The Bowdoin Orient

The College has cancelled all classes for tomorrow, February 13 due to the winter storm that is bringing strong winds and up to two feet of snow to Brunswick and the midcoast region tonight and tomorrow. This is the first time Bowdoin has cancelled classes for weather-related reasons in nearly 10 years. 

In April 2007, an unexpected wintry mix left campus covered in snow and without power for almost seven hours. The day of this storm, April 5, was the College's first official snow day since the 1970s, according to an Orient article published after the blast. 

Tomorrow, dining halls may be short-staffed and open for fewer hours than usual. Libraries will remain closed until the afternoon and campus services will also be impacted. Only "essential personnel" are being asked to staff the College's operations tomorrow, according to a weather emergency posted to the Bowdoin website. Updates about dining will be posted to the Dining Service website. 

Scott Hood, senior vice president for communications and public affairs, said the decision to cancel classes stemmed from concerns about losing power on campus.

"The current forecast for heavy snow and high wind is a recipe for power outages and unsafe conditions," Hood wrote in an email to the Orient. "The decision to cancel classes is based on this forecast, and speaks to our responsibility to do what we can to ensure safety for members of our community."

A winter storm warning is in effect until 7 p.m. tomorrow for Brunswick. As of press time, the expected snow accumulation is 16 to 24 inches and winds are expected to hit "20 to 30 mph with gusts up to 50 mph," according to a National Weather Service alert posted this afternoon.

The announcement to cancel classes was made through a weather emergency posted to the College's website and later emailed to all students by Dean of Student Affairs Tim Foster. 

The 2015-2016 Judicial Board Report to the Community revealed 22 Academic Honor Code violations—a notable increase from previous years—and included the largest number of related cases in over 17 years. Eleven students were accused of academic dishonesty in the same course over two semesters and across multiple sections of the class. 

According to a student involved in the cases, the course that brought forward the violations was Introduction to Computer Science. Last year, sections of the course were taught by Professor of Computer Science Eric Chown, Assistant Professor of Computer Science Sean Barker, Visiting Associate Professor of Computer Science Clare Bates Congdon and Visiting Assistant Professor of Computer Science Allen Harper. The Dean’s Office declined to comment on which professor served as the complainant and which department brought the charges forward.

All 11 students in the related computer science cases were charged with “giving, receiving or using unauthorized assistance on quizzes, tests, written assignments, examinations or laboratory assignments.” Some of the students were also charged with “submission of work not a student’s own original effort.” The cases did not all involve the same assignment. According to Associate Dean for Upperclass Students and Judicial Board Advisor Lesley Levy, five students were accused of giving unauthorized assistance and five were accused of receiving unauthorized assistance. Additionally, one student was charged with both. 

All but one of the students charged were eventually found responsible. Sanctions from the Judicial Board (J-Board) included combinations of judicial reprimands, community service, reduction of course grades and one and two semester suspensions. Longer suspensions were suggested in cases involving dishonesty or deception in the J-Board process.

Five students involved in the related cases appealed their sanctions with the Student Appeals and Grievances Committee. All appeals were denied. Additionally, one student’s sanctions were changed from a one-year suspension to indefinite suspension without guarantee of readmission after that student was found to have purposely falsified information to the J-Board and the Student Appeals and Grievances Committee.

Assignments are often checked by a software program called MOSS (Measure of Software Similarity). It flags submissions if they appear similar to other entries in the system, and is routinely used in the computer science department, but its results are not treated as absolutes.

“You would never have a process where you would simply rely on a degree of similarity output that would say, ‘Oh there’s an 82 percent or a 96 percent or a 25 percent degree of similarity here,’” Dean of Student Affairs Tim Foster said. “You have a process that allows you to carefully examine that, that’s before it would even come to us. The first thing you would hope would happen with [MOSS] or any number of these other products is that a faculty member will put his or her eyes on these work products to then say, ‘OK, what’s the degree of similarity here. Is it appropriate or not?’”

The College does not mandate the use of MOSS or other plagiarism-detection software, instead leaving the decision to use such methods up to individual departments and faculty members. 

The computer science department generally considers verbal collaboration acceptable, but does not allow written or electronic work to be shared. 

In its annual report, the J-Board also listed two allegations of social code violations, both stemming from a verbal and physical altercation. Both students were found responsible and were issued judicial reprimands. 

Additionally, the Sexual Misconduct Board noted five instances of sexual misconduct violations reported to Title IX Coordinator Benje Douglas. In three of these cases, the complainant chose to move forward with an informal resolution. In one, the respondent resigned from the college during the investigation process. In another, the investigator found insufficient evidence to find the respondent responsible for the charges. 

J-Board hearings regarding academic violations are heard by a committee of three students and two professors. Cases involving social code violations are heard by five students.

“The board is meant to be a committee of peers of not only students but also of, in academic cases, the professors who bring the cases before the board,” said Judicial Board Chair Mike Pun. “[In] social cases, there isn’t really a professor involved and the students’ perspective is really valued a lot more. The professors don’t know what it’s like to be a student … whereas for an academic case we really want students to be able to serve as peers for the respondent and the possible witnesses involved, but we also want professors to be able to serve as peers to other professors.”

Foster said he is not concerned that the increase in academic honor violations this year represents a larger trend.

“I will be surprised if based on what happens this past year we see some new normal with an increase in the number of cases. I think this will probably lead people to be much more mindful of the work that they’re submitting,” he said. 

Editor's note, Friday, October 14, 11:05 am: This article has been updated to correct a misstatement about the original sanction given to the student involved in the computer science case who appealed their suspension and subsequently had their suspension increased. The original sanction was a one year , not one semester. 

InterVarsity Christian Fellowship USA, the national evangelical campus ministry that has been associated with the Christian Fellowship at Bowdoin for over 40 years, announced that it is beginning the process of dismissing any staffers who disagree with its views about sexuality, which consider any sexual activity outside of a heterosexual marriage to be immoral. An email InterVarsity sent in July asked staff members who disagree with this position to identify themselves and conclude work with the ministry starting on Nov. 11, according to an October 6 article in Time. 

Rob Gregory and his wife Sim, the InterVarsity advisors to the Christian Fellowship at Bowdoin—which has not been officially recognized by the College since 2014—received the email in July. Ben and Malina Pascut, who also work with Bowdoin students in the fellowship and serve as InterVarsity volunteers, did not receive the email. Ben Pascut is a research fellow at the Joseph and Alice McKeen Study Center, a nonprofit foundation created to house the Christian Fellowship at Bowdoin after it moved off campus. Neither the Gregorys nor the Pascuts plan to leave InterVarsity in light of its announcement. 

InterVarsity has chapters on 667 college campuses, including each NESCAC school—though not all are officially recognized by the colleges—and employs over 1,300 staff members. Since the announcement in July, an InterVarsity Vice President and Director of Campus Engagement Greg Jao said that five or six people (from campus ministries and national offices) have opted to conclude work with the organization. 

“We expect our staff to affirm what our core beliefs are and to teach those safely,” said Jao in a phone call to the Orient. “If they disagree, we’re trusting that people will let that disagreement be known in part because we expect people who disagree wouldn’t want to be expected to teach something they disagree with and to self identify and conclude employment.”

Rob Gregory said InterVarsity’s decision will not affect how the Christian Fellowship at Bowdoin operates off campus. 

“It has no bearing on the service we provide to the campus, which is opening the doors of our study center for students to come to read the scriptures, to ask questions about the order of God [and] the plan of salvation,” Rob Gregory said in a phone call to the Orient. “We’re open to all the students to come and investigate.”

Juniors Amanda Perkins and Sam Swain, two of the co-leaders of the Christian Fellowship at Bowdoin, echoed this sentiment.

“I don’t think [InterVarsity’s decision] affects the way we do anything,” Perkins said. “It’s consistent with maybe our history, but it’s old news.”

The Christian Fellowship at Bowdoin has been connected with InterVarsity since the group first formed on campus in 1974. The group’s affiliation with InterVarsity and the beliefs it espouses has caused tension with the College in the past, most recently in 2014, when the Gregorys refused to sign the College’s Volunteer Agreement after stating that signing a non-discrimination policy would violate their scriptural interpretations of sexuality. The group then lost its official recognition by the College, moved off campus and founded the Joseph and Alice McKeen Study Center at 65 Harpswell Road. 

Despite this, Rob Gregory said that there has never been a point at which the group considered disassociating itself from InterVarsity or switching affiliations, mainly because InterVarsity is committed to scriptural study, unlike other campus ministries that emphasize discipleship or evangelism.

“We’ve tried very hard to maintain that relationship with InterVarsity and Bowdoin and plan to continue to do so,” he said.

“The reason we are committed to the biblical text is because it is there that we discover that the world is an ordered place, and God speaks through the prophetic word of the Old and New Testament about His order for life for us as creatures who owe our lives to the Creator,” Rob Gregory added in an email to the Orient. 

Perkins spoke to the importance of being connected to a national organization. 

“It’s really important to have contact with other Christians,” she said. “Christianity is not a local—it is a local thing in some ways, but it’s also a really big thing that you’re connected to lots of people.”

Perkins said that the most visible impact InterVarsity has on student members of the Christian Fellowship at Bowdoin is organizing retreats.

The group holds weekly bible study sessions on Wednesdays during which they read several pages of scripture and pray in accordance with the materials studied. Members gather for morning prayer during the week and on Saturdays and Ben Pascut also teaches a class on the Gospel of John. 

Professor of Mathematics Emeritus Charles A. Grobe Jr. died after a long illness on September 29. He was 81 years old. 

Grobe taught at Bowdoin for 35 years. In an email to the Bowdoin community last Monday, President Clayton Rose wrote that “his former students and colleagues carry with them fond memories of his sharp, dry wit and never-failing good humor.”

Grobe began teaching at Bowdoin in in 1964, after earning his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. In 1968, Elizabeth (Betsy) Mendell, his wife, also joined Bowdoin’s faculty, becoming the first woman to have a faculty appointment at Bowdoin.

“He was a family man,” said Isaac Henry Wing Professor of Mathematics William H. Barker. “He was just devoted to his two sons and his wife.”

Grobe gained a reputation for impressive blackboard lectures. 

“He was very precise,” said Barker. “He would write very carefully and it was beautiful.”

Outside of teaching, Grobe had a passion for photography. On the cover of the 1974-1975 Bowdoin course catalogue is an orange and red photo Grobe took of a boat at sunset at Five Islands in Georgetown, Maine.

It was the only course catalogue cover in Bowdoin’s history to feature a photo that is not of a building on campus. Very few covers have photos at all, most simply featuring text and the College insignia. 

“He was always very proud of that photo,” said Barker. “It is a lovely shot.”

Beyond mathematics and photography, both Barker and Rose remarked on Grobe’s incredible character. 

“When he was ill, he showed true, really incredible courage,” Barker said. 

“He was a remarkable member of the Bowdoin community and a remarkable teacher and scholar and a remarkable partner with his wife,” said Rose. 

Ashmead White Director of Athletics Tim Ryan and Senior Vice President for Development and Alumni Relations Scott Meiklejohn informed all former student-athletes via email last week that their name and current mailing address were given to the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) as per its request in connection with a proposed class action settlement related to concussions. The College also shared the contact details of current student athletes, according to the email.

The NCAA Student-Athlete Concussion Injury Litigation website, which Ryan and Meiklejohn linked to in their email, states that if the settlement is approved on May 5, it would entitle all current and former student-athletes—at Bowdoin and all other NCAA member institutions—to medical monitoring that would screen for concussions and “assess symptoms related to persistent post-concussion syndrome, as well as cognitive, mood, behavioral and motor problems that may be associated with mid-to late-life onset diseases resulting from concussions and/or subconcussive hits.”

The NCAA will allocate $70 million to this medical monitoring program if the settlement is approved. In addition, it will allocate $5 million to concussion research. Medical monitoring will extend fifty years after the date the settlement takes effect.

Although the hearing is not scheduled until May, the NCAA has requested all athlete contact information. Comments in support of the settlement or requests for exclusion must be filed by March 10, 2017.

Former NCAA football and soccer players were the ones to originally file the lawsuits against the NCAA.

The athletes claimed that the NCAA was “negligent and had breached its duty to protect all current and former student-athletes by failing to adopt appropriate rules regarding concussions and/or manage the risks from concussions,” according to the litigation website.

Although settlement talks were initiated over two years ago, Thursday’s email to alums marks the first time the College has reached out to the Polar Bear community regarding the settlement.

Before this notification, many current and former athletes may not have been aware of their inclusion or their eligibility for concussion-related medical expense reimbursement. However, Bowdoin’s insurance policies cover the costs of all injuries that occur while a student is a member of a varsity athletic team, according to Ryan.

Despite going forward with the settlement, the NCAA does not believe it acted inappropriately in dealing with the student-athlete cases that brought about the class-action suit.

“The NCAA denies all allegations of wrongdoing and liability and believes that its conduct was lawful. The NCAA, however, is settling to avoid the substantial cost, inconvenience and disruption of litigation,” according to the website.

As part of the settlement, NCAA also proposes to adopt five new concussion management policies for its member institutions: baseline testing, no same day return to play, medical personnel with training in the diagnosis to be present at games and available at practices, a reporting mechanism for diagnosed concussions and required NCAA-approved concussion training and education for athletes and athletic staff.

However, Bowdoin already has the proposed policies in place for its own athletic programs so, if approved, the settlement is not likely to make substantial changes to the College’s policies.

“We don’t have a policy change because we were already doing what they’re proposing,” said Director of Athletic Training Dan Davies. “So that’s the good news for us and the good news for our student-athletes, that we were taking the proactive route five, six seven years ago rather than what people are falling behind in trying to catch up with.”

For baseline testing, every varsity athlete at the College has to complete imPACT testing, the King-Devick Test, Sport Concussion Assessment Tool (SCAT) test and, new as of this year, the Sway test.

Davies said that in the fourteen years he’s been at Bowdoin, Athletics has never allowed someone suspected to have a concussion back into play. This year, the Bowdoin Concussion Assessment, Management and Return to Play Guidelines were also updated to increase the time that a player is required to take off from a sport after sustaining a concussion.

Ryan said it is standard practice for medical personnel trained in recognizing and treating concussions to be on hand at games and practices for contact sports.

Regarding the College’s efforts to provide education on concussions, Ryan said the athletic department meets with the dean’s office and has spoken about concussions and academic accommodations for recovering students at faculty meetings and open lunches, most recently last spring.

Although the NCAA class action settlement proposes a new reporting mechanism, Bowdoin has already been tracking this data through a NESCAC initiative.

As the only conference in the nation to participate in conference-wide concussion monitoring, the NESCAC is ahead of the curve with concussion awareness. The system that collects this data, known as the Head Injury Tracking (HIT) Project, was made available to NESCAC schools two years ago and expanded to all Maine high schools in August 2015.

“[Bowdoin has] been doing it all so [the NCAA is] catching up to us rather than us catching up to them,” said Davies. “We’re fortunate in that we feel like we have great policies in place to help support our students and those are in line with the guidelines that the NCAA has put in place.”

“In college concussions, we’re looking for information about each student’s mechanism of concussion injury, pertinent medical history (date of last menstrual period and history of concussion, depression/anxiety, migraines, ADD/ADHD) and how severe symptoms are near the time of injury,” wrote HIT Project Administrator Hannah Willihan in an email to the Orient. “We then analyze how long it takes to return to full academics and athletics to look for correlations. The million dollar question becomes ‘are there circumstances that can predict shorter or longer recovery from concussion?’”

Despite being proactive with concussion management and reporting strategies, Bowdoin’s reported concussion numbers have remained fairly static over the past five years, never varying by more than five from year to year since 2011. Last year, there were 62 concussions for players on 14 athletic teams according to Ryan.

Since convocation ushered in a new academic year at Bowdoin last Tuesday, three students have been transported to Mid Coast Hospital due to risk of alcohol poisoning. This marks the first time since 2012 that any Bowdoin student has been transported during the first week of school.

The first transport took place on August 30, when a female member of the Class of 2019 was transported from an off-campus residence on School Street. The following two occurred during the College House crawl, the second registered campus-wide event of the year, with one student transported on September 1 from Burnett House and another in the early hours of September 2 from West Hall. Both of these students were first years.

According to Director of Safety and Security Randy Nichols and Captain Mark Waltz of the Brunswick Police Department (BPD), hard alcohol was involved in the two transports of first years. It is unclear whether hard alcohol was involved in the third incident.

After a semester with the lowest-ever number of transports in Dean of Student Affairs Tim Foster’s 20-year tenure at the College, this figure troubled but did not entirely surprise Nichols, Foster and Waltz.

“I certainly anticipated we could have a problem this weekend,” said Nichols. “We’ve got 500 new students running around College Houses. Things are going to happen.”

Foster referred to the first few weeks of the academic year as the “Red Zone,” a period during which the possibility for alcohol misuse and sexual assault is the greatest.

“A lot of people [are] coming to campus who are experimenting with certain things,” said Foster. “Suddenly they have freedom now that they didn’t necessarily have before.”

Director of Residential Life (ResLife) and Associate Dean of Student Affairs Meadow Davis said she did not feel that the College Houses were promoting unsafe drinking.

“I was really impressed with the message that the College Houses sent to their first years,” Davis said. “I don’t think there was anything that they sent that made people feel like you have to be incapacitated to come to these places.”

While three transports is a high number for the first week, Davis expressed hope that students can make better choices in the future.

“My hope would be that people see the College Houses, as well as all of the social environments at Bowdoin, not as places that they are drinking a lot before, but as places where they are getting to know people and are doing that in a not dangerous way or incapacitated state,” she said.

Historically, Bowdoin’s transport numbers have been low compared to other NESCAC schools.

“We have on an absolute basis the fewest number of transports, and on a per-student basis the smallest percentage of transports,” Foster said.

Davis praised students’ attentiveness to each other’s well-being while at events involving alcohol.

“One of my big takeaways is that from everything I have heard students did a really great job of looking out for students, recognizing when someone really needed support and help and reaching out to security,” she said.

Waltz said that no students were cited by BPD following the off-campus transport. However, Nichols warned that students should be cautious when hosting and attending off-campus parties.

We are not permitted to be a first responder to an off-campus house because we don’t own the house,” Nichols said. “That’s private property, and so College policy prohibits us from being first responders. However, we have a very good relationship with the Brunswick Police Department and they normally call Security whenever they respond to an off-campus house inhabited by Bowdoin students, because we can be a resource for [the students].”

Nichols, Foster and Davis said that despite the high transport figures for the first week in comparison to the previous five years, the events won’t lead to a crackdown or changes in campus alcohol policy. Security, Student Affairs and ResLife will follow the same procedures and encourage the same behavior as they have in the past.

“My hope and belief is that—given where we’ve been the last number of years—this will be an aberration, but we’ll see,” Foster said. “We’re going to continue to do the many, many things that we have done that have served us well.”

Waltz likewise said that the week’s three transports will not change how BPD interacts with the College.

As events like Epicuria—the annual toga party thrown by the men’s rugby team that has historically been associated with a high number of transports—approach, Nichols advised students to make good decisions and watch out for each other.

“Your safety and well-being is largely determined by the choices you make and the friends that you take,” he said. “The safest and smartest thing any student can do when they go out at night is to have a good friend with you.”

Bowdoin Student Government (BSG) general election results were released tonight by BSG President Danny Mejia-Cruz '16 and Vice President for BSG Affairs Michelle Kruk '16 in an email to the Orient.  

PresidentHarriet Fisher ’17: 668—WINNERJustin J. Pearson ’17: 575

Vice President for Student Government AffairsReed Fernandez ’17: 663—WINNERJacob Russell ’17: 578

Vice President for Student AffairsMaurice Asare ’19: 284Jodi Kraushar ’17: 461Benjamin Painter ’19: 496—WINNER

Vice President for Academic AffairsJack Arnholz ’19: 565Evelyn Sanchez Gonzalez ’17: 676—WINNER

Vice President for Student OrganizationsArindam Jurakhan ’17: 474Kelsey Scarlett ’17: 767—WINNER

Vice President for the TreasuryIrfan Alam ’18: 843—WINNERDave Berlin ’19: 398

Vice President for Facilities and SustainabilityCarlie Rutan ’19: 1,241—WINNER

Baauer will be the headlining performer for Ivies, the Bowdoin Entertainment Board (eBoard) announced this morning. Baauer, DJ and producer best known for “Harlem Shake,” is replacing eBoard’s original selection, MØ, who cancelled her Bowdoin performance and several other concerts in the Northeast at the end of March. 

The concert will take place on Saturday, April 30.

In addition to "Harlem Shake," which went double platinum in the U.S., finishing at number four on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2013 and inspiring a series of viral videos that garnered millions of views, Baauer has worked with popular artists such as Jay-Z, M.I.A., AlunaGeorge, Diplo and Just Blaze, who he toured with in 2013. He has also produced remixes for Nero, Flosstradamus and Disclosure, among others. 

Waka Flocka Flame remains booked for Ivies and will perform on Thurday, April 28. 

Admissions decisions for the Class of 2020 were released on March 18, with the College’s admit rate hitting a record low. The Admissions Office sent out 687 acceptance letters, admitting 14.3 percent of total applicants—down 0.2 percentage points from the previous record low for the Class of 2017 and down 0.6 percentage points from last year’s rate.

According to Dean of Admissions Scott Meiklejohn, slightly more than half the places in the Class of 2020 were filled via early decision acceptances, QuestBridge (a program for low-income students) and students returning from gap years. Eighteen students in the Class of 2020 deferred for a year, a much larger number than normal.

Although competition for spots in the class was especially intense, the College did not see a record high number of applicants. The Admissions Office relies on its admissions yield model to deliver a class of around 500 students each year, and anticipates slightly lower yield than usual this year.

“We predict [yield] within a decent range, but I just feel like it’s going to be off a tick,” said Meiklejohn. “We’ve been expecting each year for the last couple of years to use the waitlist and maybe this will be the year.”

Meiklejohn says that he does not believe the “tequila” party and subsequent media coverage had a significant effect on applications and does not anticipate it strongly impacting yield this year.

“Some of the students who were here in the fall for the Explore Bowdoin programs have been in touch with us about what they saw... and some of those people have written really good and positive messages about their decision to apply, having been on campus when those events have happened. So I don’t have too much to report yet,” he said.

Additionally, in February, admissions launched a new online tour feature on its homepage. Meiklejohn hopes the improved digital tour will allow applicants who are unable to visit in person to better explore the campus.

“We made a pretty significant investment in replacing what was a really weak online tour,” he said. “We have a much more dynamic online tour now with still photography, 360s, videos, narration.”

This year’s Bowdoin Student Government (BSG) general election, which concluded on Monday morning after problems with the polling website caused two voting deadline extensions, has raised questions about whether it is time for updates to the system and the rules that govern elections.

Danny Mejia-Cruz ’16 was elected BSG president. The six vice presidents will be Michelle Kruk ’16, Luke von Maur ’16, Andrew Millar ’16, Wylie Mao ’18, David Levine ’16 and Kevin Hernandez ’18.  

The polls opened at 8 a.m. last Friday and were intended to close at 8 p.m. on Sunday. On Sunday around 7 p.m., Vice President for BSG Affairs Charlotte McLaughry, who oversees all elections, sent an email to all students reminding them that there was one hour left. This email led to a spike in voter engagement in the final hour, which turned problematic as the 14-year-old polling website was not equipped to handle the heavy traffic.

“Votes flooded in and the system crashed,” said BSG President Chris Breen ’15. “We tried to get a hold of [Information Technology], but it’s a Sunday night—they’re not around.”

In response, the BSG Executive Committee extended the voting deadline to 10 p.m. After another issue with the polling website, the executive committee decided to close the election at noon on Monday. 

“We just figured it’d be better off to have people be able to vote and have a more representative sample size rather than undersell,” Breen said.

BSG bylaws state that elections must last for at least 24 hours, but contain no stipulation about a maximum time for polls to be open. The extended election deadline resulted in a record-breaking voter turnout of 68 percent of the student body. 

Justin Pearson ’17, one of the presidential candidates, said that although he understood why the executive committee extended the deadline and was happy about the increased turnout, it still made for an unrestful night. 

“By the time the deadline had come, there’s sort of a relief that it was over and you’ll know soon enough what the results were,” said Pearson. “And so for it to be not over definitely carried a weight into Monday as a whole and so I think that was an added burden going into the week, but hopefully it will be the last time candidates have to [feel like that].”

Information Technology (IT), which built the polling website, was aware that the voting system was old and in need of updates, but did not anticipate the crashes.

“It’s run well for 13 years,” said Chief Information Officer Mitch Davis. “It kind of went off the radar. We didn’t pay much attention to it—it does what it’s supposed to do.” 

In response to the malfunctions that occurred during this election, Davis said he plans to meet with BSG to design a new app-based polling system.

Dissemination of vote margins

While the polls crashed, another issue began to take shape. Two of the three presidential candidates said that they were notified of the vote totals on Sunday evening before the race was over. 

Both of the frontrunners of the presidential race, Robo Tavel ’16 and Mejia-Cruz, stated that they had been informed of the numerical margin of the race before the polls closed. Pearson said that he was not given this information. 

“I didn’t find out until we got the email about who had won,” Pearson said. “Right now, the way we have it set up as I understand it, no one is told that information.”

It is unclear whether candidates running for other positions on the BSG Executive Committee were informed of vote counts or margins before the polls closed. 

Although BSG bylaws do not state whether vote counts or margins can be shared while the election is still taking place, Tavel said he found it unusual. 

“It seemed unusual in that I was not expecting to get any information, but I had no idea what the other candidates were aware of,” he said. “It was just sort of out of the blue right before the election ended and then the polls happened to crash, so it got a little hectic, but it was not information that I asked for or wanted, really.”

Director of Student Activities Nate Hintze said that he had heard rumors of margins being shared with candidates, but did not know about this until after the election was over. He said he is unsure of what actually happened. 

“I do know that people make things up in order to get people to vote for them or put that pressure out there, so I don’t know how much is truth and how much is just kind of campus lore,” he said.

According to Breen, the only two people who had access to vote counts while the polls were still open were Breen and McLaughry.

“What they’ll see is that same ballot with the numbers next to the names,” said Director of Systems Infrastructure Adam Lord, who built the polling system along with another member of IT 14 years ago. 

McLaughry said in an email to the Orient that no BSG policy exists to prohibit or require the release of results before the polls close. 

Former BSG Vice President for Academic Affairs Jordan Goldberg ’14 said that the practice of sharing vote margins was not uncommon during his time on the BSG. He noted, however, that individuals directly involved in the election were usually not given this information.

“I definitely recall a lot of whispering and hushed excitement among the BSG nerds,” said Goldberg. “I distinctly remember a past BSG president whispering to me the exact numbers at one point but I was not involved in the election. But I have not heard of a candidate being told an explicit number. I’ve heard of people being told if it is a very close margin.”

Speaking to the issue of sharing numbers with some candidates and not others, Goldberg said, “I don’t know what the margins were, but regardless, that sets a bad precedent. I don’t really think you can be giving people that information at the exclusion of someone else involved in the race who could ostensibly benefit from that information.”

This has prompted discussion among candidates and members of BSG over whether a new policy about sharing vote counts or margins should be added to the BSG bylaws. 

“I think it was an honest mistake, and it was not to my detriment,” said Tavel. “I was not harmed by what was out there, but in the future I think that it’s important that that information is kept under wraps until the polls close.”

Goldberg said he would like to see a rule that established some consistency, whether it meant full disclosure for candidates or not. 

 “I think it would be a good rule to either not tell candidates voting numbers or all candidates must be apprised of voting numbers,” he said.

Campaign spending limits    At its November 12 meeting, BSG voted nearly unanimously to create a bylaw that limits campaign spending at the Copy Center to $12 per candidate. The bylaw also prohibits candidates from spending additional money out-of-pocket.

However, BSG and Student Activities were unprepared to regulate the new allotments. The candidates purchase the advertising material for their campaigns using a BSG project code, rather than their personal identification numbers. 

“With a project code, they don’t break it down by individual printing jobs,” said Hintze. “At the end of the month, we just get a lumped sum from the printing center that just says ‘Over the course of the month, you spent $100.’ That also includes posters that the BSG will print as well as some student club printing... It’s really going to be hard to break that down into a way that people actually have a clear picture of if there was fraud of some sort.”

This year for the first time in recent history, two candidates—one for BSG president (Mejia-Cruz) and one for vice president for BSG affairs (Emily Serwer ’16)—decided to campaign together. According to Mejia-Cruz, the candidates combined their printing allotments, allowing them to print twice the number of posters as opponents who ran alone. 

“If someone’s spending $24 it doesn’t sound like a lot, but it’s 120 posters as opposed to 60, which can make a big difference, especially in the general election,” said Riley O’Connell ’18, who ran for vice president for BSG affairs. 

Some voiced scepticism over whether posters make or break an election. 

“I tend to think, whatever,” said Goldberg. “I can’t imagine it would affect the results that much—the Union and the dining hall are pretty habitually plastered by each candidate regardless.”

“I think the future BSG is going to have to look at how funding is allocated because historically it’s not really common for candidates to run on a ticket, and that’s not to say it’s against the rules, but it offers candidates a way to increase their budget,” said Tavel. “I think we’ll see a lot more of that in the future unless BSG addresses that fact.”

Hintze emphasized how hard it is to come up with official rules that address every possible loophole. 

“As soon as you say, ‘you can’t do this,’ then somebody might think, ‘oh, well I can do this and so I can’t do this,’ and eventually you’ll have a rulebook that’s a full encyclopedia of everything that you can and cannot do,” he said. “If someone was paying people for votes, I think that would be more egregious than if somebody may have printed a couple more posters than maybe they should have. But...if there is an issue, I would advise the student government to look at it as a whole and [whether] it is something that would have really changed the election one way or another.”

Goldberg echoed that sentiment.

“Not that BSG is always doing the most pressing things, but there are probably better things to worry about than bylaws and elections,” he said. 

Breen said that BSG is committed to ensuring that all elections are run fairly.

“We try to run the elections as fairly as possible,” he said. “It’s not a perfect system by any means, but it’s the system that’s in place and if they want to make any adjustments in the future, we welcome them to do that, and we’re always supporting better ways to create fair and better elections. Hopefully that starts with not having the system break down because of the flood of votes or the Internet.”

—Garrett Casey and Nicole Wetsman contributed to this report.

A working group consisting of 15 students and four administrators has been formed to help foster “interaction, collaboration and learning” among community members of different races, ethnicities, sexualities and economic circumstances. Dean for Student Affairs Tim Foster announced in a campus-wide email on Monday that the group will meet with department heads within the Division of Student Affairs to both hear about their existing initiatives to create a more inclusive community and give suggestions for improvement.

“The work we do together will help inform a strategic plan for our entire division,” Foster wrote in Monday’s email.

This is the first-ever working group the College has created on this topic. Though various working groups have been instituted at Bowdoin over the years, the last group that served a similar purpose at College was the presidential task force on minority admissions created when Robert Edwards was president 15 years ago, according to Foster.

The new working group was formed as a response to recent events in the nation and on campus, including February’s Meeting in the Union which addressed the intersections of various social justice issues. The Meeting, which culminated with the delivery of a call to action to President Mills, will provide inspiration for members of the working group as they look to produce specific changes at the College. 

“I think we’re actually doing something about [the call to action] now—we’re going to engage with these people and try and start the conversation that should have happened a while ago,” said Briana Cardwell ’17, a member of the working group.  

The group will gather several times this semester, beginning on April 10. Meetings will continue through the fall semester of the 2015-2016 academic year.

Foster hopes that the group will help envision ways to develop students’ and faculty members’ “multicultural competency.”

Student members are excited to begin working with the administration in this formal setting.

“I think if we could reflect on all the programs that we have now and certain ways in which we can improve upon them by the next cycle—whether that’s by the next year or the year after, that [would make me happy],” said Julian Tamayo ’16. “Seeing tangible results is something that I’m really interested in and I have high hopes that that will happen. I think that this group is framed in a way that will have that as its main purpose.”

Lan Crofton ’18, another member of the working group, stressed that the conversations they will be having with student affairs department heads are not meant to be accusatory.

“It’s nothing that’s supposed to make them angry or anything like that—it’s not supposed to say, ‘This is what you’re doing, this is what you’re not doing.’ It’s really just taking what’s here and trying to make it better,” she said.

Several members of the working group said that what they think will be most helpful is using existing resources on campus to bring more people into conversations about race, gender, sexuality, socioeconomic status and other social justice topics.

“I think that may be our biggest problem—who actually comes to those conversations that are really powerful,” said Cardwell. “It’s not the people who don’t know about the stuff already.”

“What I really want to come out of [the working group] is seeing other students come to these kinds of conversations and the people that we meet with pushing them to do so and maybe even engaging their students and athletes or whoever in those conversations themselves,” she added.

Rebkah Tesfamariam ’18, another member of the group, suggested changes to the first-year orientation program, such as more explicitly introducing incoming students to campus houses like 24 College Street, 30 College Street and the Russwurm African American Center, as well as including a seminar that discusses the multicultural scene on campus,  like those that address the drinking and hook up cultures on campus.

Michelle Kruk ’16, one of the organizers of the Meeting at the Union said she is happy with the administration’s response.

“I think this is an important stepping stone and I hope that the student body participates in their initiative of having campus-wide discussions on the topics raised in the Letter and in the Meeting,” Kruk wrote in an email to the Orient. “This is a moment where the College is giving us an opportunity to have our voices heard so I hope a great number of students seizes that chance—I know I will.”

Though she is pleased with the formation of the working group, Kruk stressed the importance of a sustained commitment to addressing social differences on campus.

“While it is encouraging to see a tangible result of activist efforts, I hope that our progress doesn’t stop with a working group or even with campus-wide discussions,”  Kruk wrote. “The administration’s response is an exceptional start, but it is just that—a start.”

In a unanimous vote, the University of Maine System (UMS) Board of Trustees decided to divest all direct holdings from coal companies on Monday. The historic vote comes after a two-year effort by Divest UMaine—a student, staff, faculty and alumni coalition—to urge the Board to recognize the dangers of supporting corporations that are contributing to global climate change.

Over the past few years, the push for divestment has swept the nation—including the Bowdoin campus. To date, 15 American colleges and universities have committed to fossil fuel divestment. Although UMS did not opt to divest from all fossil fuel holdings, Monday’s decision is significant in that it represents the first time an entire state university system has taken any steps toward complete divestment.

Independent of the UMS decision, the University of Maine at Presque Isle went one step further and announced its intent to divest from all fossil fuels.

The UMS consists of seven schools with campuses in Orono, Southern Maine (including the School of Law), Farmington, Augusta, Presque Isle, Machias and Fort Kent.

As of December 2012, the UMS had $7.5 million of its $121 million endowment invested in some of the top 200 fossil fuel companies, according to the Divest UMaine website. Monday’s decision to divest from coal companies will affect almost 30 percent of the university’s total exposure to coal in their shared financial portfolio, according to Reuters.

The Fullbridge Program, an intensive two-week course that teaches students basic accounting concepts and practical business skills, will not be taught at Bowdoin this January. The program has been offered on campus over winter break since 2013. In the past two years, around 35 students have enrolled.

President Barry Mills said that Bowdoin will not be hosting Fullbridge on campus this year in part  because the College will offer a  new financial accounting course for the first time this spring. The course  is a partnership between Bowdoin and the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, aimed at teaching students the “language of finance.” Although Mills noted that Fullbridge is more vocationally driven than the Tuck financial accounting course will be, he expressed some concern over overlapping material between the two programs.

“There’s a question about how much energy, how much support, if a lot of students signed up for this course, would they not be interested in doing Fullbridge,” said Mills. “It was just too complicated to start thinking about them in tandem.”

 “It occurred to me as we were thinking about resource and opportunity that the idea of trying to incorporate some of what was being taught at the Fullbridge Program in our real curriculum, where it was available to all students while they’re on campus rather than just in January, made a lot of sense,” he added.

Mills said that just because the Fullbridge Program is not being offered at Bowdoin this year does not mean it will never return.

“If we bring it back, one of the things we talked about is bring[ing] it back in the spring, after school is over,” he said.

Though Fullbridge will not teach a class on campus this January, the company is running two Business Fundamentals programs over Winter Break—one in Boston and one in New York City—that are open to Bowdoin students, as well as students from other colleges and universities. Mills noted that around nine Bowdoin students have applied to the Boston program so far. Fullbridge will host an information session at the College in the upcoming weeks to encourage interested students to apply before the December 3 deadline.

In the last two years, students have criticized the Fullbridge Program for its unengaging instruction methods. The program uses a computer-based approach, where students watch videos, read PDFs and take quizzes or complete exercises on the material rather than learning it directly from a teacher.

Students who completed the Fullbridge Program at Bowdoin had mixed opinions about it not being offered on campus this year.

“I definitely liked [it being offered] on campus because it sort of gave you the chance to be at Bowdoin without the rush of classes,” said Junior Tomas Donatelli Pitfield, who took the course last January. “I think it would be a really different experience if you were in Boston. I think it’d still be valuable, but I think it would be more like an internship if it were in Boston rather than a different class that you’re taking at Bowdoin.”

Franco Sasieta ’16 said that being able to live in his dorm room while attending the program was a big draw for him. Though he thought the program was valuable, especially for people with little to no background in economics like himself, he did not find it so helpful that students should travel to Boston just to participate.

“If you were living in Boston, then I’d recommend [taking the Fullbridge Program],” Sasieta said. “If you are not living in Boston­— say California, or any other place that’s more than 30 minutes away—I would try to look for opportunities that are near you.”

However, Sasieta stressed that he thinks it is important for Bowdoin students to have the chance to gain financial literacy—whether through Fullbridge or the College’s new collaborative course with a Tuck professor.

Donatelli Pitfield agreed, but noted that there are more venues than Fullbridge and Tuck where students can acquire these skills.

“I think the College provides a lot of different internship opportunities and stuff through the Career Planning Center, so I don’t think [Fullbridge] is something that Bowdoin is going to be missing out on,” he said.

Becky Brodigan, vice president for institutional planning and assessment, will step down from her job at the College at the end of December. Brodigan has been with the Office of Institutional Research at the College for six years. 

“She’s really, really talented,” said President Barry Mills. “And I think she’s decided that it’s time to think about doing some other things...She and I have talked about all kinds of interesting life changes that she’s contemplating.”

Brodigan declined to comment on her departure from the College.

During her time at Bowdoin, Brodigan has spearheaded many important projects for the Office of Institutional Research, such as the one-, five- and ten-year-out alumni data projects. These surveys track the percentage of Bowdoin graduates who are employed, enrolled in graduate or professional schools, traveling or seeking employment. 

They also provide data about how well students feel the College has prepared them with certain skills and abilities and how often they use these skills, such as managing time and writing effectively. Before Brodigan’s arrival, Bowdoin “did not keep track of post-graduation data in a comprehensive way,” according to a 2012 Orient article.

“We’ve always had a very good institutional research capacity here at the College and when Becky came, it stepped up even more,” said Mills. “She brought a level of rigor and analysis to all of the survey work and analysis that she did that really stepped up the analysis for the College.”

On Monday, Brodigan received the Distinguished Service Award at the North Eastern Association of Institutional Research (NEAIR) conference. The award is given each year to a person who has made, according to NEAIR's website, “significant and substantial contributions to the field of institutional research, to the professional development of NEAIR colleagues and to the vitality and success of NEAIR as an organization over a period of years." 

Before coming to Bowdoin, Brodigan served as the director of institutional research and planning at Middlebury for ten years. 

Mills said that Brodigan’s departure will leave the College with “a big hole to fill.” 

Dean of Academic Affairs Cristle Collins Judd said in a statement that in the wake of Brodigan's departure, the Office of Institutional Research will be reorganized to include Information Technology's data warehousing efforts. This new department, called the Office of Institutional Research, Analytics and Consulting, will be headed by Tina Finneran, the current director of academic technology and consulting.

“We’re in the process of trying to think about how we continue on the important trajectory that [Brodigan] put us on,” said Mills, regarding the restructuring of the College's institutional research efforts. “We’re trying to think about how the intersection between institutional research, data warehousing, data collection and storage can be even more technologically managed going forward.”

According to Judd's statement, the new Office of Institutional Research, Analytics and Consulting will "provide an opportunity to deepen existing synergies between the library and academic technology." 

I woke up before my alarm clock on the morning I was supposed to shoot the president. I stared at the ceiling, wishing I could close my eyes for the next half hour and actually fall asleep. I couldn’t. I rolled back my comforter and sat on the edge of the bed. 

I brushed my teeth, got dressed and packed my backpack for the day: notebook, pens, earphones, laptop, charger. It was going to be a long day. I put my camera in last. I had cleaned its two lenses carefully the night before. If I was going to shoot the president, it had damn well better be a clean shot. 

On the drive over to meet up with the White House press pool, I convinced myself I was ready for the day ahead. In less than an hour, I’d be in a van with the big shots—reporters and photographers from the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, The Associated Press, Reuters and other major national news outlets. 

They had all flocked to the island of Martha’s Vineyard—a place I had called home for the last several months—to follow President Obama on his summer vacation. My job was to take pictures and send reports of the president’s activities to a press assistant, who would then forward them to a list of Massachusetts journalists. I worried what the vets would think of me, the “country bumpkin” of the crew. I wondered if they would be able to tell I was still a teenager. I imagined them noticing the lucky belt I was wearing—a tacky bright green with shamrocks on it—and pulled the end of my shirt down a little bit lower. 

We drove, first in a yellow coach bus and then in black and silver vans, to a holding area, where the presidential motorcade was parked. State troopers and Secret Service agents walked the grounds. I was filled with anticipation. 

The Secret Service patted us down and instructed us to place our backpacks and possessions on the ground in a line. I watched as an agent picked up my camera. He looked through its lens at his coworker and smiled. Even with my zoom lens on, the magnification was far weaker than what he was accustomed to. I pictured him peering through the scope of a rifle and wondered what he’d seen. 

Soon, we got word that Obama was ready to hit the road. The White House press assistant warned us that we were not allowed to know where we were going. When we arrived someplace, the “press wrangler,” as she called herself, would email us the name of our location. If anyone outside the White House were to know the president’s destination in advance, it would compromise his safety. 

The mystery tour was part of the day’s intrigue. Unlike the other reporters, I was well acquainted with the island’s geography and always had some sense of where we were travelling. Though not truly a local, for one day I felt like one. 

I watched through the front windshield as we followed 20 black cars, Escalades and ambulances down the island’s windy one-lane roads. I was riding in the presidential motorcade—it was surreal. 

I sent the report out and waited for a copy of it to return to my inbox. In the meantime, I gazed at the van’s speedometer, hoping to catch it exceeding the speed limit. I was disappointed to discover that it rarely did. I’d always pictured the motorcade zipping by at whatever speed it desired. 

After a short drive, we arrived at a golf course. The journalists in my van rolled their eyes. The reporters hated when Obama went golfing because it meant we’d be sidelined for hours—no one was allowed on the links.  

The yellow coach bus pulled up next to us and opened its doors, luring us in with its free Wi-Fi and air conditioning. As I listened to their conversations, I became aware of just how jaded the veteran journalists were. One reporter read a text from her friend aloud: “See you soon! Have so much fun. What a cool job you have!” 

“She doesn’t even know,” she said with a shake of her head. “She doesn’t even know.” 

I listened as the others validated this sentiment. Would that be my attitude one day, too? In the moment, I was still fascinated by the fact that the Secret Service agents weren’t dressed in matching uniforms—they didn’t even wear aviators. 

After the president finished his round of golf, we still had no information as to where we would go next, or how long it would take. We only knew that the day would end with a trip to the airport—Obama had to fly home for a special meeting the next morning. 

I selfishly hoped the President would travel somewhere where I could see him. I wanted that shot. When we arrived at an outdoor jazz performance, I was hopeful, but we were quickly told to stay in the parking lot.   

The president and his wife left the festival to have dinner at a fancy restaurant in town. We ate pepperoni pizza on the sidewalk and waited. 

Night had fallen and it was clear that the only picture I could get of the president would be one in the dark, snapped as he boarded Marine One. As we drove to the airport, a photographer sitting next to me told me not to feel discouraged if I didn’t get a good picture. Even with his fancy flash apparatus and lens, which was at least three times the length of mine, he doubted he would get anything “usable.” 

We parked on the tarmac and the press assistant told us where to stand. We’d have a very short time frame to photograph the president. It was 10:45 p.m. and he was running behind schedule—there was no time to smile and wave.  

I waited eagerly for my chance to see the president for the first time. I wanted to slow down the moment. As I waited for him to leave his car, I took photos of the tarmac and the tail of Marine One.

One of the journalists stood behind our van on the edge of the airfield. I couldn’t believe it—she was on her phone. Here we were, watching the president board Marine One, and something on her screen was more fascinating. 

While I waited for Obama, I turned to take a picture of her—the jaded veteran journalist, totally indifferent to the moment I was so hyped for. In some ways, that had become more representative of my day than the pursuit of the president himself. 

Seconds after I pressed my camera button, the president exited his vehicle. It could not have been worse timing. I swiveled quickly to get a shot and watched the back of his head through my telephoto lens.

The low light conditions required a slower shutter speed (and very steady hand). I knew, without wanting to know, that Obama was inside the helicopter before the shutter fully closed. The picture was complete shit. I blew it by being preoccupied with the uninterested journalist. 

“Well, that was it,” the other photographer said to me. “I guess it’s time to go home.”

On the ride back to my car, I reviewed the photos I had captured, hoping that at least the jaded journalist registered clearly through my lens. I was bummed but not surprised that the picture was blurred and unremarkable. 

I reassured myself on the drive home. So what if I didn’t have hard evidence? I’d still seen the president in person and it could be a long time before I can say that again. 

I’d been a part of the press pool. I rode in the presidential motorcade with the big shots and got a window into their world. I sent out reports to journalists throughout the state. Maybe some of them even read my name. 

Three days later, while sitting at my desk, I got a text from my dad, who had gone golfing. Attached was an image of Obama on the putting green. Effortlessly and by total coincidence, my dad had gotten a far better shot than me. No press pass, no waiting in a big yellow bus all day, no planning or nerves or anticipation. I smiled at the peculiarity of it all and revisited my two pictures from the tarmac. Though compositionally weak, underexposed and totally unfocused, I decided I liked them better. A story walked through them. 

Polar Pad Rentals, a student-run business providing deluxe rental mattresses and futons to Bowdoin students, has been shut down indefinitely by the College's administration. The business was launched and advertised to students through an all-campus email sent on June 30. By the end of July, after conversations with other senior staff members, Director of Student Life Allen Delong informed student founders Adam Fitzgerald ’16, Billy Valle ’16 and Tommy Garry ’17 that Polar Pad was not an entrepreneurial endeavor that the College could support. 

Discussions between Delong and the founders of Polar Pad regarding the future of the business will continue through the end of September. Although Fitzgerald and Valle are currently abroad, Garry is on campus and acting as the interim head. 

Polar Pad is a franchise of a company called Roomie Rentals, which was started by three Dartmouth alumni and now has many successful branches at colleges across the country. The most successful branch is at peer school Middlebury, which is why Fitzgerald, Valle and Garry were particularly excited to introduce the rental service to the Bowdoin community. 

Delong cited several issues that factored into the decision not to support Polar Pad. Generally the process for student-run businesses is to meet with Delong to pitch the idea and then proceed from there. Delong said he first heard of Polar Pad when the campus-wide email was sent out in June. However, Garry claimed that his business partners had talked to the administration before summer began. 

One of the administration’s main concerns involves the College’s solicitation policy about the role of commercial enterprises , such as Roomie Rentals, on campus. 

“There are very few if any corporate icons at Bowdoin and that’s by design,” said Delong. “There are a lot of people, corporations, businesses and philanthropic groups who would love to have access to Bowdoin students, and we really are cautious about who has access to our students.”

Though Delong mentioned that Fitzgerald, Valle and Garry have been very transparent with him, he remained wary of the business’s connection to a “bigger entity that is not just our students.” 

“That doesn’t mean that we never would go with students who are involved in a franchise,” said Delong. “But it does get a different degree of analysis.”

Another primary concern was that Polar Pad would be a burden to staff that work during the busy student move-in and move-out periods. 

 “The students who proposed it were adamant that it wouldn’t [add work for staff] and I trust those students,” said Delong. “But I also trust the people who are cleaning the rooms, who are painting the rooms, who have to make sure that beds are put together for the next occupants. And in the end, I need to listen to them.”

Dean of Student Affairs Tim Foster added that affordability also played a role in why the administration chose not to support Polar Pad. Mattress and futon rentals cost upwards of $249 a year.

“The idea of haves and have nots—of ‘I’m going to upgrade because I can afford to upgrade’—that’s just not the Bowdoin way,” he said.

Foster emphasized that this was by no means the main reason for shutting down the business, but said that it was a factor. 

The Polar Pad business model states that when one of its rental beds is brought into a dorm room, its staff will disassemble the existing bed and store it under the new rental. There is no guarantee that students will keep the College-issued bed there throughout the year, however.

Delong was concerned that students might choose to store the bed in a separate facility. By move-out time, tracking that bed down could be difficult and it would be unclear who would be responsible for the potentially missing bed—Polar Pad or the student. 

“Frankly, we the College don’t want to get involved in that,” Delong said. 

Garry expressed disappointment over the administration’s attitude towards Polar Pad. 

“The three of us were really interested in entrepreneurship and we were really excited about [Polar Pad],” said Garry. “Bowdoin doesn’t really have anything like this… I think it could definitely be something that adds to the culture here and shows the ingenuity and creativity of the kids here.”

Before the administration announced that they would not support the business, Polar Pad had received upward of 20 orders, according to Garry. All clients have been fully refunded.

Delong noted that he gets around three to five entrepreneurial pitches a year. He has faith that Fitzgerald—his primary student contact throughout this process—will be back with another idea in the near future. 

“[Adam] is a person who’s been bit by the bug,” said Delong. “So even though the answer was no about this one, I fully expect that he’s going to have another pitch, and I look forward to having that conversation with him.”

The Board of Trustees and Bowdoin Student Government (BSG) are making progress on finding a replacement for President Barry Mills, and have already interviewed some executive search firms and selected the two students who will sit on the search committee.

The Board is currently vetting the firms that will provide the committee with a variety of interested outside candidates, according to Vice President for Development and Alumni Relations Elizabeth Orlic.

“Search firms are being interviewed and considered, but to date, there has been no decision about this aspect of the search,” she wrote in an email to the Orient.  

The Board is expected to announce the names of the two students, along with the full membership of the committee, during its meetings next week. Jes Staley ’79 was announced as the chair of the selection committee on April 21, but he declined to comment for this article.The two student representatives were chosen by a committee composed of BSG executives from both this year and next year; terms for this year’s executives officially ended on Wednesday. Interviews for the committee were conducted earlier this week.

“We were completely blown away by the quality of students who applied to the position,” said Sarah Nelson ’14, president of BSG. “That was really inspiring for us as a committee, and it made our decision really difficult.” 

About 40 students from the Classes of 2015 and 2016 applied, according to Nelson. “The goal is to find two students with different backgrounds, who have different involvement on campus, who are part of different organizations, who have seen different parts of how the school works, and who really bring two unique voices to the committee,” Nelson said. 

The exact makeup of the committee remains to be seen. In an email to students on April 14, Chair of the Board of Trustees Deborah Barker wrote that the committee would include “members of the Board, faculty, students, staff, and other alumni representatives.”

George Lincoln Skolfield Jr. Professor of German Steven Cerf, who is retiring at the end of this year, served on the last presidential search committee to replace Bob Edwards, along with Professor of Physics Madeline Msall and Professor of Economics Deborah DeGraff.

At that time, three faculty representatives were elected. Cerf said the faculty worked to ensure that the three major ranks of faculty (assistant professor, associate professor and full professor) and the three major academic divisions (natural sciences, social sciences and humanities) were all represented. 

“I think it’s a once in a lifetime experience,” said Cerf. “There was a loyalty to the institution that meant that this committee sacrificed weekends and travel, poring over folders and interviewing candidates.”

Cerf said that the executive search company used by the last committee helped to narrow the field. 

“We were not beholden to them to hire only from their picks, but at least they gave us a sampling of people who would be eager to do such a position, who had experience in governance of a college and who manifested success,” he said. 

Mills originally chaired that committee. Cerf said that he “certainly wasn’t on [the committee’s] list.” 

“We were so impressed by his leadership on the committee that we asked him to resign so we could consider him as the future Bowdoin president,” Cerf said. 

As the new committee prepares to vet what will likely be a wide-ranging group of candidates, there are many questions to consider. Cerf said that a point of contention in the last search was academic experience. Having made his career as a corporate lawyer, Mills was not the most obvious candidate for a college presidency, but Cerf said that Mills’ Ph.D. and teaching experience in biology made a difference. 

“Our union card is a Ph.D.,” he said. “I heard from dozens of my faculty colleagues that they didn’t care what background this president had, they must have a Ph.D.” 

The Office of Annual Giving received 1,520 alumni gifts during its second annual BowdoinOne Day, a 24-hour fundraising campaign on Tuesday. The number of donations exceeded both this year’s goal of 1,300 gifts and last year’s total of 1,274 gifts, according to Director of Annual Giving Brannon Fisher and Annual Giving Administrative Manager Marian Skinner. 

Participation was monitored across six regions: New England, Mid-Atlantic, West, Midwest, South, and International. The alumni in the Mid-Atlantic region participated most at 14.8 percent. The Midwest region came in second, with 12.9 percent participation. The event took place from 12 a.m. to midnight on Tuesday. 

On this day, the senior class—whose donations count towards the alumni fund—reached 61 percent participation, enough to unlock a matching grant from an anonymous donor. For each senior class over the next four years that reaches over 60 percent participation, the donor will give a $10,000 scholarship for a member of the rising first year class. Prior to Tuesday’s event, the Class of 2014 had 49 percent participation, according to Skinner.

Fisher and the Office of Annual Giving conduct the 24-hour campaign annually to help build a sense of excitement around donating.

“We find that creating a sense of urgency and some kind of a deadline to rally around is helpful for our donors and for our volunteers who help us do the fundraising,” Fisher said in a phone interview with the Orient.

April 22 was selected as the date for the campaign this year so that it fell between tax day and the end of the fiscal year. Last year, it fell on April 23.

“It takes some of the pressure off,” said Fisher, “and also it’s helpful for our volunteers to be able to check [donors] off without too much additional outreach in the late spring.”

In a 2013 Orient article on last year’s event, Fisher mentioned that April 23 marked the day in which funds from tuition and endowment ‘run out’ and the rest of the academic year is symbolically supported by alumni donations.

Fisher said he is pleased with how the day unfolded. Neli Vazquez ’14, one of the four directors of the senior class gift campaign who helped plan the event, felt the day was successful not only because the senior class surpassed the 60 percent participation benchmark, but also because of the strong sense of spirit it raised in the student body.

“A lot of people were coming to the table [in Smith Union] to fill out thank you cards [to alumni] and say what they were thankful for, and that’s really for me what Bowdoin One Day is about,” said Vazquez. 

Fisher believes that much of Bowdoin One Day’s success this year stemmed from increased efforts to engage students and alumni over social media. Though Bowdoin sent some tweets and posted to Facebook on Bowdoin One Day last year, this year’s approach was more dynamic.

“The approach this year—which was much more effective—was to get other people to do the tweeting and the posting and for Bowdoin to simply re-tweet or re-post so that it wasn’t necessarily being driven by the College, it was being driven by alumni,” said Fisher.

“Our main strategy was to raise awareness about the campaign, what it was, generate a lot of alumni involvement and school spirit,” added Social Media Director Holly Sherburne in a phone interview with the Orient.

There was a photo challenge each day for the five days leading up to the One Day campaign that encouraged people to post pictures of Bowdoin memories, polar bears, and college gear on any social media outlet. Each day’s winner was awarded with a gift card to iTunes or Amazon.

“We started on Thursday, which is traditionally a day where people post throwback Thursday photos,” said Sherburne. “So we started off by incorporating the similar theme to dovetail on that and I think that made for a really successful kickoff that could lead into the next five days.”

Vazquez felt that sharing images of students helped remind alumni why it’s important to donate to the College.

“I think it’s meaningful to [alumni]—especially the older alumni—to see that Bowdoin is still a place worth investing in from the student perspective, that their wonderful experience and the reason they give is still very much alive today,” she said.

From Thursday through Tuesday, Sherburne and the Office of Annual Giving instructed people to use the hashtag #BowdoinOneDay on Twitter and Instagram.

“We at Bowdoin were looking for that hashtag so we could help amplify their conversations and it wasn’t all just...Bowdoin encouraging people to give,” Sherburne added.

According to Sherburne, #BowdoinOneDay was tagged in over 330 photos on Instagram and mentioned in over 460 tweets. Sherburne mentioned that Facebook also played an integral role in the social media strategy, although activity on Facebook is more difficult to quantify since much of it took place on individual profile page.

No analysis has been done yet about the impact that social media had in regard to the number or value of gifts given during the campaign.

Two weeks ago, the Orient published an article titled, “Beyond the waitlists, Children’s Center serves youngest in community.” After receiving more than 30 online comments, the Orient chose to take a closer look at recent changes at the Center.  

The Bowdoin College Children’s Center is a “big recruitment attraction for the faculty,” according to Senior Vice President for Finance and Administration and Treasurer Katy Longley. The Center is owned and run by the College, with an operating budget comprised of tuition paid by parents and additional money provided by Bowdoin.

The Center has faced a period of upheaval in recent years. Since 2011, the Center has had three different directors and three different administrators have overseen the Center. The leadership and oversight changes have caused staff and families to reconsider their affiliation with the Center.

The period of change and turmoil began in the Center when Kris Gould, who had served as the director of the Center since April 2003, retired in October 2011. 

During her tenure, Gould reported to Bill Torrey, the former senior vice president for planning and development. Torrey stepped down from his role at the College in the spring of 2011; Gould said that his departure was one of multiple reasons that she decided to retire a few months later.

At the time of Gould’s retirement, Margaret Hazlett, former senior associate dean of student affairs, began overseeing the Center. Heather Stephenson, a teacher at the Center, took over as interim director, while Hazlett, a consultant, and a search committee of parents, faculty, and Human Resources (HR) representatives looked for a candidate to fill the director position. 

During the interim period, F.R. Vance, a teacher at the Center from 2009 to 2011, raised concerns about fire exits not being shovelled. Not satisfied with Stephenson’s response to his concerns, Vance wrote about them in a daily blog post he compiled for his students’ parents.

Vance claims he was called into a meeting with Stephenson and Hazlett, in which they reprimanded him for the posts. 

Stephenson declined to comment on this incident.

Two other former teachers the Orient interviewed, both of whom wished to remain anonymous, said that they were not supported by Hazlett during the interim period.

According to a current teacher at the Center (who wished to remain anonymous in order to “keep an even keel”), the shovelling issue has been resolved.

“Other than that [incident] I had a great time at Bowdoin, really I did. I liked the students, I liked the faculty, and I liked the staff,” Vance said. “I had great teachers to work with. I did have a good time teaching there until the end.”

In the spring of 2012, the search for a new director came to a head when parents and staff of the Center spoke with finalists for the position. With the advice of those parents and staff members, the search committee hired Martha Eshoo in May.

Although the search committee was hoping for a director who could work full time at the Center, an exception was made for Eshoo. Currently, Eshoo works at the Center three days a week. In her time away from the Center, she is an instructor at Wheelock College in Massachusetts, a job she has held since the 1980s.

“We thought that the plusses and strengths that Martha would bring to the Center outweighed not having her there full time,” said Hazlett in a phone interview with the Orient.  “Many of us thought it was great that she was staying engaged in the classroom, that that would help bring more best practices and more current practices to the Center.”

One of Eshoo’s first initiatives as the new director of the Center was to introduce a play-based curriculum. The Center was using an integrated approach—a combination of best practices among different early education philosophies—when Eshoo became director. The play-based curriculum is just another added component.

Eshoo said that her curriculum looks at two strands of things: “That children are playing in ways that are not interrupted and that children are playing repeatedly so they can go deeper and deeper into their play.”

“Our belief and what research shows is that when children are playing, their brains are actually growing and being creative,” she said.

Although Eshoo said she updated parents and staff on the shift to a play-based curriculum through meetings and weekly newsletters, not everyone felt fully informed. 

Staff noticed changes in educational methods and philosophies after Eshoo became director.According to a current teacher, Eshoo replaced some of the Center’s methods with more Waldorf methods than had been used in the past. Waldorf is an alternative educational philosophy.

The change “was so quick, so fast, that your head was spinning... because these were things that we were taught in college and that we’ve been developing the appropriate practice for years—that all a the sudden wasn’t quite what was in the vision,” said the current teacher at the Center.Some parents were also aware of the new methods.

“A lot of the staff and the leader herself are affiliated with the Waldorf School. There’s nothing wrong with Waldorf, but it’s a very specific educational philosophy that is not at all in the mainstream,” said  Laura McCandlish, whose son attended the Center from August 2012 until April 2013, in a phone interview with the Orient. “They’re not saying that they’re a Waldorf School, but in all intents and purposes they are...So either become a Waldorf school or don’t. It would help parents to know what they’re signing up for. I think teachers too.”

Eshoo said she feels differently. “We absolutely do not use the Waldorf approach,” she said. “I have noticed in the young toddler room, which is the room that our children are in, that it’s a play-based curriculum, and all that means is that they will take the best ideas from Montessori, Waldorf...there doesn’t seem to be any strict adherence to any single philosophy,” said Allison Cooper, an assistant professor of romance languages at the College whose twins have attended the Center since June 2013. 

Cooper is a member of the parents advisory committee made up of representatives from each classroom that meet monthly with Eshoo. Cooper is very happy with her children’s experience at the Center and said she was surprised by the negative comments on the original Orient article.“I saw the comments...and they were a real surprise to me because they did not remotely reflect our experience at the Children’s Center,” said Cooper.

Although Eshoo says that the Center is a place open to all children, even those with behavioral problems, McCandlish believes her family was pushed out.

“If your kid was any kind of outlier in terms of behavior, like too physical, or too passive and quiet, like if your kid did not conform to [the] ideal, they really did not make you feel like it was a place for [your child],” said McCandlish. “It made all the parents feel bad. We just felt like it was a very top down approach. And basically our hours [at the Center] were cut in half. We were told we could bring him only for a half a day but still pay the same rate.”

Eshoo said that tuition rates cannot change within a contracted year.

McCandlish’s son now attends the Little Schoolhouse in Maine, where she said a few other Bowdoin families send their children. She said her son is much happier there.

“We’ve since moved to another daycare in Brunswick and our child is thriving. The teachers worked with us to resolve all development challenges,” McCandlish said. “I just feel like I wish we had been there last year because then we would have avoided all this.”

Jackie Sartoris, whose son attended the Center from 2009 to 2013, had a similar experience. She said she reluctantly pulled her four-year-old son from the Center after she was routinely asked to pick her son up early because he was not remaining still and silent during nap time. 

“Our interactions with the Center for the last several months of 2013 left our family feeling judged rather than welcomed, and we strongly felt that neither our concerns nor our generally good-natured child were valued by the director,” wrote Sartoris in an email to the Orient. 

Natasha Goldman—a research associate and lecturer in the art history department—switched her son to Family Focus, another childcare option in Brunswick in 2013, after the Center denied her request to change his lunch seat because he wasn’t eating his meals.

“Many families are very happy [at the Bowdoin Children’s Center],” Goldman said in an email to the Orient. “It just wasn’t the right fit for our child any longer.” 

During this academic year, one family has withdrawn its child from the Center. Of the 45 families with children in the Center, 33 have an affiliation with Bowdoin, while 12 are community families. Last year, there were also 33 Bowdoin families at the Center. This has been the average since 2006, according to Longley

Eshoo stressed the fact that she has an “open door” for any parent or staff member who wishes to share a concern about the Center with her. 

Of the 17 staff members working at the Center before Gould left, four remain. One current teacher at the Center estimated that nine of the 13 who left did so because of the shift in directors. 

“The changes were too quick, too fast, too much and it was too hard to work that way,” said the current teacher. “I stayed because, I think, I believe in what I do, I love what I do and...I’m very proud to be Bowdoin College affiliated.”

Longley stressed that turnover statistics can be deceiving, and said that according to HR, five of the 13 staff members who left did so under the interim director or had planned their departures before Eshoo’s arrival. 

“[Bowdoin] has a lot of employees, we have turnover in every department and turnover results from a lot of different things,” she said. 

Many employees leave to take another job, move to another state, or go to graduate school, according to Longley. She urged people to be wary of making the assumption that higher turnover rates are a direct indication of a poorly run Center. 

Laura Toma, an associate professor of computer science who had two children enrolled in the Center from 2010 to the spring of 2013, said that the staff turnover was one of the main reasons she decided to move them to a different school.

“Every few weeks or so, we got an email through the parent grapevine that some teacher left and that was quite disconcerting,” said Toma. “I don’t know anything specifically, but that told me that teachers weren’t happy.”

Stephenson, a teacher and the former interim director, would not comment directly on the changes that have occurred since Eshoo took over.

“I can, having gone through four different directors, say there’s change every time new staff arrive or a new director arrives,” Stephenson said. “Change is good. It helps you see new philosophies, draw information from other staff. New staff, new directors bring new ideas and new energy.” 

Stephenson would not comment on specific staff members at the Center, past or present.

Hazlett was not surprised about turnover that took place as the directorship changed hands. She expected to see similar results, regardless of whether Eshoo or another candidate filled the role.

“When there’s a change at the top it also provides for other people to stop and think: Does this provide me an opportunity to assess? Do I want to keep doing what I’ve been doing X number of years?” said Hazlett.

When asked about reasons for staff turnover, Eshoo said she would only talk about the program and its philosophy.

Currently, there is one position open for an educator at the Center for the upcoming school year and a few openings for casuals, who substitute for staff members that are sick or on vacation. 

Vance, who went to HR after speaking with Hazlett and Stephenson about the blocked fire exits, believes he would have been fired for speaking up, had he not been planning to retire three months later. Two former employees said that they were insufficiently supported by HR.

“They assured me [the snow issue] would be taken care of and they had no idea this was happening,” Vance said in a phone interview with the Orient. “HR doesn’t really protect employees, they’re just for the administration.”

Director of Human Resources Tama Spoerri declined to comment for this article and stated that HR never comments publicly about personnel matters.

“I think, if you talk to teachers that are there, you’re not going to get the truth,” said Vance. 

The Orient contacted four current teachers, of whom two were willing to speak. The other two did not respond to interview requests. One Bowdoin staff member with a child at the Center was unwilling to talk because she feared that her comment would be used against her child. One former teacher was unwilling to speak to the Orient because she was traumatized by her experience.

“I wanted to say something for this article because I know that families with children still at the Center who are unhappy really can’t speak up comfortably. When somebody has your child, they have your whole heart,” Sartoris said. “Hopefully, some good can come from sharing our experience. The Center has been an essential asset for Bowdoin families and the community, and it needs to be again. “

According to Longley, the Center was accredited by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) on July 31, 2008, which was valid until July 31, 2013. This accreditation is voluntary. After a site visit in early 2011, the Center was told the infant nap room would need a number of changes before the Center could renew its accreditation in 2013. Gould said that when she left Bowdoin in October 2011, a decision had not been made about whether or not to fix the infant nap room and renew accreditation. 

After Gould left and Hazlett created a search committee to look for a new director, the Center requested to postpone renewal of its accreditation for one year passed its “valid until date.” That would provide the new director with a year to adjust to the Center and ensure the infant napping room was fixed before spearheading the renewal process.

“It’s a really intense process and I wasn’t going to ask the acting director who was also serving as a teacher to take on this monumental task. So we did ask for a postponement so we could get the new director on board,” said Hazlett. “I did know we had to make a decision about the infant room and that played into whether we were going to continue with accreditation or not.”

The Center could have renewed accreditation during the first half of 2013, but instead the College decided to take advantage of a policy that allows the Center a year of non-accreditation while going through the renewal process, rather than the full, initial accreditation process. As of July 31, 2013, the Center is technically not accredited, but its accreditation has not been denied or revoked. According to Longley, as of April 1, 2014, the NAEYC received the Center’s renewal materials and Longley is confident renewal will be granted before July 31.

According to Longley, the Center is currently licensed as a Child Care Facility by the Maine Department of Health and Human Services.

Students, faculty, staff, and members of the Brunswick community gathered on March 28 and 29 to discuss end-of-life care in a symposium organized by Alex Doering ’14.

The weekend event featured seven hour-long lectures from Bowdoin professors and representatives from CHANS Hospice, the Maine Hospice Council, and Mid Coast Hospital. Actress Megan Cole was the keynote speaker. For the symposium, she performed a solo reading of the Pulitzer-winning play “WIT,” which is about a woman dying of ovarian cancer.

Admission to all events was free.

Doering first got interested in the topic of end-of-life care through his involvement with CHANS Hospice in Brunswick, where he has volunteered for almost two years. At CHANS, Doering was able to gain insight into aspects of patient care.

“In America—sometimes because we’re afraid of talking about death—there are lots of issues surrounding that kind of care,” said Doering.  “Previous to hospice, I had not conceived of situations in which focusing on comfort care and emotional, spiritual, existential needs of the patient would be more important than curing the patient, and after hospice I could much more easily see how that would be an important thing to cover.”

Inspired by his work at the hospice, Doering began to examine end-of-life care for assignments in some of his courses at Bowdoin. In a gay and lesbian studies course, Doering looked at how LGBTQ patients are treated relative to other patients at the end of their lives. For Introduction to Narrative, he compared the Epic of Gilgamesh to Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s model of the five stages of grief experienced by people confronting imminent death.

Through these studies, Doering considered the importance of thinking about end-of-life care from a liberal arts perspective. He decided to plan the symposium after a mentor of his, Suzana Makowski ’90, proposed the idea. Makowski is co-chief of the Palliative Medicine Division at UMass Memorial Medical Center and the person who piqued Doering’s interest in hospice work.

Overall, Doering said he was pleased with the turnout. The most popular event was Megan Cole’s performance, which drew roughly 75 people. The Ethics and the End of Life lecture about physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia given by Professor of Philosophy Matthew Stuart was the second most widely attended event.

“What was more important than numbers was getting people who were enthusiastic and really engaged with the material because those are the kinds of people who are going to go out and talk about the issues with other people,” said Doering. “I think we got those kinds of people coming to the event.”

Doering said he hopes that the symposium helped attendees appreciate the importance of discussing the difficult or taboo subjects that accompany the end of a person’s life. People are often left in pain, without savings, or in a hospital rather than in their home at the end of life.

“It’s important to have in the back of our minds that these are issues that really do matter to people at the end of their life,” he said. 

Rob and Sim Gregory, who have served as volunteer advisors to the Bowdoin Christian Fellowship (BCF) for eight and nine years respectively, will step down from their roles at the end of this academic year due to their refusal to sign the College’s Volunteer Agreement. Though the Gregorys will no longer hold an official position at the College, they are not banned from visiting or giving talks on campus. 

Introduced this fall, the Agreement requires all volunteers associated with the College to formally agree to comply with the College’s policies. Among the policies outlined in the Agreement is Bowdoin’s Freedom from Discrimination and Harassment policy, which prohibits discrimination against any Bowdoin community member based on factors that include race, religion, sex and sexual orientation. 

The Gregorys said that signing the non-discrimination policy would violate their faith and the Christian gospel they teach, specifically their scriptural interpretations of sexuality. 

After his first year as a U.S. Senator, the self-described “world’s oldest freshman” and former Maine governor Angus King began his second year in office by making headlines once again.  After an Islamic militant group in Russia threatened to attack the Sochi Olympic Games, King raised alarm during an interview with CNN on January 19 in which he mentioned that he would not feel comfortable travelling or having his family travel to Sochi for the winter games. 

However, when elaborating on the subject, King told the Orient, “I haven’t had special knowledge on the subject of the Games more than anybody else. We’ve been up to our neck in issues with Syria and Edward Snowden and the National Security Agency, we haven’t focused particularly on Sochi.”

King said that a hearing at the end of this week or early next week could address the potential terrorist threat further. 

The Fullbridge Program will wrap up its third session in business essentials at Bowdoin this weekend, marking the second year of partnership between Fullbridge and the College. The program, which ran from January 3 to 18, provided 35 Bowdoin students with the opportunity to increase their financial literacy.

The program’s final component—a career workshop—will take place on January 25 and 26.The Fullbridge Program—usually hosted at its Cambridge, Mass. campus—is open to college students from around the world. Last year, however, Fullbridge partnered with Bowdoin to offer its first-ever program hosted on another institution’s campus and open exclusively to that College’s students. The tuition price for this year’s program was $4,200, though financial aid was available. 

During each of the program’s 13 days (students had Sundays off), students arrived at Sills Hall to learn practical business skills for up to nine hours at a time.

After requesting that students disable unauthorized Wi-fi access points in an email to the College last month, Chief Information Officer Mitch Davis said that Information Technology (IT) has witnessed improved communication with students about Bowdoin’s wireless network issues. 

Students have been responsive to both Davis’ November 15 campus-wide email and the Orient’s November 22 article that called attention to the predicament. Davis and the IT department are continuing to adjust and improve the campus network based on student feedback and have added over 30 new access points—mainly in dorms—since the issue was brought to light. 

“The students that had [unauthorized] access points have called me and we’re working with them,” said Davis. 

A proposal by the Information Technology Advisory Council (ITAC) for a web-app that would enable online ordering at Jack Magee’s Pub and Grill has been proposed to Dining Services. If Dining deems the project valuable enough, it may come to fruition by the end of the academic year or in the fall of 2014.

“It’s not a done deal,” said Chief Information Officer Mitch Davis. “[Staff from Dining] are interested, but we have yet to meet with them to talk about it.”

If all goes according to plan, Davis and members of ITAC will meet with Dining Services to start making progress on the proposal before winter break.

Burnett House was victorious in this year’s “Do it in the Dark” energy savings competition, demonstrating the greatest reduction in overall energy use since September (30.8 percent) and the lowest energy use per person. 

The competition, started by Sustainable Bowdoin in 2001, is an annual tradition aimed to push environmental awareness to the foreground of students’ minds. For the month of October, residence halls and College Houses compete to be the most green. 

Altogether, the 20 participating residence halls saved 16,585 kilowatt-hours of energy electricity—equivalent to 12,803 pounds of carbon dioxide—a slight increase from last year.

As rooms are filling up for Family Weekend, tension builds between the Brunswick Inn and the Inn at Brunswick Station, two popular hotels within walking distance of the College­­. The two hotels are preparing to face each other in federal court in the coming weeks.  

The three-day trial will resolve a long-standing argument over naming and trademark infringement that began when the Inn at Brunswick Station first opened its doors in 2011. 

The similarity between the two hotels’ names has caused a great deal of confusion among visitors, and, in some cases, Brunswick community members, according to the Portland Press Herald. There have been numerous reports of guests accidentally showing up at the wrong hotel and delivery trucks dropping off goods to the wrong inn. According to the Press Herald, the Brunswick Fire Department once responded to a fire alarm at the wrong hotel.