, this does not allow for students of color to map their prejudices to the white space on the white students regardless of economic background.\u00a0 Folk ethnography occurred on some level in these spaces, yet lacked proportionally when aligned to include racial groups.<\/p>\n
Professor Greene discussed this idea in relation to Bowdoin\u2019s homecoming on campus the prior week.\u00a0 He explained two events happened simultaneously (intentionally); first, a BBQ, held near the football game which consisted of a large mainly white group while the second group, the AFAM, hosted a similar event at 30 College Street.\u00a0 This represented a community of limited liability for returning alumni, free to enter and exit as they desired.\u00a0 It also displayed the concept of collective memory and its application on the campus.\u00a0 The alumni reclaimed and shared these spaces with current students.\u00a0 This shared experience that a reunion and a homecoming weekend offer is interesting because it shows even through time we are connected to these alumni through place.\u00a0 The spaces alumni have reclaimed seem to have taken on old and similar meaning to what is present today.\u00a0 This can be viewed as a perpetuating cycle that is demonstrated today through the large white space that encompasses Bowdoin.\u00a0 The smaller racial groups on campus are avoiding the large white spaces which negate any neutral or safe space to engage in folk ethnography.<\/p>\n
Our discussion spurred two issues, the first is that Bowdoin (as an organization) attempts to promote the campus as a cosmopolitan canopy.\u00a0 The second issue is the notion of the imagined Bowdoin community which arises through a shared affiliation to the College.\u00a0 Cosmopolitan canopies, at least as Anderson defines them, do not exist at Bowdoin.\u00a0 The quandary then becomes how do students on campus find and participate in cosmopolitan canopies?\u00a0 Do student groups (LASO, AFAM) function as cosmopolitan or spontaneous cosmopolitan canopies in relation to these large white spaces present on Bowdoin\u2019s campus?\u00a0 Or does the way the College function as a white space inhibit these student groups from forming communities and engaging in folk ethnography?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When attempting to apply the concept of a cosmopolitan canopy to Bowdoin College, it was evident the College intended to represent the concept from the exterior.\u00a0 When viewed from a student\u2019s perspective, rather than a visitor\u2019s [or anyone not familiar with Bowdoin], the class agreed that Bowdoin did not truly represent a cosmopolitan canopy.\u00a0 Bowdoin […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":516,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cities-and-society"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-2202-fall-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-2202-fall-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-2202-fall-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-2202-fall-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/516"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-2202-fall-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=406"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-2202-fall-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-2202-fall-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-2202-fall-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-2202-fall-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}