Bowdoin College will partner with Portland’s Roux Institute to offer new educational and employment opportunities for its students.
The Brunswick college and the institute signed an agreement to develop the 4+1 program, which will allow computer science undergraduates to take master’s level courses, Bowdoin announced Thursday.
The partnership will make available paid internships at the Roux Institute and create opportunities for collaboration for Bowdoin professors. The Roux Institute has 26 corporate partners that participate in its internship program.
The Roux Institute, a planned branch of Boston’s Northeastern University, could attract up to 4,000 graduate students after eight years and employ 300 after five years. The campus will foster research into digital engineering, artificial intelligence and genomics.
It’s named after donors David and Barbara Roux, who invested $100 million in the project in January 2020. The Harold Alfond Foundation pledged another $100 million toward the institute that October.
The Institute for Digital Engineering and Life Sciences bought the location of B&M Baked Beans to make way for the Roux Institute in the summer 2021, ending more than 150 years of bean cooking at Portland’s Back Cove.
In response to complaints from residents in a nearby neighborhood, the Institute for Digital Engineering and Life Sciences, which is developing the site for the Roux Institute, offered to shrink the campus’ footprint by 27 percent and limit the height of buildings.
