Bowdoin College is a highly selective liberal arts college located in Brunswick, Maine, about 25 miles north of Portland. One of the oldest colleges in the nation, it received its charter in 1794. Bowdoin enrolls approximately 1,750 students from across the country and around the world.

Notable alumni include 14th U.S. President Franklin Pierce (class of 1824), writers Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (both 1825), African-American newspaper editor John Brown Russwurm (1826), Civil War hero Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain (1852), Arctic explorer Robert E. Peary (1877), former Senate Majority Leader, architect of the Ireland peace accord and U.S. Special Envoy for Middle East Peace George J. Mitchell (1954), former U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen (1962), and Olympic gold medalist Joan Benoit Samuelson (1979).