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Editorial: Help yourself

As the Orient reports this week, Counseling Services has seen a 40 percent increase in student visits over the past nine years. This figure does not indicate the rapid decline of our collective mental health—rather, it signifies the growing number of us who are willing to seek out and accept help when we most need it.
Roughly 27 percent of Bowdoin’s student population has utilized individual therapy, a figure that has led Counseling Services to place renewed emphasis on group options and preventative programming this year. This is, in part, a simple response to increased demand, but it also represents a conscious decision intended to prevent Counseling from ever having to turn students away. Ensuring that more intensive care remains an option for students in crisis—as well as those with complex, long-term diagnoses—is a laudable and important goal. This is not always the case at other schools where student counseling visits are capped at five or ten, regardless of the student’s level of distress.
The College’s dedication to preventative mental health programming extends beyond Counseling. Services like those provided by the Center for Learning and Teaching—which opened its Writing Project Workshop on Tuesday—can help students learn to manage academic stress and avoid becoming overwhelmed as workloads intensify.

Editorial: Clicking forward

By the time you read this, the online polls will be open for the 2014 and 2017 Class Council elections. With four qualified candidates in each presidential race, the competition will likely be close, and we encourage you to peruse the candidacy statements printed in our Opinion section before you cast your vote. But beyond the newsprint, check out our video Q&As with presidential candidates on bowdoinorient.com.
Including this video on the front page of our website marks a change in the Orient’s approach to web-based material. This week, we shuttered the Orient Express, our three-year experiment with blogging. We found that the multimedia pieces we ran on the blog complemented our regular print content, so we have consolidated everything onto our main website with the hopes of cultivating a general forum for news. Print is still the Orient’s primary focus, but we realize that much of the student body is plugged in seven days a week; we hope to reach you beyond the confines of the physical Friday paper.
But as we post online content more frequently, it is important to note that our web non-removal policy has not changed. Interviewees frequently ask to make their remarks anonymous or to preview quotes before articles are published, even on banal topics. The Orient’s policy states that anonymity will be granted only in situations when the paper would not otherwise be able to include reliable or pertinent information; previewing quotes prior to publication is allowed only in very unusual circumstances. Additionally, we hear regularly from alumni, students and former contributors who would like us to remove comments or quotes from articles online. Our policy is to decline these requests. The Orient is public record, and its content does not change to suit individual needs; this policy was created under the ethical premise that history will not be revised to fit private interests. It also safeguards against editorial staff making highly subjective decisions about which removal requests to grant.

Editorial

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

September 20, 2013

Readers of the Orient may have noticed that our Opinion section has long been dominated by writers with quite a bit in common. We are fortunate to work with talented contributors, but they tend to look the same on paper: white males between the ages of 18 and 22. We want our Opinion pages to reflect the diversity of perspectives, activities and personalities we see on campus. As your friends and classmates, we hear your complaints and opinions on countless topics and we encourage you to give yourself a wider audience than your roommates.

If the time commitment is all that’s preventing you from sharing your opinions, know that writing once does not lock you into a bi-weekly column; the section is always looking for one-off contributors. We’ve heard you ranting about hazing and health care. Now we’d like to see it in print.

The editorial represents the majority view of the Bowdoin Orient’s editorial board, which is comprised of Claire Aasen, Erica Berry, Nora Biette-Timmons, Marisa McGarry, Eliza Novick-Smith, Sam Miller and Sam Weyrauch.

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