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Our Dear Alma Mater: A Brief History
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n his senior year, future Bowdoin President Kenneth C.M. Sills, Class of 1901, wrote “Sons of Bowdoin: A College Song.” He included it in his book The First American and Other Poems, published in 1911 when he was back at Bowdoin teaching Latin. “Sons of Bowdoin” popularly became “Rise Sons of Bowdoin” from its first line, and was quickly adopted at College gatherings, sung to the melody of the 1870 song “The Watch on the Rhine.” Psychology professor Charles Burnett H’44, feeling that the piece needed a melody of its own, wrote the present tune, “Sons of Bowdoin,” to accompany Sills’s lyrics. On March 5, 1923, students put forth a referendum to change the alma mater from “Bowdoin Beata” to “Rise Sons of Bowdoin.” As reported in the February 28, 1923, Lewiston Evening Journal, “those favoring the change believe that ‘Rise, Sons of Bowdoin’ is more dignified.” The motion didn’t pass, and “Bowdoin Beata” remained the official College song for another twenty-nine years when, in tribute to President Sills upon his retirement, students and alumni voted overwhelmingly in favor of the change.
Although Bowdoin became coeducational in 1971, it wasn’t until 1994 that the Alumni Council unanimously decided to adopt gender-neutral revisions to “Rise Sons of Bowdoin” written by Senior Lecturer in Music Anthony Antolini ’63. The new title became “Raise Songs to Bowdoin,” and new lyrics replaced “the nurturer of men” with “our nurturer and friend.”
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BOWDOIN SUMMER 2013
7/11/13 2:40 PM