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Helmreich House

Through the years

By Bowdoin College

November 16^th, 2015

Helmreich is one of Bowdoin’s eight “College Houses,” all former fraternities that have been converted into unique living spaces for students. Each spring, students who are interested in influencing Bowdoin’s social and intellectual culture apply to live in one of the College Houses. The only criteria is that they community minded. If they’re selected by Residential Life, they are asked to collaborate with their housemates to organize events, such as parties and academic talks, that are open to the Bowdoin community. A big role for the College Houses is to look out for first-year students and help them acclimate to college life.

This year, 23 sophomores share quarters in Helmreich House, living in doubles, singles, or in some of the quirkier attic rooms. The current Helmreich crew is carrying on the long history of the house as a central part of Bowdoin’s social and cultural life.

Helmreich House officers

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Left to right, Morgan Reilly ’18, Julianna Burke ’18, Rachel Mann ’18, Emma Husseman ’18 and Jacquelyn Wu ’18

All the students who opt to live in a College House are charged with putting on events they think will interest students, staff, faculty and other community members. But the house officers take on the biggest roles of planning, budgeting and marketing the events. This year, Helmreich’s officers are president Emma Husseman ’18, vice president Morgan Rielly ’18, programming director Julianna Burke ’18, communications director Rachel Mann ’18, and treasurer Jacquelyn Wu ’18.

Throughout her first year at Bowdoin Julianna Burke was never in doubt about her desire to live in a College House her second year here. “I never questioned that I wanted to live in a College House,” she said. For one, it was a way of continuing to live in a close-knit environment with her peers. Living in one of the old, rambling College Houses can help students feel as if they are living less in a dormitory and more as if they’re in a real home, with communal cooking, dining and living areas, noted Jacquelyn Wu. “We have a kitchen, living room and lots of space,” she said.

Morgan Reilly, who grew up in Westbrook, Maine, explained that one of his motives to live in a College House was to bring Mainers to campus to speak about their lives and work. This fall, Helmreich House has invited a Bowdoin alumnus who works in the microbrewery industry and is planning a talk by a refugee who survived the Rwandan genocide. “As a Mainer, I wanted to help break the Bowdoin bubble,” Rielly said. Next semester, he added that he would like to bring someone in from Idexx, a Westbrook-based animal health diagnostics company, and someone from one of Maine’s Wabanaki groups.

Many of the College House events are centered around first-year students. This year Helmreich is associated with about 66 first-year affiliates, who are invited by house members to parties, apple picking outings, movie nights and other social activities. Emma Husseman said she has appreciated the bonds she’s formed with both the house’s first-year affiliates and with her housemates. “I really like the nice community that comes with the house,” she said. “You can walk in and have friends in your living space.” She also has enjoyed supporting the first years as they adjust to college life at Bowdoin. “It is a lot of fun getting to know people and helping people out if they have questions,” she added.

Burke added, too, that one of her biggest motives to join the College House system was to “make Bowdoin as positive a place as possible for first-year students….The social culture doesn’t just happen — it’s shaped by people.”

The "official" house photo, with the 2015-2016 residents

Events

Each of the eight College Houses are provided annual budgets to support their campus events. This fall, Helmreich holds a few regularly occurring activities, such as Thursday movie night, when the house invites its first-year affiliates over to watch movies. Helmreich sophomores and their first-years affiliates also went apple picking and visited Popham Beach (back when the days was a bit warmer). During Family Weekend, the house threw a special brunch for students whose family members couldn’t make it to Bowdoin — a “Let-Helm-Adopt-You Brunch.” Rachel Mann, the house’s communications director, said her favorite event so far has been a get-together with Helm alumni. “It was so fun to bond with other generations of the house. The house continues to bring students together, no matter what class!” she wrote in an email.

In October Helmreich also hosted a campus-wide October Fest party, and about 300 people showed up. More recently, Helmreich House students had a dinner at the home of their faculty advisor, professor of history Susan Tananbaum, with several other faculty, an event the house officers said was thoroughly enjoyable. Tananbaum is Helmreich’s faculty advisor, along with Outing Club Assistant Director Sarah Johnson and Associate Director of Health Promotion Whitney Hogan. The advisors help the students as they plan talks and invite in speakers.

Here are some of the posters from this year’s events at Helmreich.

The Architecture

The three-story house at 238 Maine Street was built between 1894 and 1900 by German professor George Files and his wife, Edith. Their Colonial Revival house “owes a great debt to the Shingle Style,” writes Patricia Anderson in her 1988 book, Architecture of Bowdoin College. Shingle-style homes, which are covered in cedar shingles and often have irregular roof lines and asymmetrical floor plans, were popular with wealthy homeowners in the Northeast between the late 19th century and early 20th century. The homes’ rustic look was supposedly a reaction against the fussiness of Victorian architecture.

One of the more interesting rooms, or nooks really, in the attic.

Helmreich History

The house’s first owner, George Files, graduated from Bowdoin in 1889 and taught German at Bowdoin for almost 30 years. He died in 1919, after returning to Maine from the war. His widow sold the house in 1921 to the local chapter of the Sigma Nu fraternity, which had formed in 1914. Thirty years later, when Sigma Nu moved to Baxter House, the fraternity sold Helmreich to the Alpha Rho Upsilon fraternity, which broke with tradition to be a racially and religiously tolerant fraternity.

The building was transferred to Bowdoin in 1988 and became a residence hall in 1990. It was dedicated as the Helmreich House in 1999, in honor of Ernst C. Helmreich, Bowdoin’s Thomas Brackett Reed Professor of History and Political Science. Professor Helmreich, a scholar of European and religious history, taught at Bowdoin from 1931 to 1972.

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A photo of Ernst Helmreich hangs in Helmreich House

An undated photo of the house when it was occupied by the Sigma Nu fraternity from 1921 to 1951.

Interior view of the Sigma Nu fraternity circa 1917-1921.

Alpha RHo Upsilon Fraternity

The Alpha Rho Upsilon fraternity had a strong identity and an idealistic mission. It had its origins in the Thorndike Club, an eating club formed in 1937 for the five percent of students who did not belong to a fraternity. In 1946, these students formed the ARU fraternity, also known as “All Races United,” and found a permanent home at 238 Maine Street in 1951. ARU accepted students of all races and faiths, including Asian-American, Jewish and African-American students who did not fit the membership criteria for other fraternities, the Bowdoin Orient reports. The first woman to receive a Bowdoin diploma was a member of the fraternity. It had a reputation of attracting creative and diverse students. In one of its booklets for prospective members, the fraternity advertises its appeals to pledges: “We realize that being in a warm fraternal atmosphere, human beings are better able to deal with the absurd realities of existence; ARU provides a respite from life’s slouching, lurching dance to the grave.”