Groups promote self-care

News in brief: BSG kicks off No Hate November

This week, Bowdoin Student Government (BSG) kicked off the fourth annual No Hate November, an initiative aimed at removing bias and raising mindfulness on and off campus. Unlike in past years, the month does not have a focus on one particular issue.
“The mission is to have a month full of events on campus that will create dialogue about issues surrounding inclusivity, respect, bias and hate,” said BSG Vice President for Student Affairs Ben Painter ’19.
There are a dozen events planned this year. Each event focuses on a specific issue, such as microaggressions, transphobia, mental health or police brutality.
“We didn’t want to focus on one topic too much,” Painter said. “For example, if we focused on race, which was brought up to have one big focus, issues of sexuality wouldn’t be part of No Hate November. Issues surrounding disability wouldn’t be part of No Hate November. And so we didn’t want to exclude any group that wants to have an event.”
Aasif Mandvi, an actor and comedian known for his work on the Daily Show, will be coming to campus next Thursday to address issues of tolerance and discrimination through comedy.
“Comedy is a way to access really uncomfortable and sometimes difficult issues,” Mandvi said in a phone interview to the Orient. “Comedy can also point out the truth sometimes with things. There’s a famous quote, that art lays bare the truth that are hidden by facts. So comedy is an art form. And all art lays bare certain truth that are hidden by the kind of conversation we have. Comedy is a different type of conversation that can expose some kinds of that stuff.”
Mandvi said that today’s poisonous social and political climate make engaging in difficult conversations about intolerance “more important now than ... ever.”
“[Mandvi’s] a big name,” Painter said. “Hopefully it’ll draw people out of the cracks, people who usually wouldn’t go to events. I’m looking forward to that because hopefully that’ll start conversations in corners of the campus where they usually don’t have these conversations.”

News in brief: Roux Center plan moves forward

Last week the Brunswick Planning Board unanimously approved an initial sketch plan for the College’s new Roux Center for the Environment. The sketch includes a footprint of the site and the floor plans for the buildings Vice President and Interim Head of Finance and Administration Matthew Orlando hopes that the final design done by early April so the College can begin the bidding process.
“[The architect] Tim Mansfield has been in hundreds of planning boards all over the place, and our [Director of Capital Projects] Don Borkowski does a great job putting together the full package, so [the board] was very impressed with the organization and the comprehensiveness of it,” Orlando said.
Earlier this year, the Programming Committee—led by Interim Dean for Academic Affairs Jen Scanlon—met with the architects on a monthly basis to go over updated designs and make suggestions on the initial sketch plan. According to Orlando, President Clayton Rose set the goal to make the building not limited to the scientific study of the environment, but rather a space for interdisciplinary exploration.
“The idea is to have the classroom space in there flexible enough so it can accommodate all sorts of disciplines and not just be focused on scientific research,” Orlando said.
Orlando also hopes that the building will be able to achieve LEED Platinum certification, the highest level of sustainability certification awarded by the U.S. Green Building Council.
“That is a challenge to achieve any time you’re talking about laboratories and scientific research being conducted in the building, so we’re still hopeful that we can hit the platinum goal, but it will be a challenge,” he said.
The College will go back to the planning board in February to share any variations from the sketch plan, which will also be subject to the board’s review.
“There will inevitably be a little bit of shifting here and there. We’re still in the design phase of the building, so we have not approved a final design yet so things could certainly be shifted,” Orlando said.

News in brief

November 11, 2016

Residential Life (ResLife) and Bear in Mind, a club designed to facilitate discussion around mental health, organized the first-ever Put-Yourself-First Week to help students with self-care.

“This program is intended to remind us of how important it is to take care of ourselves, especially during potentially chaotic times, such as this moment right now with elections going on, diseases spreading around campus and the natural stress that comes with being a Bowdoin student,” said Gina Fickera ’18, Residential Life Assistant and coordinator of the event.

The week’s activities included yoga, tai chi and meditation sessions. A student panel on mental health, originally scheduled for Thursday evening, was postponed until next Thursday, November 17.

“There wasn’t much of a connection between ResLife and Bear in Mind before this project happened,” said Fickera. “Which just shows how much the different student groups on campus can collaborate to make these things happen.”

Fickera noted that members of the Counseling Center and the Health Center also helped with planning for the week.

“We’re exposed to many of the issues that are going on campus, both individually and collectively for some people, so a constant thing that we look out for is to make sure that people are taking care of themselves,” said Fickera. “So it feels nice to be able to extend that to the entire campus rather than just the first years and the programs that you do with them.”

She added that the week would hopefully teach people the importance of taking time to take care of themselves.

“Self-care is an ongoing process and it should definitely be extended beyond this week,” she said.

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