Promote off-campus inclusivity

Editorial: Academics in action

In the wake of the election, some professors have confronted our political landscape in and out of the classroom, modeling healthy discussion, writing letters to President Trump and incorporating current events into their curricula.
Last Friday, Professor of Government Paul Franco moderated an event where attendees discussed the value of ideological diversity on campus. This Thursday, a panel of professors from the government and legal studies department offered their perspectives on Trump’s election and its implications.
In January, Professors Mark Battle and Madeleine Msall partnered with physics professors across the country to pen a letter to Trump advocating he take widely accepted ideas about climate change into account when making policy.
In an Orient op-ed this week, Professor of History Patrick Rael argues that a fierce commitment to politically neutral yet discerning academic values is more important now, in an era of alternative facts.
In addition, we have noticed some of our professors are integrating discussion of current political events into classes, giving an example of how the knowledge and skills we are learning can be used to analyze, understand and influence the world.
For example, Assistant Professor of Government Maron Sorenson’s Judicial Politics course has left parts of the syllabus open to address the nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court in the coming weeks. A class in the gender, sexuality and women’s studies department has routinely been leaving time at the beginning of class to discuss news and current issues. A few classes addressing executive power and political regimes have highlighted historical connections with the present.
In discussing the recent actions of our professors, we have been reminded of the oft-repeated alumni line: “Bowdoin taught me how to think.” Likely, our professors have been teaching us “how to think” since we stepped foot on campus, but the immediate link between current events and professors’ actions has made that much more apparent. We are learning to confront and evaluate ideas that oppose our own, to use our knowledge to encourage political action and to use information and methodologies from the classroom to solve problems other than those posed in homework assignments.
While we have enumerated several positive examples, there’s a sense on campus that many professors aren’t engaging substantively with current issues. Making time for this type of learning is especially important in this new age. Professors should find a way to connect academics and current events, whether it be in or out of the classroom. Doing so shows us that our learning is relevant, giving us the intellectual tools to engage with the world using deeper frameworks of knowledge.
This editorial represents the majority view of the Bowdoin Orient’s editorial board, which is comprised of Julian Andrews, Harry DiPrinzio, Dakota Griffin, Meg Robbins and Joe Seibert.

Editorial: Fulfill our responsibility

What is the common good to you? This a question that is asked of Bowdoin students to the point of exhaustion, at panels like the one on Wednesday night and in every-day dining hall conversations. But the question persists for good reason. Bowdoin is an institution that is dedicated to educating students who serve the public good; it has a responsibility to help students understand how this can be done.
We feel that Bowdoin is inadequately fulfilling this responsibility. At Bowdoin today, there are very few ways that we engage with the common good outside of the McKeen Center for the Common Good. As a result students lack a conception of how they can truly serve the common good in ways other than direct community service.
The McKeen Center does an incredible job organizing community-based work that both has real and positive impacts on communities and educates students about their roles and ability to serve the common good. The McKeen Center recognizes that common good means more than just community service and there are a number of programs they put on that demonstrate this broadened understanding, from alternative break trips to What Matters discussions to the Leading for the Common Good program.
However, we believe it is critical to translate that understanding to the larger campus community.
The McKeen Center organizes a Community-Engaged Courses program incorporating a community-learning component into classes each semester. This program provides a vital opportunity to teach students different ways in which community engagement can lead to the common good, beyond merely community service. They provoke reflection of personal responsibility and address intersectional issues through working directly with local groups or municipal governments.
For example, in the past, students in earth and oceanographic science classes have applied their in-class learning to studying nearby Maine environments, and environmental studies courses have collaborated with non-governmental organizations to make maps using geographical information systems (GIS).
This semester, there are eight such courses, but half of them are in the education department. This program should be expanded to include more courses and more departments.
However, our dedication to the common good should surpass our academic careers and the local Maine community. Fulfilling our responsibility to the common good means keeping it as a priority in our lives even as we leave Bowdoin. This means factoring it into our career choices, what we choose to do with our income, how we spend our free time and our day-to-day decisions as citizens. If the College serves the common good, it has a responsibility to follow through with the ideals it promotes and help students transition from a common good defined at Bowdoin to one that is applicable to the greater world.
Learning about our individual roles and responsibilities within the greater communities we inhabit is critical to discovering how we as students can have an impact beyond Bowdoin. This means moving the message beyond the walls of the McKeen Center and into classrooms, dining halls and dorms—and then into our workplaces, homes and families.
This editorial represents the majority view of the Bowdoin Orient’s editorial board, which is comprised of Julian Andrews, Harry DiPrinzio, Jenny Ibsen, Meg Robbins and Joe Seibert.

Editorial

This piece represents the opinion of The Bowdoin Orient editorial board.

February 17, 2017

In an email on Monday, Dean of Student Affairs Tim Foster notified the campus of the formation of a working group focused on developing a policy for off-campus housing and improving upperclassmen housing options. The email included a demographic breakdown of students living off campus.

The data presented by Foster reveal inequity between students who live off campus and the student body as a whole. The numbers indicate that these students are more likely to be male, wealthy, white or a member of a varsity team. Of the students living off campus, only 28 percent receive financial aid, which is considerably lower than the 44.7 percent of the total student body that receives aid.

The College is right to be transparent about these statistics (and we encourage the same degree of transparency with respect to other spaces on campus, such as the College Houses and the athletic department). The data presented in Foster’s email confirm many of our suspicions about the skewed demographics of off-campus housing, and they highlight a need for a proactive off-campus housing policy that remedies the demographic imbalance among students living off campus.

As this group moves forward there are important dynamics it should be aware of.

An inclusive off-campus housing policy would ensure that students who receive financial aid have an equal opportunity to live off campus as those who do not. In most cases, the College factors the cost of living off-campus for students receiving financial aid into the total billed expenses meaning students who receive financial aid and live off campus don’t pay the college room fee. However, many students receiving financial aid are unaware of this policy and assume that living off campus is not a feasible option for them. Just as the College holds information sessions for students who want to study abroad, the College should hold information sessions for students who express interest in living off campus, where information about financial aid is transparent.

The off-campus lottery, as it was implemented this January, is biased towards accepting large groups. According to an email from Director of Housing Operations Lisa Rendall, a student who is accepted to live off campus will be able to “pull” the rest of their group into their house. This means that the larger a group, the more entries it effectively has in the pool. These large groups have the ability to create exclusive social spaces that dominate campus culture.

Finally a cap on off-campus housing has the potential to inadvertently cause off-campus rent to rise, perpetuating the bias of off-campus living toward wealthier students. If there is a constant demand for students to live off campus, coupled with the limited 200 available spots, it is possible that landlords will raise rent prices to match or exceed Bowdoin’s housing fee.

Moving forward, the College has to recognize that students will continue to live off campus. If Bowdoin intends to regulate the off-campus housing policies, it is the College’s responsibility to develop a policy that makes off-campus housing as accessible as possible to prevent further social divide.

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