The Bowdoin Orient

I can’t seem to wrap my head around the idea of our campus encapsulated by a bubble—reflective and self-important in the mid-coast light, bearing the threat of an imminent pop the moment a student stretches a toe past the barrier. 

Bowdoin is the most permeable of all the places I’ve called home. We depart—home for Spring Break, to a foreign country for a semester, to Katahdin for a weekend hike—and re-enter with such excitement and frequency that one could classify it as restlessness. If such a proverbial bubble were to exist, we’ve surely already punctured its soapy film.

Portland poet Linda Aldrich has a thing or two to say about place and metaphorical models that may resonate with Bowdoin students.

Francine Schrock is painting murals for Schooner Estates Assisted Living Community in Auburn, and she’s still getting used to the feeling of eyes on her back as the residents watch her work. 

“‘We want you to put in a cat!’ they’ll say, so I’ll add a cat,” she said. “Hearing these things becomes part of the process of painting.”

Whether or not she sees the suggestion as an aesthetic improvement or thinks the work would have been better off sans feline, Schrock has come to appreciate the often brutally honest comments that the experience of public painting invites.

I feel as though I’ve already dined at 555, though I have yet to make an official reservation. The moment I step into the space on Congress Street to meet with executive chef Steve Corry, I’m overcome by a sensory overload. And this is before the topic of food is even put on the table. The restaurant’s interior is a configuration of brick and wide windows divided by sleek black panels. It is at once open and intimate, sophisticated but practical. It subtly gestures to both the cosmopolitan and the rustic, reconciling the dual personality of Portland itself.

Something happens when suddenly we can count the degrees on one hand. It comes with the securing of a hat, the coiling of a scarf. It’s a gaze downward and a shuffle of boots along the path, marking with percussive treads the transition between dirt, ice, and asphalt. When at last those boots reach the linoleum in the Smith Union—the largest piece in the country, in fact—the gaze might lift and it might just intersect with another traveler who has also found refuge in the Union’s warmth. Robin Brooks shows me a digital image of her painted paper collage “Winter Wood,” and at once I’m reminded of what I’ve seen a thousand times but perhaps lately have been too wind-bitten to register. A horde of streamlined trunks extends vertically, shifting between grey black and brown to reiterate their bareness. Hints of green edge their way into the foreground, but it’s just the teasing burst of color of coniferous trees. The image is still winter in its most familiar form: a patchwork of shards of sky, stalks of wood, sheets of ice.

A greater number of students have been getting tested for sexually transmitted infections (STIs) at the Health Center in recent weeks. The influx of students occurred in the wake of an email sent out by Whitney Hogan, coordinator of health education, on March 7. The email reported an uptick in STIs on campus, including chlamydia, syphilis, herpes, and gonorrhea. "We saw this spike right before spring break," explained Sandra Hayes, director of Health Services. "It was short notice, but we wanted students to be aware that if they chose to be sexually active over the break, that there's a risk to that. Some students feel very complacent in the Bowdoin bubble—they think their risk is smaller and that's not true."

Oaktree Capital Group, the world's largest distressed-debt investor, priced its initial public offering at $43 a share on Wednesday April 11. Bowdoin Trustee Sheldon Stone '74, a principal and portfolio manager, will take away the third largest share from the $387 million that the firm raised from the deal. The company first filed for an IPO in June 2011, and the IPO will allow its top executives to realize their stake in the firm.

The Orbit, which replaced the Student Digest last spring as the College's announcement network, is in flux once again.

Though the door of Brunswick's Frosty's Donuts has displayed a "Closed" sign since last June, new owners Nels Omdal and his wife Shelby St. Andre are working hard to flip the sign to "Open" in just a few weeks.

The Office of Admissions received 589 applications for the first round of Early Decision, the largest number in the College history. Despite last Tuesday's deadline, this number is not a final count for the total ED I applications that the office will receive. "Some arrive in the mail and some applications come in incomplete, so this is just a preliminary number," explained Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid Scott Meiklejohn. "It will probably be another week to ten days before we have our final number."

Bowdoin experienced a premature taste of winter when a record-breaking snowstorm hit the East Coast Halloween weekend. Beginning Saturday night and continuing through Sunday morning, the storm spread throughout Maine, covering the Midcoast area in five inches of snow.

Students got an opportunity to learn about 3000-year-old archaeological marvels from the film "Song of the Drum: The Petroglyphs of Maine," which was screened in Smith Auditorium in Sills Hall on Wednesday.

At Bowdoin, where students share roughly similar learning abilities, it can be easy to overlook the challenges facing children with special needs. But for photojournalist Dan Habib, the issue of mainstreaming special needs students into the public education system is not only pertinent—it is personal. His documentary “Including Samuel,” to be screened at Bowdoin today, chronicles his family’s experiences after his son, Samuel, was diagnosed with cerebral palsy.

Though we are months away from July 4, Bowdoin is celebrating American heritage ahead of schedule.

Tonight, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP) will be performing its second program of a three-part series at the College.