Evan Bulman
Number of articles: 11First article: September 20, 2013
Latest article: May 2, 2014
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Art museum’s Richard Tuttle print exhibit to be first of its kind
“Richard Tuttle: A Print Retrospective,” will open at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art on June 28. Tuttle, who will attend the opening, is known for his minimalist drawings and textiles. His work is also currently featured at the Tate Modern in London and the Pace Gallery in New York City. The Bowdoin exhibit, though, is unique because it will focus solely on Tuttle’s print work.
The exhibition will feature one of Tuttle’s earliest prints titled “In Praise of Historical Determinism,” which is in the Bowdoin collection. It was acquired through an alumni group known as the Collectors’ Collaborative.
Other Bowdoin-owned works include 11 Tuttle drawings the College received recently from the Vogel Collection and seven Tuttle works given by the family of Eric Silverman ’85. They will be featured at the Museum alongside the print show, as part of a side exhibition.
Museum Co-Director Anne Goodyear and Museum Curator Joachim Homann said Bowdoin students will have the opportunity to engage directly with the works before the show closes on October 19. Both Tuttle and Director of the Tate Modern Museum Chris Dercon will be at the opening. Tuttle lives in Mount Desert, Maine part-time.
“I think [he] opens up the creative imagination and I think he encourages us to think freely and leave behind assumptions,” said Goodyear.
Students will get the opportunity to have an interactive experience with the exhibition during the fall semester, as it will be used for a variety of programs involving Bowdoin’s printmaking faculty and outside speakers.
Goodyear and Homann were also quick to share their enthusiasm for how well the show fits at Bowdoin. According to Homann, the intimacy and international exposure that Bowdoin can provide were part of the draw for Tuttle.
“He was looking for a place with a record of engaging with prints on a daily basis, and engaging students with prints. It just so happens that Bowdoin is the perfect fit in this regard,” said Homann.
While many students on campus have not yet heard of the Tuttle show, response upon learning about it was generally positive.
According to Homann, this exhibition diverges from the style of recent summer shows.“It’s going to be different from summer shows of the last three years that have made a statement about Maine or about New England, since it is non-representational,” said Homann.
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Housing lottery debuts new dorms at 52 Harpswell
Students filed into Daggett Lounge multiple times over the last week and a half for the annual housing lottery, hoping to secure prime campus housing options.
The lottery began on April 16 with the quints and quads lottery. During this round, popular rooms in Harpswell Apartments, Coles Tower and Chamberlain Hall were all up for grabs, as well as housing in Cleveland Apartments, Pine Street Apartments, Stowe Hall, and Stowe Inn.
Colin Swords ’15 confirmed that these housing options are among the most coveted on campus. “I think that there are a lot of people who would prefer to live in Chambo or Harpswell. I think that those are going to go quickest—as they always do—but it seems like the majority of our class wants the Tower,” said Swords.
Swords’ premonition proved true, with all three of those housing options going quickly Tuesday night. Despite the competition for rooms, however, most students still found the process fairly easy.
“Last year, I applied for a College House. That process was a lot more stressful and a lot more work was involved,” said Mary Bryan Barksdale ’15.
The reason for this ease may be the relative dependability of the system. This year’s housing lottery is being run almost exactly as it was last year. The only major addition, according to Associate Director of Housing Operations Lisa Rendall, is the new dorm at 52 Harpswell.
“I have heard a lot of chatter about 52 Harspwell. I’ve conducted two tours so that students could go in. We all wore hard hats because it’s a construction site, and we had close to 50 students who came through, of all class years,” said Rendall.
Ben Eisenberg ’17 said that location of 52 Harpswell was a big factor in his interest in the dorm. “It’s the new housing, it’s chem-free, and it’s kind of secluded,” Eisenberg said. “I think that the quiet location combined with the beauty of the garden would be a really great place to live.”
Many other students shared Eisenberg’s interest. Singles in the new dorm were the first variety of housing to fill up during the chem-free housing lottery during the triples and singles lottery on April 17. The remaining rooms in the building were filled shortly thereafter. Only Smith House, another popular chem-free living option on campus, filled faster.
The singles, triples, and doubles lotteries also went off without a hitch. Single rooms in Stowe Inn were the first to fill this year. Brunswick Apartments—a perennial favorite among students—were quickly chosen in the doubles and triples lotteries. Only Cleaveland Street Apartments triples filled more quickly than the two-room Brunswick triples this year.
As of press time, Residential Life reported that 148 students who plan on being on campus in the fall do not have on-campus housing. Though it is difficult to say what these students’ plans are, it seems likely that many of that number are living off-campus—a choice that some upperclassmen make.
“Generally, the housing is more spacious for a similar price to Bowdoin’s and I like the idea of having somewhere to go back to that feels a little bit like a home,” Eli Peirce ’15, a student who is living in off-campus housing said.
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College sees dip in students' digital pirating
Although illegal downloading was prevalent at Bowdoin as recently as 2008, Davis now only sees RIAA or MPAA alerts every few weeks.
Illegal downloading and sharing of music, videos and other media has decreased significantly on campus over the past few years, according to Chief Information Officer Mitch Davis.
As recently as 2008, illegal downloading was a considerably larger problem at Bowdoin. According to the September 19, 2008 Orient article “RIAA continues effort to end illegal downloads”, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) issued pre-litigation letters to 11 members of the Bowdoin community in spring 2007.
Even these numbers, however, do not indicate the extent of the problem at its height.“[I received] maybe 100 in a month, or 150, sometimes from one person. It was pretty bad, and I was walking around talking to various student groups,” said Davis.
When Davis receives a notification from the RIAA or Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), he tracks the IP address to a specific computer. The Office of the Dean of Student Affairs then issues a warning to the owner. If the problem persists, Dean of Student Affairs Tim Foster and Davis meet with the student. The most recent meeting of this sort took place last year.This year warnings have been rare—Davis said that he is now typically contacted only once every two or three weeks.
The College does not search its own network for violations, and Bowdoin waits for external notification from organizations like the RIAA or the MPAA before taking any action. Video and music content can now be easily and legally accessed thanks to the growth of online giants like Spotify, YouTube and Netflix. Davis said that affordable options like these might be helping to cut down student pirating.
“You know, Netflix used to be $25 or $30, now it’s $7 for an account. Most people can afford seven bucks if they want to. If not, their friend has it, and they have it on their laptop,” said Davis.The number of illegal downloading violations may have decreased since its height years ago, but pirating has certainly not been eradicated at Bowdoin. Some students said they believe there is a decent population of people that are still downloading.
“I believe that it’s definitely apparent. I would say that there is a good amount of audio torrenting,” said Danny Mejia ’17 . “I’m not sure people are doing big torrenting, and stuff you could really get in trouble with the law with, though you can get in trouble for anything.”
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Judicial Board accepts six new members
Four first years, one sophomore, one junior to join in 2014-2015 year
Six underclassmen will fill spots vacated by the five graduating seniors on the Judicial Board (J-Board) in the upcoming year. Tom Capone ’17, Natalie Kiley-Bergen ’17, Hunter Moeller ’17, Michael Pun ’17, Carolyn Veilleux ’16, and Alexandra Mathieu ’15 were selected out of an application pool of 50 students.
Assistant Dean of Student Affairs Lesley Levy announced the new members in an email on Monday, bringing the multi-week Judicial Board application process to a close. According to Judicial Board Chair Chelsea Shaffer ’14, every student offered a position for next year accepted.
The incoming members’ motivations for applying to the positions varied. Mathieu, for example, was inspired by her experience abroad in Japan, a country that introduced trial by jury in 2009.
“After learning and coming face to face with a system that didn’t have a jury like organization to listen and to be more sympathetic to those being tried, it made me realize that I very much value that,” said Mathieu. “Since to me that’s what J-Board is, that link between the people and administration, I wanted to very much be a part of that.”
The new members bring the J-Boards total membership for the 2014-2015 academic year up to 13. The board is traditionally composed of approximately 12 members and selects new members based on merit, not to reach a certain number.
“I think that we are really interested in making sure that the board is representative of the whole campus,” said Shaffer, “and there are a lot of athletes on campus, there are a lot of women on campus, there are different class years, so those are all things we take into consideration when we’re selecting people.”
Shaffer also noted that having more than 12 students can help alleviate the issue of members studying abroad, or members needing recusal from a particular case.
“We never want to be in a situation where we can’t hold a hearing because we don’t have enough members to sit on it,” said Shaffer.
According to Shaffer, new members will not sit for hearings this year or participate in the selection of the next year’s J-Board Chair. New members will train in May, and begin sitting on hearings. Both excitement and respect for the position are high among the new members.
“The pressure of upholding the Bowdoin standard and serving the Bowdoin community may be too much weight for one person, and that’s why we have a board,” said Capone.
“Recognizing that these are your peers, and that even though you see them in a hearing, you just have to be very sensitive to that. You’ll see them around on campus because Bowdoin is a small campus. So I think that’s something that I’m apprehensive about,” said Veilleux.
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Mills rolls out new post-grad advice workshops for seniors
On Monday night, roughly 70 seniors flocked to Kresge Auditorium to hear President Barry Mills give advice for their post-collegiate lives. Mills’ new four-installment series, called “Get Ready for Life After Bowdoin: A Crash Course on Practical Skills,” was created with the help of Robin Transgrud ’06.
In his column on the Bowdoin Daily Sun, Mills wrote that Transgrud assisted in the development of these workshops as she studied for the bar exam.
“You commonly hear young people say ‘I wish I knew this’ or ‘I wish I’d had more experience in understanding how to set my own budget or get my own apartment,’” said Mills in an interview with the Orient. “So, the idea is to supplement or add on to what we do here in an excellent way and get seniors ready for the next level.”
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College receives grant for hybrid electric car
Last month, the College added a 2013 Chevy Volt to its fleet, its first plug-in hybrid electric car. The Volt is the second electric vehicle on campus, but the first that can be used on roads. Both additions contribute to the College’s long-term goal to achieve a carbon-neutrality on campus.
The purchase was partially funded by a grant from Central Maine Power, an electric utility company. The grant was very competitive, and covered one half of the total cost of the vehicle, which cost about $30,000.
“One thing that was of benefit for our application was that we will be introducing the vehicle to a lot different users,” said Coordinator for a Sustainable Bowdoin Keisha Payson.
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Interactive: Hypnotist, broomball added for Winter Weekend 2014
Subzero temperatures and snow are in the forecast for the second year of the Winter Weekend revival effort coordinated by Bowdoin Student Government (BSG). Last year marked the first official Winter Weekend event since 2009, when a small-scale attempt was made to bring back the Bowdoin tradition that dated back to the 1920s. Only a few changes will be made to last year’s schedule.
Last year’s event—held in mid-February—was widely praised by students who seemed satisfied with the opportunity to relieve cabin fever and academic stress. Some found this release while pitted against their peers in a game of broomball, others while riding an elegant horse drawn carriage across the Quad. This year’s Winter Weekend comes a few weeks earlier in the academic calendar. BSG President Sarah Nelson attributed the scheduling change to the logistical ease of planning the events over winter break, as well as the many home sports games that were already on the athletic calendar.
John Hobbs ’15 said that he is looking forward to this coming weekend, though he heard about this year’s event only recently.
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Interactive: 'Mules are sterile:' A look at the 91-year rivalry between Bowdoin and Colby
“We see them in our sleep.”
This is how Ben Smith, Coach of the 1998 U.S. women’s hockey team, described the team’s Canadian rivals in an interview with the New York Times leading up to their Olympic matchup.
It’s fair to guess that some Bowdoin hockey players may spend tonight similarly fixated on an opponent from the North, though the rival in question is Colby, not Canada. Today the Polar Bears will defend the first of last year’s decisive victories over the Mules. The rivalry between the two teams is a classic grudge match, and this year’s games continue a long and storied tradition.
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Health services tightens grip prescribing stimulant drugs
With recreational prescription drug use increasing in recent years, Health and Counseling Services has streamlined diagnosis and prescription processes to ensure medicine is only given to, and used by, those who need it.
Recent policy changes ensure that students are prescribed medication only after thorough evaluation. This level of scrutiny is particularly necessary in light of the rise in recreational use of stimulants commonly prescribed for the treatment of ADD and ADHD. According to the Orient’s February 2013 drug use survey, 1.8% of students reported using study drugs without a prescription weekly or more, while 3.3% reported using them every month or two.
The College’s policy on prescribing medicine varies by drug. Painkillers, for example, are typically prescribed only for short periods. Students requiring long-term prescriptions for chronic pain would be referred to a specialist off-campus.
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Female athletes question nutritionist’s diet advice
This is the second installment of a new series on campus wellness.
At the start of the fall athletic season, Brunswick nutritionist Dr. John Bagnulo spoke with several of the female varsity sports teams. Bagnulo gave a presentation last spring on his health and wellness philosophy that prompted members of the women’s rugby team to invite him back for small sessions in September.
Consulting with a nutritionist is not unprecedented, and coaches routinely run sessions on diet with their teams or work with the school’s dietician. However, some female athletes expressed unahppiness over the percieved unfeasibility of Bagnulo’s presentation. He advocated a simplified diet, closer to what Paleolithic humans consumed, commonly referred to as the “Paleo Diet.”
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Counseling will no longer see patients weekly
This is the first installment of a new series on campus wellness.
Whether experiencing a crisis or feeling mild exam-week stress, Bowdoin students for years have relied upon the hard work of Counseling Services. This semester, however, brings a change for counseling at the College: According to an email from Director of Counseling Services Bernie Hershberger, students who are not in situations of “crisis or complicated mental health diagnoses” will no longer be able to receive weekly sessions with a counselor.
According to Hershberger, roughly 27 percent of Bowdoin’s student population currently utilizes Counseling Services.