The Bowdoin Orient

One senior thinks he has a unique perspective on women at Bowdoin. Given the fact that he has stripped for over 100 of them, his suspicions are probably right.

Only one laptop has been stolen on campus so far this year, but for Director of Safety and Security Randy Nichols, that's one too many. Nichols and his department have teamed up with Information Technology (IT) this semester to install anti-theft security plates on student, faculty, and staff laptops free of charge.

Illegally downloading Britney Spears's new single may cost some students more than ridicule this semester?$750, to be exact. Eleven members of the Bowdoin community were served with pre-litigation letters earlier this month for infringing on the rights of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) by illegally uploading or downloading music files over online peer-to-peer (p2p) networks.

Although all major construction on the Walker Art Building has been completed since May, no one has yet to walk through the doors of the transparent glass pavilion that will now serve as the main entrance to the building, save for a handful of workmen. Tonight, that will all change. After a champagne toast on the Quad, 400 distinguished guests and friends of the College will be the first to officially enter the modern glass structure and descend the two converging steel stairways into the underground galleries below.

Construction on the Bowdoin College Museum of Art might be winding down, but for Director of Capital Projects Don Borkowski, a day's work is never done. With the art museum nearing completion, four out of six first-year bricks finished, and Studzinksi Hall holding its inaugural concert this weekend, the College is starting to prepare for its next big projects.

After the College abruptly lost its contract with contraceptive manufacturer Organon in early February, college officials scrambled to find a solution that would allow them to continue distributing birth control to women on campus at low costs. However, both routes pursued by the College?buying in bulk with peer schools and purchasing generic versions of the previously available contraceptives?have been largely abandoned by the health center.

Some 70 students forewent beach parties, European adventures, and the chance to catch up on sleep for the opportunity to make their mark on communities in need around the world. These are the stories of their Alternative Spring Breaks.

When most children threaten to run off and join the circus, their parents don't take them seriously. But when Lizzie Hedrick '08 decided to take a year off from Bowdoin and enroll in a full-time circus school in Bristol, England, her parents couldn't have been more pleased.

Since the College lost its contract with contraceptive manufacturer Organon last week due to the rising cost of prescription medications, college administrators and the staff of Dudley Coe Health Center have been working to get birth control back on the shelves. "Students' health and well-being is first and foremost," said Senior Associate Dean of Student Affairs Margaret Hazlett.

When Hanley Denning '92 arrived in Guatemala in 1997 looking to learn the language, she did not expect to find her life's calling?especially not in an open-air garbage dump in the slums of Guatemala City.

But after a friend brought her to the dump to show her the dozens of families scavenging newly deposited trash for items to eat and sell, Denning knew that she had found a place where she was truly needed. Within the week, she sold her computer and her car for money to rent a room in a run-down church and began what would become her life's work.

Denning was killed in a car crash en route to Antigua, Guatemala, on January 18. She was the founder of Safe Passage, an organization that provides local children the hope and support they need to continue their educations and keep them from growing up to comb the dump for food and clothing, as their parents now do.

Please join the Orient in remembering the most significant stories of Bowdoin's 204th academic year.

"It's never a dull moment when you're in a continent as vast as Latin America with so many countries, so many things happening. In the last 30 years, so much has happened?all of the revolutions, all of the military regimes, U.S. foreign policy?it's never the same, and that's what makes it wonderful?that you can track these changes over time and see how the country is evolving," Professor of History Allen Wells said.

Dean of Student Affairs Craig Bradley spent the second week of Spring Break in Paris, where he and his family selected the school that his daughters will attend in the fall. Bradley, his wife Elizabeth, and his daughters, Anna and Laura, will be moving to France this summer when Bradley joins the Aga Khan Development Network, a career move that requires he step down as dean of student affairs at the end of the academic year.

Despite concerns that tickets for controversial author Salman Rushdie's Common Hour lecture would be difficult to come by after selling out only two hours after becoming available, all who showed up at Pickard Theater last Friday were able to see Rushdie's lecture live, though not necessarily in person.

Professor of Sociology and Anthropology Nancy Riley has been to China so many times, she has lost count. The Orient sat down with Riley to find out more about her upcoming adventures, her research on gender and family, and her personal take on China Rose.

The Board of Trustees will meet this weekend in order to consider recommendations for tenure and to review the preliminary budget, upon which board members will vote in May. The College's newly revised intellectual property policy and the naming of one of the new first-year dorms are not on the agenda, according to Secretary of the College Richard Mersereau.

When Sarah Landrum '09 returned to her hometown of New Orleans over winter break for the first time since Hurricane Katrina, she was shocked to see parts of her city still in complete devastation. "Houses were toppled over in the street, and there were roofs with nothing under them at all. There were piles of debris everywhere and no signs of cleaning up or rebuilding," Landrum said of the areas around where the levees broke. "People kept telling me that I was looking at the city much improved from before, but that was hard to believe," she said.

A 1920s facility, Dudley Coe is finding it difficult to keep up with the growing needs of the student body in its current location. With more Bowdoin students on prescription medications than ever before, according to College Physician and Director of Health Services Jeff Benson, and the health center diagnosing and treating increasingly more serious conditions, Benson is pleading for a renovated college health center?one that is, at the very least, handicap accessible.

For the first time since 2000, the one-time Kappa Sig fraternity house has seen some action. Louis-David Lord '08 and Jacob Murray '08 broke into the empty College building, now known as Lancaster House, on November 9 in the early hours of the morning. "[The break-in] was discovered by the Security officer on patrol," Director of Safety and Security Randy Nichols said. "As with any situation where there's an apparent crime in progress in a building, our officer called the police. It was the right thing to do," he said.

Baxter House and friends throughout the Bowdoin community raised $2,688 for the American Cancer Society by joining 19 other teams in the tenth annual "Making Strides Against Breast Cancer" walk throughout residential Brunswick. Bowdoin's team, which consisted of 27 members, walked the three-mile course in pouring rain on Sunday to raise awareness about breast cancer research, detection, and treatment.

After playing host to the first two conventions of the Maine Chapter of the College Democrats of America, the Bowdoin College Democrats have decided not to hold the annual convention on campus next year. "Having the convention at Bowdoin the first two years helped solidify our presence around the state," Bowdoin Democrats Co-President Frank Chi '07 said.

Lydia Hawkins '07 was half focused on an interview, half focused on the enormous stream of yellow shirts entering the Visual Arts Center. "I only printed 100 flyers. I thought that would be enough!" she yelled to a friend.

Executive members of the Bowdoin Student Government (BSG) are kick-starting their year by implanting a four-tier plan to improve student life and renewing their pledge for enhanced communication between officers and the student body.

For the seven Bowdoin students from New Orleans and a dozen others from surrounding areas, the effects of Hurricane Katrina may last a lifetime. Many members of the Bowdoin community, however, are finding themselves feeling helpless and ineffective in the wake of the natural disaster that left New Orleans and other areas of the Gulf Coast in sheer ruin last week.

After receiving a record number of applications last spring, the College has successfully matriculated the most diverse class in its history, said Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid Richard Steele.

This academic year has brought a series of challenges, conflicts, and changes to the Bowdoin College campus. The following is the Orient's compilation of the most significant stories that have affected the Bowdoin community over the last nine months.

As the last of the snow melts on the quad and the birds reluctantly return to Brunswick, students are starting to close their eyes and imagine the infamous and quickly-approaching Ivies weekend. Picture it now'65 degree temperatures, all of your friends together in one place, Nalgene in hand?and a downpour of rain.

The Bowdoin Art Museum has replaced its masterpieces of the Italian Renaissance with an array of multi-colored curlicues, and the Brunswick community couldn't be more excited.

While the majority of Bowdoin students were still enjoying the comfort of home-cooked meals, their own beds, and more often than not, less frigid temperatures than those which they had left back in Brunswick, a number of students were already back on campus for a variety of purposes.

While the polar bear may seem livelier than ever at Bowdoin sporting events, the reality is that outside of Brunswick, our fluffy, white mascot is quickly going the way of the dodo bird.

The College has reached the final stages of a contracting with at least one architectural firm for the creation of a new hockey arena.

Sophomore Nathan Guttman woke up in his Coles Tower suite Wednesday morning to the sound of roaring steam escaping from the heating pipe in his closet. As he sat up in bed, he noticed a quickly growing puddle of black water seeping under the door from the common room to the bedroom where he and one of his roommates, Phillip Valka '07, had been sleeping.

"You always knew Dave was coming down the hallway because he was whistling," Lou MacNeill of Facilities Management said as he read aloud a collective list of fond memories at David D'Angelo's memorial service on Monday.

As Red Sox closer Keith Foulke fielded a grounder from Edgar Renteria and made the final out of the World Series, first-year Caitlin Edwards stared at her television screen in disbelief.

Three pieces of student artwork were recently taken from the basement of the Visual Arts Center (VAC), Security reported.

Hundreds of individuals who receive the flu vaccine from the Dudley Coe Health Center each year will have to rely on hand-washing and other precautionary measures in order to ward away the virus this year.

The College will begin the second stage of an extensive renovation to the Hawthorne-Longfellow Library in December.