Bowdoin's Response to the NAS

On Academe Blog, I write about the new NAS report on Bowdoin College. Here is the response from Bowdoin College to the NAS report:

The National Association of Scholars today released a report titled “What Does Bowdoin
Teach.” We will review the report because we encourage open discourse on the
effectiveness of American higher education and because we support academic freedom,
which is the essence of a liberal arts institution. 

Bowdoin will continue to assess its effectiveness by relying on many factors to evaluate
our academic and residential life programs, including the accomplishments of students,
faculty, and staff, and the achievements, loyalty, and support of alumni. The College will
also look to the informed judgment of foundations, corporations, and other outside donors
that are well versed in assessing the quality and efficacy of the institutions they support,
and we will depend on the rigorous decennial reaccreditation process. Collectively, these
and other internal measures provide us with the qualitative and quantitative means to
consider carefully how we are doing currently and what we must do to prepare for the
future.

We are proud of our students and our commitment to build and support a community that
resembles America and the world. We are proud of our faculty who represent intellectual
rigor across the disciplines and who are both excellent teachers and engaged scholars. We
are also proud of our alumni who are leaders in all walks of life. A Bowdoin education
trains young men and women of varied backgrounds to think critically, solve complex
problems, apply sound judgment, embrace lifelong learning, and make principled
decisions in support of the common good. This is both our mission and our record.