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Bowdoin has decreased its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions ahead of schedule, putting the College on track to pass the benchmarks of its 2009 Carbon Neutrality Implementation Plan, according to a Sustainable Bowdoin report released by last week. The 14,467 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent that the College released in fiscal year (FY) 2012 was 17 percent below the predicted level of 17,437 metric tons. Since FY 2008—when 19,153 metric tons were released—the College has decreased its emissions by 24 percent, and has surpassed expectations for emissions reductions since 2010.
New student-run environmental initiatives on campus aim to give students the chance to stand behind more than just their ballot votes next week.
Bowdoin’s endowment performed comparatively well in fiscal year (FY) 2012, with a 2.6 percent return on investments as of June 30, 2012. The endowment stands at $902.4 million, down from $904.2 million in FY 2011, when Bowdoin reported returns of 22.3 percent. Though 2.6 percent is significantly lower than the College’s projected return of 7 percent, Bowdoin fared much better than most peer institutions; Cambridge Associates, a firm that tracks endowment performance in the U.S., found that the mean for college and university endowment returns nationally was -1.0 percent in FY 2012, according to the Bowdoin Daily Sun.
The day before this year’s annual back-to-school lobster bake, Michael Rodrigue single-handedly cut and trimmed 440 steaks for the meal. Rodrigue is Bowdoin’s designated meat cutter, responsible for ordering and preparing the pork, beef, chicken breasts, and sausage served at Thorne and Moulton dining halls.
The talk of the Quad is different in the summer, when the lines that separate Bowdoin and Brunswick, tourist and town resident, student and visiting scholar, become even more blurred.
College students propelled Facebook to popularity, and at Bowdoin, they are now experimenting with deactivation en masse. Last Monday, Tyler Patton '12 and Ruiqi Tang '13 launched massdeactivation.blogspot.com, the site of their self-proclaimed "social experiment" that urges Bowdoin students to disable their Facebook profiles from February 8 to March 8. During this time, profiles will not be deleted but dormant, allowing students the option to resume their presence on the social network after the trial period.
Bowdoin students may recognize newly-elected San Francisco mayor Ed Lee '74 from his flashy web campaign ad, which featured rappers M.C. Hammer and Will.i.am, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, and Giants closer Brian Wilson, among others. Lee's November 9 victory made history: he is the city's first mayor of Chinese descent. A third of San Francisco's population identifies as Asian American.
The international Occupy Wall Street movement hit the College Tuesday night when posters advertising "Occupy Bowdoin" appeared in Smith Union. Robbie Benson '15 is the self-proclaimed "kid behind the posters," the driving force for a group that he hopes will heighten discussion about social class and socioeconomic inequality at the College.
In the Independent Film Channel show "Portlandia," Fred Armisen of Saturday Night Live fame said anything can be art if you just "put a bird on it." He was referring to art in that other Portland, my hometown, that "alternative universe" somewhere north of California where "young people go to retire" (thank you again, "Portlandia").
For many in the current Bowdoin community, the name Greason may only evoke the image of the glossy tile of the College's swimming pool. Yet the man behind the name—A. Leroy Greason, former Bowdoin professor, dean and president—died in Brunswick on August 28, leaving a legacy that continues to influence the lives of many individuals and the College itself.
After a year of work, Information Technology (IT) and the Student Web Advisory Team (SWAT) have officially launched the redesigned student digest, the Bowdoin Orbit. Although still in its trial period, the Bowdoin Orbit will eventually phase out the Student Digest. It will be married with a gateway that boasts discussion boards and a newsfeed compilation from student blogs and websites.
Since the birth of the "I Am Bowdoin" effort six weeks ago, student leader Nylea Bivins '12 says the campus is in "a place that I've never seen it in before." Following the Sunday night community meeting on March 6 and the "I Am Bowdoin" rally on March 10—both in response to the March 1 Coles Tower bias incident—students and the administration have aggressively worked to raise awareness about issues of bias.
The arrival of the weekend and warm spring weather will not be the only thing celebrated on campus today, as the second annual "Proud of My Whole Self" Day will honor connections between identity and expression.
Under the recently instituted New York Times (NYT) website paywall, news comes at a price. Yet for members of the Bowdoin community, access will be subsidized. As of March 28, the NYT capped free online access at 20 articles per month and began charging $15 a month for unlimited computer and smart phone access. However, through the NYT Campus Newspaper Readership Program and Bowdoin Student Government (BSG), anyone with a Bowdoin email address is eligible for unlimited access at a discounted price of $11.28 a month.
On March 6, approximately 200 students, faculty, and staff attended an open discussion in Daggett Lounge about acts of racial and sexual intolerance both at Bowdoin and in the broader Maine community. Triggered by the March 1 bias incident in Coles Tower, the meeting was organized to shed light on these events and provide a productive forum to generate ideas.
The 145 students who applied for a position on next year's Residental Life (ResLife) staff received final decisions yesterday afternoon in their mailboxes. With only 71 spots available—33 first year proctors, eight house proctors and 30 residential advisers—this year's application process was the most competitive in the history of the College.
The Orient checked in with some recent alumni to see what they have been up to since leaving Bowdoin. For Nathan Chaffetz '08, the Bowdoin Cable Network segments he sent in with his resume landed him his first job post-college. "I primarily rant[ed] about things I didn't like at the school," he said, but it "definitely got me my first job, and I'm very thankful for it." This first job was in Los Angeles, where he booked people and organized shoots for Showtime's "Penn and Teller Bullsh*t!" a libertarian-leaning documentary television series that aimed to debunk misconceptions, popular fads and pseudoscientific ideas.
For the first time in Bowdoin history, an entirely new class council will lead the junior class through the spring semester. In a special election for Bowdoin Student Government (BSG), Jenessa Jules and Melanie Pinette were elected President and Treasurer, respectively, of the Class of 2012.
The School Street apartments will live up to their name beginning next fall, when the College will absorb the property as campus housing. The School Street building is a freestanding house that is currently organized into four apartments and rented by Bowdoin students as off-campus housing, but the change will allow the College to offer the units in the Residential Life housing lottery.
In a city where one-third of the population is of Asian descent, Edwin M. Lee '74 made history when he was sworn in as San Francisco's first Asian-American mayor. Elected by the city's Board of Supervisors, Lee will serve out the remaining 11 months of former mayor Gavin Newsom's term. Newsom left office after being elected as Lieutenant Governor of California.
Flu immunization is not high on the to-do list of most Bowdoin students. The Health Center reported that an uncommonly low number of students sought vaccinations this semester. Typically, by Thanksgiving Break, 500 to 600 students request the shot; only 200 students have been vaccinated so far this year.
At Bowdoin, it is not just the students who are happy. On Monday, Harvard University's Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education (COACHE) released its ranking of colleges and universities with the highest levels of pre-tenure faculty job satisfaction. In the baccalaureate category, Bowdoin qualified as "exemplar" in three out of eight categories: Nature of Work (Overall), Nature of Work (Research) and Nature of Work (Teaching).
With the creation of anonymous online gossip forums, old-fashioned bathroom wall graffiti—joking, well intentioned, or derogatory—is effectively transmitted to virtual stall doors worldwide. College ACB is the newest college gossip site, which came to the formal attention of the Office of Residential Life and the Office of Student Affairs late last week when a student who was discussed on the site reported it. The increase in student posts over the past two months has triggered student backlash.
Eight Bowdoin students and three faculty contibuted to Larry Bock's effort to "[bring] science back to center stage," with the College's delegation manning both robotics and neuroscience booths at the festival in Washington D.C. last weekend. Executive Director Larry Bock '81 founded the first-annual US Science and Engineering Festival with the firm belief that "society gets what it celebrates."
When employers recruit at Bowdoin, they are consistently impressed by students' striking accomplishments on paper, but according to Career Advisor Meg Springer, "we have heard repeatedly...that during the interview, [students] are basically blowing it because they haven't practiced and aren't presenting themselves well." As a result, "jobs are being left on the table."
This Saturday, 430 people will pay homage to Taryn L. King '07 at the third annual "Go Big or Go Home for TLK" benefit for the Taryn L. King Memorial Scholarship Fund. At this $75 per ticket celebration, guests will consume 1980s hits and "Fenway Franks" at Boston's famous stadium.
