It takes a campus

Editorial: Feedback loop

With less than three weeks left in the fall semester, the final push is upon us. And though we’ve known about many of these final assignments since the first day of classes, these last papers, exams and projects never fail to induce panic, culminating in December’s all-too-familiar—and almost always over- caffeinated—frenzied final sprint. What we produce in these last three weeks represents, in theory, a demonstration of a semester’s worth of lectures, readings and assignments—a synthesis of all we’ve learned. Yet we tend to dispatch these completed assignments into a void, abandoning them as we pack our bags for our long-awaited break.
Currently, there is no official policy for professors handing back graded finals and papers. And though some do offer students the option of turning in final work along with a self-addressed envelope, or encourage them to collect assignments at the start of the following semester, this is far from the norm. More often than not, the quality of our final work is reflected in the course grade alone; students rarely ask for—and thus miss out on—constructive feedback.
It would be disingenuous to suggest that grades are irrelevant, or that the hard work we do throughout the semester is reflective of pure intellectual zeal. Grades are powerful external motivators. But this reality does not negate the fact that learning for learning’s sake is folded into our work as well. We benefit from working on these assignments, and we owe it to ourselves to bring the process full circle.

Editorial: Liberate the arts

Earlier this month, the Bowdoin College Museum of Art received 320 pieces from the legendary collection of Dorothy Vogel, a donation that—in the words of Colby art museum curator Diana Tuite—“catapults [the Museum] into a whole other league.” A former librarian, Vogel collected almost 5,000 works of art with her late husband Herb, a postal clerk, gathering it in their rent-stabilized, one-bedroom apartment in New York City. Their donation marks a 33 percent increase in the museum’s contemporary art collection and adds work from modern and postmodern artists such as Richard Tuttle and Julian Schnabel. With this addition, the Vogels—long-time friends of Museum co-directors Anne and Frank Goodyear—have furthered the Museum’s developing reputation as an artistic heavyweight. Since the renovated art museum reopened in 2007, it has attracted record-breaking crowds and national attention with Edward Hopper, William Wegman and Maurice Prendergast exhibits.
Bowdoin’s art world is inarguably in the public eye, and with the September opening of the Robert H. and Blythe Bickel Edwards Center for Art and Dance, art has moved closer to the nucleus of student life. Apart from this academic building, the Ramp Gallery opened in Hawthorne-Longfellow Library last semester, creating a forum dedicated to student-curated and created art. Meanwhile, the Art Society’s inaugural interactive exhibit in Ladd House succeeded in turning traditionally social spaces into artistic venues. We applaud these efforts and want to see the trend continue. Why not put artwork in other high-traffic areas like the dining halls or classrooms? By largely confining art to the Museum, the Visual Arts Center and the Edwards Center, the College limits its exposure to people already engaged in Bowdoin’s artistic circles.
Some colleges have taken bold steps in their attempts to integrate visual art into student life. Oberlin College rents artwork to students and faculty, including pieces by Picasso and Dali, for $5 per semester. Bowdoin’s Museum has over 20,000 pieces in its collections, the vast majority of them in storage. It could consider rentals, not only to better take advantage of its incredible quantity of works, but also to expose students to their beauty. The benefit to students is obvious: an original Winslow Homer painting would make a nice alternative to an Animal House poster in your Coles Tower bedroom next year. Another option is designating a public space—like Pomona College’s Walker Wall—where students could create art. These sorts of public projects can be marred by crude expressions, but we believe that Bowdoin students would rise to the challenge. Art has the power to elevate both aesthetics and attitudes. In 2008, residents of Quinby House partnered with students from Professor Mark Wethli’s public art course to redecorate a basement room frequented by urinating revelers, according to a 2008 Orient article. Designed by Sara Griffin ’09 and Cami Osorno ’10, the “European Portrait Gallery” continues to be appreciated, not defaced. Transformations like this one remind us that we can remake our campus spaces and reimagine the ways in which we interact with art both in and outside of the Museum.

Editorial

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

December 6, 2013

Results from the Orient’s latest approval ratings survey indicate an 84 percent approval rating for Bowdoin Student Government (BSG), the highest first semester ratings in four years. BSG President Sarah Nelson ’14 also ranked highly this term, with 86 percent of respondents favoring her performance thus far.

This fall, BSG introduced two new programs: TurboVote, a service that helps students apply for absentee ballots, and PolarFlix, a free online film-streaming program. Some of the Executive Committee’s most ambitious campaign proposals from last spring have yet to be realized, and are pending administrative approval. Currently, BSG carries a proposal that would extend the deadline for Credit/D/Fail, and waits for the Recording Committee to take action. We applaud BSG for taking steps towards actualizing this key campaign issue and hope it will doggedly pursue the policy change. BSG has also continued the popular Food For Thought lecture series it began last spring, offering a platform for students to nominate their friends for short, informal talks on topics of their choice. The lectures have been well-attended and wide-ranging, from “Life Without Brakes: BMX and Extreme Sports Culture in Brooklyn” to “Story of My Life: An Inside Look at the One Direction Fangirl Phenomenon” this Monday.

The success of these lectures depends on student engagement, both from speakers and audience. This is true of most BSG initiatives—when they fall short, lukewarm student participation is often partly responsible. Its course review website, for example, is a valuable resource for selecting classes. BSG runs the website, but the utility of the database depends on students submitting up-to-date class reviews. Right now, only one member of the class of 2017 has written a review; just 83 reviews have been contributed from members of the sophomore class. We will all be filling out paper course evaluations for the Office of Academic Affairs during our final classes next week, and we encourage everyone to take a few extra minutes to submit their thoughts on the BSG site as well.

A few years ago, BSG briefly made syllabi for classes in some departments available online. This was a popular and much utilized service: when a selection of government course syllabi were released in November 2010, the BSG website drew over 300 views in less than a week. The scope of this program was contingent upon faculty agreeing to provide syllabi to BSG, and was impeded by the fact that few departments provided current information. BSG has let this program lapse, and we hope to see it reinvigorated in the future.

We applaud BSG for the work it has done so far this semester and we hope it will not back down from the more complex and long-term proposals that constituted its members’ campaign platforms.

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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