BRUNSWICK — Bowdoin College senior Andrew Cushing was not happy when the Meeting House in his hometown of Grafton, N.H., was bought, painted purple, and made a symbol for the Libertarian movement in the state.

Cushing’s politics don’t jive with the preachers of smaller government that moved in, but that’s not what fueled his frustration.

“In taking this former iconic building and turning it into this very visible, pro-Libertarian compound, it has definitely changed people’s perception of my hometown,” Cushing said.

He was unhappy that his town opted against retaking ownership of the nearly 200- year-old building, but he understands the economics of old structures.

“You can’t save every old building,” Cushing said, “and you shouldn’t save every old building.”

That was a lesson the environmental studies major and history minor who graduates with honors Saturday said he learned more concretely while leading fellow students on volunteering trips to weatherize homes with Habitat for Humanity/7 Rivers Maine in Bath.

“You realize that in owning an old home, your work is never done,” Cushing said. “So, you see the temptation of leaving your old home or building anew or renovating so extensively that you get rid of your old historic architecture.”

After graduation, those lessons will help Cushing make his first step into the future a leap into the past.

Cushing, one of 450 students in the college’s 2012 graduating class, plans to keep his diploma in Maine, working over the summer with the Yarmouth-based nonprofit Maine Preservation, a statewide network focused on historic preservation.

“It’s all about planning, really,” Cushing said. “It’s the same with Bowdoin’s campus or downtown Brunswick — you have that evolution of architectural styles. So, if you freeze a village in history, you’re not allowing for continued evolution.”

There’s a balance, Cushing said.

Sorting through historical documents at Curtis Memorial Library and at the college has given Cushing a stronger sense of local architecture and history than most get in their four years on campus — enough for the Millenial from away to have an opinion about what happened in Brunswick in the 1960s.

“The fact that the town hall was torn down in the 1960s on Maine Street was poor planning because, architecturally, it was a very significant building,” Cushing said.

Besides providing shelter, scenery or steady work for local contractors, Cushing said preserving historic buildings can help preserve an identity.

“We associate communities with architectural icons,” Cushing said. “If a town loses all its historic buildings because no one cares, then you lose that sense of community — that kind of got me interested in saving my own town and how I can make that a career.”

Over his senior spring break, Cushing took a team of four other students home with him to Grafton to do restoration work on a oneroom schoolhouse alongside five other students from Dartmouth College.

An article at the Bowdoin Daily Sun blog detailing the trip indicates that the building may be used for the local early education program, Head Start.

That type of reuse, Cushing said, is preferable not only from a historian’s perspective, but also through the lens of sustainability and environmental impact.

“It’s more ‘green’ to save and reuse (a building) because of all that embodied energy,” Cushing said.

That idea was also central to a hands-on service learning course he took in the spring of 2010, with eyes toward how Brunswick’s freight shed on Union Street might be redesigned to accommodate a permanent home for a farmers market.

This summer, Cushing said he may pick some of that research back up to pursue an idea he said is a culmination of his studies and outside interests.

After that, Cushing said, he will return to campus, working as a staff member with Bowdoin’s Sustainability Office and keeping a connection to a community where he said he’s gained strong connections.

“I don’t think Bowdoin students realize how big a part Brunswick is to Bowdoin until they go to a different college” and realize there’s not the same relationship, Cushing said.

The college’s 207th commencement ceremony will begin at 10 a.m. Saturday in front of the Bowdoin College Museum of Art, awarding degrees to students from 40 states, the District of Columbia, and 15 foreign countries.

dfishell@timesrecord.com