�պ����ֲ�

Once a semester or so, Kate Nicholson, who runs �պ����ֲ�’s student wellness programs, organizes a dinner for students from Maine. She orders takeout and initiates a Maine-themed game that only people who aren’t “from away”—as we say here—can successfully play.

At one of these recent dinners, Nicholson asked students to take turns introducing themselves and to offer hints about their hometowns until someone could name them. A sample of clues: “My town has the oldest shoe store in the United States.” “There’s a huge statue of Paul Bunyan in my hometown.” “People love our water.” “I like to tell people I’m from LA.”

(Answers: Belfast, Bangor, Poland Spring, Lewiston-Auburn)

Amelia Jacobson ’25, from Belfast, said she popped into the dinner because she enjoys meeting other students from her home state. Also, she added, she wants to make more connections that might last after graduation, since she intends to live and work in Maine for at least a year after graduating.

Others at the dinner said they have loved being Mainers at �պ����ֲ�, in part because they can easily see family while also meeting and befriending people from around the country and world. “It is me expanding my Mainer bubble,” a student said.

For Miranda Maung ’25, who grew up in a small, mostly homogenous town forty-five minutes from �պ����ֲ�, moving to Brunswick as a first-year felt like taking a big leap into a new and diverse world. Plus, she pointed out, students have lots of opportunities to travel nationally or internationally if they want to explore farther afield.

Another student noted that it’s nice to be the expert at times amid a community of experts. “I can tell people how to get the Amtrak train!” she said.

A Global Community Grounded in Maine

For more than twenty years, at least 10 percent of the student body has come from Maine. Currently, about 70 percent of students come from outside New England, and 11 percent hail from abroad.

So it doesn’t take much effort at �պ����ֲ� to feel as if you have stepped into a new land (as "The Offer of the College" promises, “To be at home in all lands…”).

During a weeknight at Thorne, for instance, you might pass tables of students speaking Spanish, French, Italian, Russian, German, Japanese, Chinese, or Arabic for their weekly language dinners. �պ����ֲ�’s dozen international student clubs, such as the Africa Alliance and the South Asian Students Association, organize events and celebrations throughout the academic year to highlight their cultures. 

Or, more spontaneously, a student from Iraq might invite a fellow student to join him in his dorm room for black tea with cardamom, as Khalil Kilani ’25, an Iraqi-American who grew up in Portland, says he’s prone to doing.

Yet, while �պ����ֲ�’s campus might be a pot brimming with cultures from around the world, it is a school rooted in Maine and dedicated to Maine, says its leadership. “We recognize that we are a school in Maine, and we see the special addition that our Maine students bring to our campus,” Senior Vice President and Dean of Admissions and Student Aid Claudia Marroquin ’06 said.

The admissions team recruits from high schools throughout Maine and pays close attention to its Maine applicants. “The Mainers who are admitted to �պ����ֲ� are incredibly talented. They have succeeded in their high school contexts, and we see all of the incredible ways that they will shape our community,” Marroquin said.

Another important consideration for the College's is its sense of obligation to its location. “The other big reason why we focus so much on Maine is we want to keep great talent in our state,” Marroquin continued. As Maine’s population ages (it already has the oldest population in the United States) and its workforce shrinks, this objective is increasingly critical.

About half of the Maine students who have graduated from �պ����ֲ� since 2004 are living in the state, according to a recent report from �պ����ֲ�’s Institutional Research, Analytics, and Consulting office. Many others who didn’t grow up in Maine end up settling here. Currently, 3,019 �պ����ֲ� alumni have a home address, seasonal address, or preferred address in Maine—about 13 percent of the total alumni population.

Marroquin, who is from California and now lives in Portland, said she’s always “pleasantly surprised by the number of �պ����ֲ� alumni who end up coming back to Maine or staying in Maine, whether they grew up here or not. It is hugely important for workforce development and for the vitality of Maine, and for the contributions that �պ����ֲ� is making to more than just its students.”

Matt Bernstein ’13 grew up in London and is now a ninth-grade social studies teacher at Casco Bay High School in Portland. He's a fan of his adopted home, which he says has all the amenities of a big city—museums, coffee shops, and local bookstores—with the close-knit feel of a village. “I say if the Maine education world is like one street, Maine is like one small town,” he said.

At the same time, the growing diversity of Maine appeals to another alumna, Luna Soley ’22. She wants to build her career in Maine, also as a teacher, because she's interested in the communities of people who have settled here from countries and cultures around the world.

Since graduating in 2022, Soley has worked in Maine as a newspaper reporter, a long-term substitute teacher, an ESL voluntreer for immigrants and refugees, a sailing coach, and in a Waldorf kindergarten class. She grew up on Peaks Island, an island off Portland. (She said she felt at home at �պ����ֲ� because its community reminded her of her small island community.)

After she completes her master's degree in education from Harvard University and teaches abroad for a year or two, she will return “home.” “After I got more involved in the immigrant community, I saw this whole other side of Portland that I hadn’t known, and that made me feel more committed to the Portland area,” she said.

Local Perspectives

Both Maine students and �պ����ֲ� staff who were interviewed for this article also noted that the College’s cohort of Mainers often serve as as unofficial guides to other students. Not only do Mainers take their friends to favorite swimming holes, mountain trails, or restaurants, they bring a personal dimension to academic or cocurricular studies of Maine’s history, culture, people, or environment.

Sarah Seames, director of the McKeen Center for the Common Good, said that Maine students who participate in the Center’s programs add depth to conversations and experiences. “It’s helpful to have students who are familiar with the issues facing local communities, and who can share their perspectives on living in those communities,” she said.

She added that their contributions also reinforce a McKeen Center goal. “It is important, in the work we’re doing, to teach students the value of understanding the strengths of the communities we work with, as well as their needs, and to listen to the voices in the communities.”

The �պ����ֲ� graduates who live and work in these communities—indeed, who sometimes work with the McKeen Center's partner organizations—are also valuable, Seames added. “It happens fairly frequently where we can meet with alumni. It's a really nice bonus when that can happen.”

That Maine Je Ne Sais Quoi

Sara Coughlin ’26, who grew up in Brunswick, declares that at least once a week someone asks her if she always wanted to attend �պ����ֲ�. The truth is, well, yes and no.

“I grew up around �պ����ֲ�, I grew up close, I always loved it,” she said. “It was my standard of what college was consciously and subconsciously. My mantra was, 'I want �պ����ֲ�—just somewhere else.'”

When her early decision application at another college was deferred, she found herself choosing between �պ����ֲ� and other schools. When she analyzed what she really wanted—a liberal arts college close to the ocean in a small town but not in the middle of nowhere with lots of services like free laptops and a robust Outing Club, and where people were kind—the answer became obvious.

Being a local comes with social benefits, too. Her friends, Coughlin said, find “it’s convenient to have a friend from Maine. I can show them places, I can bring them home to meet my family—it helps people feel like they’re home.”

One of the best friends Coughlin has made at �պ����ֲ�, Siara Soule ’26, grew up in Cumberland, Maine. Soule said she finds it fulfilling to bring her peers to her favorite spots. She especially likes accompanying students outside after their very first snowfall. “That’s always really special!” she said.

Though Soule’s childhood home is just twenty minutes from Brunswick, she said she feels far away when she’s on campus. “�պ����ֲ� is a unique community within Maine,” she said. Her first-year roommates came from Sri Lanka and Rwanda, for instance. “I have had newness and separation, and I’ve been able to become an independent adult here,” she said.

Coming from Blue Hill, a small, tightknit community up the coast of Maine, Evan Chapman ’25 said he's consistently impressed with the diversity on campus. “Not just with its diversity of ethnicity and race, but also in how people think here, how people act here,” he said. “There’s every kind of diversity you can think of. In every discussion, you can learn something. It’s been eye-opening.”

Yet, at the same time, he added, “�պ����ֲ� feels like Maine and Maine feels like �պ����ֲ�, it feels like home. Everything that Maine embodies and values is what �պ����ֲ� embodies. The communities overlap seamlessly.”

Marroquin, too, said in the fifteen years she's worked for �պ����ֲ� Admissions, she’s noticed a similarity between Maine and �պ����ֲ�. “Some of the core values of �պ����ֲ� are hard work and humility. And those are things that the state of Maine is known for, too.”

Abhayadana Nguyen ’27, who goes by the nickname BaoBao, grew up in Portland and attended a magnet high school in Limestone, Maine, up north near the Canadian border. After graduating from a tiny high school—it had 120 students—he thought he wanted to enroll in a research university. But his parents (one of whom teaches at Bates College) encouraged him to focus on the liberal arts. He opted for �պ����ֲ�. Now he’s grateful, and he’s told his parents never to sell their house in Portland.

“I love being here,” he said. “I joke that every time I go into Hannaford, I run into one person I know. I love interacting with Maine people. The way of life here is beautiful."