Lunch with Six Supporters Serves Connections and Appreciation

Lunch with Six Supporters Serves Connections and Appreciation

Students are served the opportunity to share a meal and their gratitude with those who help make a Bowdoin experience possible, while the alumni, trustees, families, and friends who support financial aid see firsthand the impact of their generosity and connect with the students benefiting from it.

More than 230 students and supporters broke bread together in Barry Mills Hall on May 7, 2026, for the annual event celebrating Bowdoin's commitment to financial aid and access.

Calling it "one of the most meaningful gatherings of the year," President Safa Zaki reflected on the College's longstanding commitment to ensuring talented students can attend Bowdoin regardless of financial circumstances.

"Bowdoin's commitment to access is one of the things that first drew me to the College," President Zaki said. "It is, I would argue, one of our central values. It guides us. It animates us. It shapes how we teach, how we learn, and how we live together."

Zaki highlighted that Bowdoin is one of just eleven institutions in the country that admit both domestic and international students without regard to their financial means and meet the full demonstrated need of every admitted student, all without loans in their aid packages. More than half of Bowdoin students currently receive financial aid.

"I want to underscore that this commitment to access reflects some deep values," she said. "It reflects a belief that talent is more widely and equitably distributed than opportunity-and that it is our work, every year and in every admissions cycle, to keep opening doors."

Zaki emphasized that Bowdoin's approach to access shapes not only who can attend the College, but also the educational experience students share together.

"A liberal arts education is, at its core, about breadth-about moving across disciplines and making unexpected connections," she said. "But that breadth is only fully realized when it is matched by a diversity of perspectives and lived experiences. That is what our commitment to access makes possible."

Addressing the students in the room, Zaki said she hoped the experience with their lunch companions provided a fuller sense of the community they are part of at Bowdoin.

"To the alumni, families, and friends here this afternoon, I offer my most sincere thanks," Zaki said. "Your support for our students opens the door to Bowdoin and welcomes them into a community they will be part of for life, just as you have been."

The luncheon's featured alumni speaker, Aziza Janmohamed '19, reflected on how Bowdoin's support shaped her own path and continues to influence her life years after graduation. Originally from Toronto and arriving at Bowdoin after attending high school in Pakistan, Janmohamed received support from the William T. Graham Jr. Memorial Scholarship Fund and the William W. Hale Jr. Memorial Scholarship Fund.

At Bowdoin, Janmohamed double majored in international relations and theater and dance, studied abroad in Germany, worked as a campus tour guide, and spent summers supporting programs including Upward Bound and Orientation. She described Bowdoin as "the first home I chose for myself."

Reflecting on the College's "Offer," Janmohamed focused on one line in particular: "To carry the keys of the world's library in your pocket, and feel its resources behind you, in whatever task you undertake."

"During my time as a student, I was supported by Bowdoin's resources in so many ways, by so many different people," she said. "That support was extended to me, of course, financially through the William T. Graham Jr. Memorial Scholarship Fund and the William W. Hale Jr. Memorial Scholarship Fund but also through the generous amounts of insight, guidance, and time that my peers, supervisors, professors, and fellow Polar Bears that I was surrounded by poured into me."

Janmohamed spoke about how Bowdoin's financial aid policies-and the generosity behind them-create life-changing opportunities for students around the world.

"Bowdoin is one of the only schools in the country that is need-blind in its admissions review for international students," she said. "Being need-blind for all applicants is another tangible way that Bowdoin extends the common good to those around them."

After graduating, Janmohamed worked as an admissions officer at Rice University before beginning a dual master's program in global media and communications through the London School of Economics and USC Annenberg, supported in part by Bowdoin's Tom Cassidy Student Support Fund.

She said Bowdoin's support has continued long after graduation-through mentors, alumni connections, and opportunities to give back herself as an Alumni Fund director, reunion volunteer, and BRAVO interviewer.

"Because of the kind of support you make possible, students like me don't just pass through Bowdoin-we carry it with us, long after we've left," Janmohamed said. "Your support of money, time, and energy is what keeps us coming back, keeps us engaged, and helps us pursue the common good in whatever tangible or action-oriented way we can."

The afternoon served as both a celebration and a reminder: the Bowdoin experience is sustained not only by institutional commitment, but by generations of people investing in one another-and in the students who will carry that commitment forward.