The founding of Bowdoin College in 1794, one year after Williams, marked the beginning of a history similar to Williams' own. Both liberal arts colleges were founded as Massachusetts schools, as Bowdoin's home of Brunswick, Maine, was a part of the Commonwealth until 1820. Both adopted one-of-a-kind mascots: at Williams, the Purple Cow; at Bowdoin, the Polar Bear. And both continue to draw some of the best students in the country to their rural campuses while keeping enrollment at or below 2000.
But in terms of residential life, the colleges diverged decades ago. While Williams moved to ban fraternities in 1962, fraternities at Bowdoin were campus staples until 1997, when the trustees voted to ease them out and adopt a college house system in their place.
By that point in the late 1990s, less than a third of the student body pledged to join a fraternity, the number and size of which had decreased steadily over the years due to dwindling student interest and the financial burden of keeping the houses alive and well.
``People were beginning to wonder whether the institution of fraternities had outlasted their time at Bowdoin,'' said Kim Pacelli, director of residential life and a member of the commission that recommended ending the frat system. ``For the 70 percent of students who were left behind, we were finding that there wasn't a very good sense of community.''
``They were dying a slow death,'' said Williams Campus Life Coordinator (CLC) Matthew Boyd, Bowdoin '01, who was part of the first class of students barred from pledging. ``When I arrived the campus was divided,'' he said.
According to the Commission on Residential Life's February 1997 interim report, presented to the Bowdoin Board of Trustees that spring, just 29 percent of students said in exit surveys that they were ``satisfied or somewhat satisfied with the sense of community on campus.''
A separate student-run survey revealed that 19 percent felt ``connected to Bowdoin traditions.'' Satisfaction with academics was significantly higher.
Commission reports dating back to 1983 noted the fragmentation prevalent across the Bowdoin campus. ``Many students experience the campus as sets of small groups of people within which there are bonds of shared interest or friendship but with little connection across the boundaries of these small groups,'' the interim report stated.
For more than a century, commission members said, Bowdoin had deferred social and residential responsibility to fraternities without in return offering resources or support, resulting in a system that teetered on its last legs.
In an attempt to recreate the social vibrancy of fraternities' halcyon days, members of the commission advocated the launch of a system that would tie the college's six first-year dormitories to affiliated social houses, offering upperclassman members of the houses the opportunity to live in the refurbished equivalent of the Williams row house and take on leadership positions as planners of social life. Affiliations last all four years, but stem directly from geographic arrangements only during students' first year on campus.
``The great thing about the system is that you can either take it or leave it,'' Pacelli said. ``But everyone has the option to participate.''
Not all students gravitate toward their affiliate house. Nicole Melas, a sophomore from Los Angeles, said her perception of the houses was one of ``sweat fest'' all-campus parties crowded with first-years, not centers of community as envisioned by the commission and trustees. ``It's a random association,'' Melas said. ``The affiliation doesn't have any strong tie; there's not a common interest.''
Asked to describe student perception of the houses, Melas said, ``On the whole, I don't think that people view them favorably. Everyone has their own point of view on what they're lacking.''
``The system is still very new,'' said Pacelli, who added that she would like to ``spark more upperclassman involvement.''
Dwindling interest in the houses as students leave freshman year behind has been an obstacle since the system's inception. House leadership often falls to sophomores, as half of Bowdoin's juniors spend time abroad and seniors prefer to live in co-op-like housing on the outskirts of campus. Each of the six houses is home to between 20 and 30 students, who are expected to take responsibility for planning and hosting social events that range from dinners with professors to all-campus Halloween bashes.
MacMillan House, of which Melas is an affiliate, is one of only two houses with senior presidents.
Bowdoin still has ``issues with students getting disengaged,'' said Boyd, who was president of his house in 1998-99 as a sophomore and contributed to the writing of the College House System Constitution.
His subsequent progression through the housing system was a typical one: junior year in Coles Tower, a 16-story high-rise that bears resemblance to Greylock, and senior year in a smaller house that he compared to Poker Flats.
``Living in the house is key to involvement,'' said Kalyn Bickerman, a sophomore resident of MacMillan. ``I think that's why the upperclassmen fall out of favor with it.''
House character varies somewhat from year to year, depending on the students who apply to live there, though signature theme parties hosted by the houses tend to carry over from year to year.
Members of the lacrosse team dominate one house this year, Bickerman said, and were placed on probation early in the fall, making the house unavailable for campus-wide parties until just recently.
Social events within the houses may be open to all of campus or designed for affiliates alone. To better coordinate between the houses, an Inter-House Council consisting of the house presidents and programming chairs meets regularly to discuss ideas and plan for big weekends, such as homecoming.
The council's president, senior Seth Guiterman, is currently leading an effort to re-evaluate the house system with the help of a student survey.
``I lived in Baxter House for two years, and I want to make an everlasting effect on the system,'' Guiterman said earlier this month in The Bowdoin Orient.
``It's a matter of re-evaluating the current system and making it better,'' he said. ``We're looking at the system as a whole, not on an individual house basis.''
The system continues to evolve in more concrete ways as well. The residential life staff hopes to increase the number of houses to eight -- less than the 12 originally envisioned in 1997, but a slight increase from the six now in place.
By the end of the summer there will be two new first-year dormitories on campus, part of an effort to place incoming students in doubles rather than triples, which have been the standard for decades.
Apart from house officers -- each house selects a president, vice president, secretary, treasurer, house historian and programming chairs -- three additional structures of student governance and social planning exist. There is Bowdoin Student Government, the equivalent of College Council; the Campus Activities Board, which brings concerts and comedians to campus; and a system of proctors and residential advisors selected by the college's residential life staff and paid a salary.
Social house residents also go through an application process, which includes a written application and group and individual interviews. Students apply in groups as large as eight and are expected to arrive on campus a week before classes start for an orientation that emphasizes teamwork.
``I'm not going to live here next year,'' said Bickerman, who applied as an individual. ``But I think it was great for my sophomore year. You get really close to the people you're living with. What makes a great house is people who are willing to give up their time.''
Pacelli had a word of advice for colleges looking to make changes to residential life: ``Make sure you've got buy-in from lots of different people before you make the decision,'' she said, and ``be flexible as the system evolves. We've stuck to the model and the ideals, but let students shape it.''