The Bowdoin Orient

The BowdoinOne Day campaign aimed to encourage alumni donations overwhelming exceeded goal. On Tuesday, 1,274 alumni donated gifts to the College, more than double the campaign’s goal of 423 donations. The 24-hour campaign  took place on April 23, the day on which funds for from tuition and the endowment symbolically “run out”. The operating budget for the rest of the academic year is financed by donations. 

According to Director of Annual Giving Brannon Fisher,  BowdoinOne Day—the first of its kind at Bowdoin—sought to “educate students and alumni about the real impact of their annual gifts to Bowdoin.”

“We use 6 percent of the academic year to illustrate or represent in a symbolic way how six percent of Bowdoin’s operations are funded by gifts,” said Fisher. “That was sort of a new and novel message for Bowdoin in our fundraising.”

Correction, April 21: Mistaken data about the College budget and the timeline of the BowdoinOne Day project.

BowdoinOne Day a 24-hour fundraising campaign aims to generate at least 423 alumni gifts,  next Tuesday, April 23. According to Director of Annual Giving Brannon Fisher, April 23 marks the day in which funds from tuition and endowment symbolically “run out,” and the rest of the academic year is supported by alumni donations. 

Fisher said that the initiative, the first in Bowdoin’s history, hopes to use the symbolic April 23 date “to raise as many gifts as we can in one day.”

One hundred and eighty-nine students were offered a spot in a College House  this past Monday, when decisons were released to the 321 applicants vying  for only 200 available spaces. 

Of the eight College Houses, Howell House was the only house that was with empty beds and will have available spaces in the Chem-Free lottery next Thursday. Students who choose to live in Howell via the regular housing lottery will be able to choose before August if they want to assume the responsibilities of a house member or simply be a resident.

Director of Residential Life Mary Pat McMahon said that the College House committees—composed of students, faculty members, deans and the Residential Life staff—chose students based on their interest and enthusiasm “in being in that house community,” as well as “what we perceive as the prioritization, time commitment, and sort of style and energy that students are bringing to the house.”

The Office of Planning and Development reported record annual giving this year, with $10,477,227 raised in fiscal year (FY) 2012, a six percent increase from FY 2011. “Annual giving is Bowdoin’s top priority, so we have a lot of momentum in terms of staff and volunteers pulling together to try to bring those gifts in,” said Director of Annual Giving Brannon Fisher.

The Board of Trustees unanimously voted to convert Longfellow Elementary School into a studio art and dance space during its annual meeting over Homecoming Weekend. The board also discussed a proposed upgrade to the College’s network, although the topic was not brought to an official vote. “It was very much a business as usual meeting and an update to the trustees about what was happening on campus,” said President Mills.

The Office of Safety and Security has stepped up enforcement of the College’s alcohol policy in response to events at two off-campus houses and at the Epicuria party last month at Ladd House. In an effort to prevent additional transports, Security will increase its presence at campus-wide parties and closely regulate unregistered events, according to Director of Safety and Security Randy Nichols.

Visiting Assistant Professor Leslie Shaw, who taught anthropology at the College for fourteen years, died unexpectedly on the evening of August 29 following complications from surgery. She was 57 years old. President Barry Mills and Dean of Academic Affairs Cristle Collins Judd alerted the Bowdoin community of the loss in an email on Thursday morning.

Shaw arrived at Bowdoin in 1998. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of Maine at Orono and her Ph.D from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. During her time at Bowdoin, Shaw taught a number of courses ranging from “Indigenous Peoples of North America” to “Archeology of Gender and Ethnicity,” and most recently, “Maya Archeology and Ethnohistory.” Shaw continued to teach courses through the spring of 2012.

The 2011-2012 academic year had its fair share of controversy, including a forfeited NESCAC championship, debate over a weeklong Thanksgiving break, and protests against changes to chem-free housing. The scandals and triumphs are recounted here in a summary of the year's most noteworthy happenings.

Student organizations seeking to renew their charters for next year will face a new registration process. Implemented by the Student Organizations Oversight Committee (SOOC), the new procedure includes a mandatory online survey that aims to improve club records and streamline the operation. Dani Chediak '13, chair of the SOOC, said that a few club leaders have contacted her with concerns about the new survey. Some leaders were disturbed by the nature of the questions and felt that they were being forced to defend their organization's existence, Chediak added.

Ever wonder how many calories are in the Philly cheese steak sandwich you ate last Friday? How about that delicious slice of pesto chicken pizza? Though the Huffington Post recently recognized Bowdoin for having the number one healthiest college dining hall in America, the Orient decided to investigate the underbelly of Bowdoin dining to find the top 10 most caloric dishes.

The men's and women's ultimate Frisbee teams concluded their regular season on a high note last weekend. Both teams won the second annual Garden State Open Tournament, and neither lost a single game. The men are now ranked No. 5 of the D-III schools nationwide, and No. 66 overall. Not to be bested, the women's team is ranked No. 41 in the country and No. 6 for D-III. Both squads finish the regular season undefeated.

Bowdoin's new steam turbine-generator, installed last summer, is officially up and running. The College finished commissioning and testing the turbine in early February, according to John Simoneau, facilities project manager. Since February 17, the earliest date for which data is available, the turbine has generated 71,032 kilowatt hours, or 18 percent of the campus' total electricity.

Students hoping to live in one of the eight College Houses face competitive odds yet again. Residential Life received its second-highest number of applications ever for College Houses, with 295 students vying for 200 spots. While the number of applicants is down from last year's 346, Assistant Director of Residential Life Chris Rossi indicated that this year's applications are more evenly distributed among the eight houses.

The College is set to hire two new faculty members, reducing the number of ongoing tenure-track faculty searches to nine. The anthropology and government departments have selected Gregory Beckett and Andrew Rudalevige, respectively, to begin teaching next fall.

After opening with last night's Racer X concert, Ivies Weekend 2011 is officially underway. From the Entertainment Board (E-Board) to the Dining Service, students and administrators have been hard at work preparing for the College's annual weekend of campus-wide celebrations, concerts and general revelry.

While Bowdoin students celebrate Ivies on the football field, alums in San Francisco will be having a party of their own. Nalgenes, Bowdoin logs, and the "spirit of Ivies" will appear on the West Coast this Saturday for the first ever San Francisco Ivies, an event organized by alumni from the Class of 2008. "We're extremely fortunate to have a really huge Bowdoin community out here," said Kate Ambush '08, who helped plan the event. "We were kind of hanging out and we thought, 'Hey, Ivies is coming soon...wouldn't it be great if we could hold the same kind of event here in San Francisco?'"

Last Saturday, the Bowdoin Women in Business Club (BWIB) welcomed 15 female speakers to campus for its annual Bowdoin Women in Business Spring Convention. The convention gave female students the opportunity to learn more about career preparation, networking and leadership in areas ranging from media to technology.

Dining Service recently announced two employee changes as Tricia Gipson, formerly the manager of cash operations and student employment, will assume the position of Dining Service business manager on April 4. Adeena Fisher, a graduate of Ithaca College and the Culinary Institute of America, will replace Gipson as manager of dining retail operations.

With the spring service trips set to commence this weekend, Bowdoin students are preparing to lend a helping hand in local communities. The programs, sponsored by the Joseph McKeen Center for the Common Good, range from visiting a refugee camp in Portland to helping out at an organic farm and give students the opportunity to participate in community immersion and service programs off campus over a two-day weekend trip.

In an event that is already generating conversation around campus, Moulton and Thorne Dining Halls will not be serving meat during dinner on Monday, February 21. "Meatless Monday," sponsored by the Bowdoin College Democrats (BCD) and other campus groups, is intended to raise awareness about the health and environmental impacts of eating meat.

The U.S. Navy issued its Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) last Saturday, clearing another hurdle for the College's acquisition of three parcels of land after Naval Air Station Brunswick (NASB) closes this year. The 1,500-page naval report took three years to complete, according to a January 28 article in the Times Record.

Despite the tough economic climate, NESCAC colleges continue to move toward various sustainability goals by depending on environmental grants. According to Senior Vice President for Finance and Administration and Treasurer Katy Longley, the College critically assesses energy conservation project costs before implementation occurs. "We're thinking about grant funding before we start our projects," said Longley.

For fall semester study abroad students, living arrangements in the spring may be even more cramped than their plane rides home. The housing availability is unusually limited next semester, affecting juniors returning from studying abroad in the fall. "We have enough beds for everyone who wants to live on campus, but this spring semester's available configurations (e.g. singles, doubles, triples, quads) don't equal the number of requests for these specific types of housing," wrote Associate Director of Housing Operations Lisa Rendall in an e-mail to the Orient.

The women's basketball team has started the season with an impressive 3-1 record, most recently defeating the University of Southern Maine (USM) Huskies 63-51.

In a change from previous years, the results of the off-campus study preliminary application, collected on November 1, indicate that, for the next school year, more students intend to study abroad in the fall semester rather than in the spring. "[The shift] is a little surprising because the spring is usually the more popular semester," said Director of Off-Campus Study Stephen Hall. "I think some may have chosen the fall semester because...they had heard what we were saying about the spring being more popular [in past years]."

On May 5, 1970, members of the Bowdoin College community voted 727 to 207 in favor of conducting a school-wide strike that would last the rest of the school year.

As the date for Brunswick Naval Air Station's (NASB) closure approaches, Bowdoin continues to move ahead with its plan to acquire approximately 175 developable acres of land on the west side of the base. "The process of acquiring the land has not changed since 2007," wrote Senior Vice President for Finance and Administration & Treasurer Katy Longley in an e-mail to the Orient.