The Bowdoin Orient

Immigration attorneys Mike Murray and Sara Fleming of FordMurray Law in Portland spoke at Bowdoin on Monday to address President Donald Trump’s immigration policies and answer student questions. 

Murray and Fleming noted that the haste of the administration’s policies have taken many immigration lawyers by surprise, making it difficult to predict how future scenarios will play out. 

“This administration is really taking actions that we haven’t seen before and it’s raising laws that I never even knew were on the books,” Murray said. 

The pair first discussed the implications of the Trump administration’s travel ban, an executive order that banned nationals of seven Muslim-majority countries as well as all refugees. The ban is currently suspended. A federal judge in Washington granted a nationwide order that halted its implementation last Friday, and a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco upheld the Washington judge’s order yesterday. 

Murray said that Trump does have the legal authority to ban certain foreign individuals from entering the country, citing U.S. Code 1182, which states the president can “suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants.” The statute says that the president can restrict immigration when they find it necessary and does not need a good reason or cause, Murray specified.

Still, Murray said the ban’s constitutionality remains in question. He cited a provision of the ban which allows the Secretary of Homeland Security and the State Department to make exceptions and admit certain individuals, including members of minority religious groups. If this part of the executive order turns out to be favoring Christians—who are a minority religious group in much of the Middle East—then the order could violate the establishment clause of the first amendment, which dictates that the government cannot favor one religion over another. 

Given the significance of the case, Murray expects it to ultimately end up before the Supreme Court. 

The attorneys also addressed President Trump’s executive order on sanctuary cities, which suggested the federal government would try to take away funding from municipalities that did not assist in immigration enforcement. The attorneys said that the term sanctuary cities—generally referring to cities that do not enforce federal immigration laws—was not a legally defined concept but a political term.

Though the federal government generally enforces immigration laws, state and municipal government can choose to voluntarily assist federal immigration enforcement but are not legally required to do so. As a result, Murray was skeptical of the impact of the executive order.

“There’s really not a lot of teeth to that because there really isn’t much federal funding that’s given to states and cities to enforce these laws,” he said. 

Murray also noted that the executive order did not include any mandate for colleges like Bowdoin. 

“One great thing about it is that it doesn’t at all address whether private institutions like colleges and universities have to come into these agreements to enforce federal law,” he said. “It’s just not there. They didn’t reach that far.”

Fleming then addressed Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), a program under the Obama administration that allows individuals who were brought to the United States undocumented as children to register with the government and receive a two-year relief from deportation as well as permission to work. 

During his campaign, Trump promised to repeal DACA upon taking office, but he has left the program intact so far. 

“DACA has been pretty popular across the board,” Fleming said. “I think there is a lot of empathy on both sides of the aisle for people who were brought here as children and who grow up in the U.S. and just want to continue their lives here.” 

She noted that the BRIDGE Act, a bill proposed by Senators Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Dick Durban (D-Ill.) which would allow DACA-eligible individuals to continue living in the United States, replace DACA if the Trump administration dismantles the program. However, she questioned whether any immigration proposal would make it through the House of Representatives. 

The pair answered questions, both from the audience and from students who had anonymously submitted questions before the event. One anonymous student question asked about marrying an undocumented friend in order to give them legal status. 

“You are a very good friend. Friend goals,” Murray said. “However, you may not do that. You can’t do that. That is against federal law. It is a felony. It is visa fraud.” 

Although marriage to a U.S. citizen can give an undocumented person legal status, the marriage has to be real, Murray said. Trained immigration officers will interrogate married couples to make sure they actually plan on creating a life together. 

Another anonymous question asked about the politics of illegal immigration: “What’s so wrong about wanting people to enter the country legally?” 

In response, Murray said that immigration laws have not been equally enforced. 

“The immigration system is broken in many ways,” he said. “The Canadian border is much more open and porous than the southern border, so there is many times a very selective enforcement of immigration laws.”

Murray pointed out that the majority of undocumented immigrants are not actually from Mexico, and added that even if the United States perfectly secured its borders, the question of how to address these undocumented immigrants would remain. 

“If we came to a place where we felt, ‘OK, finally we are properly regulating who can come in and out of the United States,’ then at that point I think it’s only fair to legalize everyone who is here in the United States without perfect status,” Murray said. “Presidents again and again and again, whether Republican or Democratic, have decided not to do a mass removal or deportation of individuals who are here without proper status. If we are going to let people in that situation live here, we should give them full rights … We shouldn’t have a second class of citizens who feel as if they can’t reach out to law enforcement or public agencies if they need help.” 

Students’ reactions to the talk were overwhelmingly positive. 

“Very often in the media that information is watered or dumbed-down so that the regular consumer to understand it,” said Ural Mishra ’20. “So to get it straight from an expert who is well-versed in their field, I think that was really great.” 

Mingo Sanchez ’17 echoed that sentiment, saying that the talk clarified issues that he had previously heard of but not fully understood. 

“I was really surprised to learn that sanctuary cities are not really a thing, that there isn’t a formal definition for that,” Sanchez said. 

Several students said they hoped the administration would sponsor similar, expert-led events in the future. 

“More talks like this are great,” said Ellie Heywood ’19. “I think that’s what I want to see.”

In recent days, Bowdoin students attended protests and organized campus groups to fight against actions taken by the Trump administration, including the president’s executive orders on immigration, which halted travel from seven Muslim-majority countries and limited refugees.

Last Friday, a group of students held the first meeting of Indivisible Bowdoin, an organization based on the Indivisible Guide, a manual written by former Congressional staffers which details how individuals can effectively pressure their senators and representatives to take action.

“There [are] a lot of politically active people on campus. We can put that to good use,” said Dylan Devenyi ’17, one of the group’s founders. 

Devenyi and the other group leaders—Olivia Erickson ’18, Liam Gunn ’17, Chamblee Shufflebarger ’18 and Matthew Jacobson ’17—reached out to politically minded groups on campus, hoping to channel students’ enthusiasm and anger into direct political action. The group’s plans include weekly meetings, a Facebook group and email newsletters about contacting representatives regarding various issues.

“Hopefully [we] keep continually reminding our senators and representatives that we are paying attention to what they are doing,” said Erickson.

She cited Maine Senator Susan Collins’ decision to vote against Betsy DeVos, President Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Education, as evidence that constituents’ opinions and efforts can shape how their representatives vote. 

The group plans to meet at noon on Fridays. As of press time, their Facebook group has 145 members.

Students have also been organizing to attend protests away from Bowdoin. On Sunday, over 30 students traveled to the Portland International Jetport to protest Trump’s executive order banning citizens of seven predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States. The protest mirrored similar actions at other airports across the country. Protesters gathered in the Jetport’s baggage claim area, many carrying signs bearing political statements supporting refugees and immigrants. 

Many of the students who attended found out about the event at short notice.

“I have a car here, so I went, gassed up, found some people in the [Coles] Tower lobby, filled up my car and we went down,” said Jack Mitchell ’17.

Trump’s immigration ban hit close to home for Ana Timoney-Gomez ’18, herself the daughter of two immigrants.

“The idea that the United States is a nation of immigrants has always been said to me and been of importance,” she said.  “Seeing this has been very disheartening and disappointing.”

Mitchell agreed that the executive order was not American in spirit and was ultimately rooted in bigotry. He believed that the implementation of this policy called for more involved action than usual.

“I felt strongly that I needed to stand up in a way more than just calling my senators, which I already have been doing, and posting angry things on the internet,” Mitchell said.

Diane Russell, a former member of the Maine House of Representatives, led the jetport protest. Several immigrant and refugee residents of Maine also spoke, as did the mayors of Portland and South Portland.

Students found the speeches by immigrants to be particularly powerful. Mitchell recalled hearing the story of one Somali refugee who described his arrival and warm welcome to the Portland community.

“He was talking about what a beautiful thing it is how America accepts immigrants and what a storied part of our history it is,” he said.  

Many students attended another rally against the immigration executive orders at City Hall in Portland on Wednesday evening. 

To help students with transportation to protests, Victoria Pitaktong ’17 started Bowdoin Protest Rides, a Facebook group in which students can share information and find transportation. As of press time, the group has 208 members.

Pitaktong herself didn’t attend the Portland protests. She highlighted that student activism does not have to involve leaving campus.

“Right now there’s a disconnect between national concerns and campus. I see a lot of people are very encouraged to go to protests in Portland and all these things, which is great,” she said. “At the same time, I think people don’t realize that those threats actually apply to students on campus. There are students on campus who are actually distraught by these bans … You don’t have to go all the way to Portland to show your support.”

Pitaktong noted that protesting—especially off campus—can be time consuming and exhausting, particularly in the lives of already-busy Bowdoin students.

“Sometimes it takes a toll on my mental health, and my physical health. But when you think of how much your friends are trying to do this, you have to be there,” she said.

Jordan Moskowitz ’16 and Donny Alvine ’16 celebrated. Montsi Madrigal ’18 couldn’t believe it. Victoria Pitaktong ’17 said she’s still in denial. Zachary Hebert ’18 offered free hugs. Across campus, Bowdoin students reacted to Donald Trump’s election as the 45th president of the United States.

Ural Mishra ’20 is an international student from Nepal. He couldn’t vote in the election, but closely followed the results and expressed fear at Trump’s victory.

“I do not feel safe in this country. I know there are a lot of people who feel the same way,” he said. “Skin color is the basis for hatred. And now we have a president that’s all for it. He’s normalized it.”

Like Mishra, Aziza Janmohamed ’19 couldn’t vote in the election. She’s Muslim and a Canadian citizen, although her parents currently reside in Pakistan. 

“He’s said in the past he wants [Muslims] to carry identification and maybe do a travel ban from all problematic countries, and those are all mostly Muslim countries,” Janmohamed said. “If he does place a travel ban on those countries, my parents live [in Pakistan], so does that mean my parents can’t come and watch me graduate? What does that mean for me?”

The election results broke in the early hours of Wednesday morning. On Tuesday night, many students gathered for public viewings in Hawthorne-Longfellow Library, the Women’s Resource Center and David Saul Smith Union. At the Union, where students watched CNN on a large screen, the mood grew from tense to somber as the night wore on. The crowd initially cheered when Hillary Clinton was announced the winner in states like Colorado and Virginia. But as the electoral map began to favor Trump, cheers were replaced with groans.

In an election survey conducted by the Orient last week that received responses from 631 students, 88.6 percent of respondents indicated that they supported Hillary Clinton, while 6.6 percent of respondents supported Trump.

At 1:41 a.m. Wednesday morning—minutes after the Associated Press reported that Trump had won the state of Pennsylvania—Liam Gunn ’17, electoral engagement fellow at the Joseph McKeen Center for the Common Good, took to the microphone.

“It has been called, with Donald Trump elected to be our next President of the United States,” Gunn said.

His announcement was met with gasps from the crowd and many students broke out crying. Wednesday morning, students were left grappling with the news—and their emotional reactions to it. 

“It was pretty depressing on campus [Wednesday],” said Nina Alvarado-Silverman ’19. “It really felt like a funeral.”

“I’ve never been in classes that were as silent as they were yesterday,” said Rowan Staley ’17. 

Many students expressed fear and concern about Trump’s proposed policies. Pitaktong highlighted the racism that she believes Trump’s campaign embodied. 

“My parents actually went back to Thailand years and years ago because of racism in Tennessee,” Pitaktong said. “They were always concerned about my well-being here, and I said, ‘It’s 2016, it’s fine.’ But I don’t think it’s fine anymore.”

Alexa Horwitz ’19 said the anti-LGBT rhetoric from Trump and his running mate Mike Pence was a serious concern for her. 

“I came out last year, and I’m really proud of who I am and that’s not going to change,” Horwitz said. “[I’ve been] reading articles this morning saying the first thing he’ll do in office is make sure you can discriminate against LGBT people based on religious grounds …  It’s a scary place to be in.”

Hunter White ’17 shared Horwitz’s concern for the gay community. 

“I’m definitely upset about [the election result], even though I would definitely say I’m pretty moderate, probably not as liberal as the average Bowdoin student,” White said. “But [I’m] definitely still really upset and worried about my family. I have gay moms, so I’m worried about gay people in America particularly.”

While White was concerned by the results of the election, he emphasized the need to understand the factors behind support for Trump.

“A lot of students at Bowdoin are really interested in working in urban poverty, like urban education things, but rural people are really left out of everything,” he said.

Heather Gans ’19 admitted she was searching for answers after Trump’s victory. Like White, she thought it was important that Bowdoin students recognize the range of beliefs that exist outside of the College.

“Bowdoin is such a bubble. And I think it’s really important to get outside of that bubble and really understand people’s opinions,” Gans said.

On Wednesday afternoon, Hebert had an antidote for his classmates’ woes. He walked around central campus with a sign reading “Free Hugs.”

“I went to class [Wednesday] morning and the majority of my class was feeling pretty upset, like visibly upset, and so I thought this would be a good way to do what I can to change that,” Hebert said. “I’d say I’m averaging about a hug a minute.”

The McKeen Center and Bowdoin Student Government (BSG) led a discussion on Wednesday afternoon to help students process the election results. Originally scheduled to be held in the Smith Union conference room—which seats around 10 people—the discussion ended up moving to Morrell Lounge after Trump was elected. Hundreds of students attended, as did President Clayton Rose, Dean of Student Affairs Tim Foster and numerous other faculty and staff members.

Addressing the crowd, Rose advised students to engage with people who had voted differently. 

“Blatant racism, homophobia, xenophobia, nativism, Islamophobia and admissions of virtual sexual assault … are completely unacceptable,” he said. “But there’s another thing going on. There’s a battle of ideas going on. And there’s a huge group of people that we know and we like and we love who are voting differently than some of us.”

Both students and faculty addressed feelings of devastation and discomfort during the discussion. 

Director of Student Activities Nate Hintze said he struggled with how to address the election with his kids. 

“I worry about what [example] this sets for our children,” he said. “Whether it’s OK to make fun of disabled people or say things [he does] about women.”

Assistant Professor of Sociology Theo Greene recognized the anguish that many students felt. The first time he voted in an election was in 2000, when George W. Bush beat Al Gore in a close and highly contested race.

“It took me hours this morning to prepare for my class and I still wasn’t ready for what I walked into and saw all these beautiful, sad faces,” Greene said. “But I also found myself deeply inspired by those sad faces because what I saw in those faces was incredible passion for politics.”

In a survey conducted in the spring by Professor of Government Michael Franz and his Quantitative Analysis in Political Science class, 32 percent of students surveyed said they felt unsafe expressing their political views on campus. Those who expressed that sentiment were on average more conservative than the average student.

Alvine wears a Trump sticker on his backpack.

“A lot of people have been calling me a bigot and a racist, stuff like that. But I don’t really let it phase me too much,” he said. “I do feel sympathy for a lot of people that did support Hillary, because I have family members that were Democrats and supported her and I can see their side of the argument, the things they find important.”

Moskowitz, who voted for Trump, also attended the discussion in Smith Union on Wednesday, but he didn’t speak up.

“I didn’t want to upset anybody even further,” Moskowitz said.

He noted that tensions have been high on campus following Trump’s victory. 

“I was wearing my ‘Make America Great Again’ hat [and] I got a lot of dirty looks,” Moskowitz said. “No one said anything to me per se, but a lot of dirty looks.”

Bowdoin’s Trump supporters hope that students and other Americans who oppose Trump will eventually see the benefits of the Trump presidency. 

“I really hope that the party can be able to come together and bring America together and show that this is the best outcome for the United States,” said Westly Garcia ’17. “Hopefully there will be a lot of progress and a lot of growth because of this. And we’ll be able to fix this kind of big division we’ve seen because of this election.”  

Many students highlighted the importance of continued political engagement. 

“I don’t think this is something that we should just take a few days and move on. I feel like it deserves more than that,” said Staley.

“An election is not meant to be the end of the policy process and the democracy, it’s supposed to just be the first step,” Gunn said. “There are so many ways you can get involved afterwards. And whether you like or dislike the person who is elected it still important to be engaged. To hold that person and all other elected officials at all other levels accountable.” 

Surya Milner contributed to this report.

Last week, 14 members of Bowdoin Women in Computer Science (BWICS) attended the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing in Houston, Texas—an annual conference exclusively for female computer scientists. The trip, largely sponsored by alumni donations, is a key element of BWICS strategy to show Bowdoin women that they, too, belong in computer science.

“Before this conference I wasn’t planning on applying to any internships within the computer science field this summer,” said Sam Valdivia ’19, a first-time conference attendee. “Now because of going to this conference, I feel that I can actually do it.”

The conference also doubled as a career fair. Students submitted their resumes beforehand and interviewed with companies on site. Three Bowdoin attendees were offered full-time jobs at the fair, while two others received summer internship offers.

The conference featured notable female computer scientists from major companies such as Google, Twitter, Amazon and IBM. Students expressed their awe after being in the presence of so many accomplished women.

“I had no idea that there were going to be 15,000 women and over 300 companies all in this one building in Houston,” said Maddie Bustamante ’17, co-founder of BWICS. “It was very overwhelming, but also so empowering to be in this space with all these really intelligent women.”

Of 76 current juniors and seniors who have already declared to be Computer Science majors at Bowdoin, just 26 students—34 percent—are women. Bustamante co-founded BWICS during her sophomore year to support her female peers in computer science.

“[BWICS is] trying to pave a path for future students,” she said. “It’s going to be a much easier process.”Associate Professor of Computer Science Laura Toma recalled coming to Bowdoin to interview in 2003. When she delivered a computer science lecture, all the attendees were male.

Toma first attended the Grace Hopper conference with two Bowdoin students in 2009. She believes the conference helps encourage women to stay in computer science.

“A lot of peer institutions have been sending their students there for many years. And there’s research that shows [attending] helps enormously with retention,” Toma said.

Due to shortages of interest and funding, no Bowdoin women attended the conference again until last year, when 10 students went. This year, Toma accompanied 14 students. She hopes that Bowdoin students can continue to attend in the future.

“We are not sure what is going to happen next year. We hope we can keep it going because everyone said it was an amazing experience,” Toma said.

However, the Student Activities Funding Committee only provides enough funding for club leaders to attend conferences like Grace Hopper, according to Director of Student Activities Nate Hintze. This year, BWICS group members attended with the help of alumni donations and scholarships that they had received from the conference itself.

Bustamante expressed her hope that Career Planning or the computer science department could help future funding, so the group doesn’t have to rely on alumni. Toma echoed this sentiment.“Success of women depends a lot on community-building, on social [connections] and this conference manages to do all of this,” Toma said. “My dream is that we can do this every year.”

Numerous campus building underwent renovation over the summer, with some of the most dramatic changes occurring in Baxter House, Coles Tower, David Saul Smith Union and Hawthorne-Longfellow Library.

At Baxter House, the College opted to remove a wall on the first floor, creating a common space complete with a new television set and furniture in a space that had previously been a private living room.

House members expressed excitement at the change.

“We can definitely do more here,” said Sam Roy ’19, Baxter House’s communications director. “We can do more daytime events like lectures, maybe a capella groups here, so we’re really excited to have this open space.”

The Baxter House basement also received upgrades, including the installation of colored lights and a new ventilation system.

Coles Tower, which has been partially renovated over the past two summers, also saw major changes. This summer, student living spaces on the ninth through 12th floors of the Tower were upgraded. The second floor of the Tower was also converted into a living space after Information Technology (IT), which previously occupied the space, moved to the basement.

In Smith Union, students noticed that the former sitting area on the first floor behind the Information Desk no longer exists; the area has been replaced with office space for Director of the David Saul Smith Union Allen DeLong. While the Union is a 24-hour study space, a Bowdoin ID is now required between midnight and 6 a.m.

The Hawthorne-Longfellow Library also saw several changes. Shelves were removed from the first floor of the library to create more open space where students can study. The Media Commons in the library basement was also renovated to increase student study space.

Bowdoin made a number of administrative changes for the 2016-2017 academic year, including several interim appointees and internal hires.

Melissa Quinby ’91, formerly director of the Women’s Resource Center (WRC), was named the interim dean of first-year students, filling the role vacated by Janet Lohmann. Lohmann left Bowdoin at the end of the 2015-2016 academic year to become dean of students at Kenyon College.

Stephanie Rendall, one of two new hires, steps into Quinby’s former role as interim coordinator of the WRC for the year.

Michael Pulju, previously associate director of residential education, was named interim assistant dean for upperclass students, replacing Brandon Royce-Diop. Pulju will advise upperclass students with last names beginning with the letters A-L and serve as a secondary advisor to the Judicial Board. Quinby and Pulju will serve in the Dean’s Office for the entirety of this academic year, and the College hopes to find permanent appointments for both positions by the summer of 2017, according to an email sent to the Bowdoin community in June by Senior Associate Dean of Student Affairs Kim Pacelli.

Whitney Hogan ’07, former associate director of health education, will step into Pulju’s former role as the associate director of residential education. Since she began working for the College in 2012, Hogan has served as coordinator of health education and associate director of health promotion.

Christian van Loenen was named the assistant director of health promotion and education. He will fulfill many of Hogan’s former duties, including working with Peer Health.

Dr. Jeffrey Maher is the new director of health services. Maher had previously worked for the College in a consulting role, according to an email Dean of Student Affairs Tim Foster sent to the Bowdoin community in June. Sandra Hayes has occupied Maher’s position on an interim basis since Dr. Birgit Pols stepped down as director of health services last March.

Under the tenure of former president Barry Mills, Bowdoin saw a substantial increase in the racial diversity of its student body. For the 2001-2002 school year, just 21 percent of Bowdoin students identified as a race other than white; this year, according to the College’s Common Data Set, that number was 37 percent.

The experiences of students of color at Bowdoin are varied and diverse, and cannot be explained by any statistic. At the same time, many students believe that recent conflicts—the “tequila” and “gangster” parties, Cracksgiving, racially-charged verbal attacks on students in town—highlight the College’s continued struggle to make Bowdoin a welcoming place for people of all racial and ethnic backgrounds.

“When all these things happened and people refused to understand why this hurts a lot, that’s when it got to me,” said Cesar Siguencia ’18, who identifies as Latino. “That’s when I realized my race started to become a problem on this campus.”

Skyler Lewis ’16, who identifies as black, said he is no longer surprised by racial issues on campus.  

“I’ve dealt with a whole bunch of stuff,” he said. “At first it used to really bother me, being called the n-word or someone saying some really stupid racist stuff, and eventually I just got to the point where I’ve come to expect it almost.”

Ryan Strange ’17, who identifies as black and biracial, noted that students of color have been more vocal about racial issues this year than in the past.

“There are a lot more students of color who are speaking out. And I guess that’s uncomfortable for some people,” he said.

But whether students of color speak out or stay quiet, their race nonetheless can impact their experiences throughout their time at Bowdoin.

Many students of color first saw the College through Explore Bowdoin or Bowdoin Experience, admissions programs that encourage low-income and first-generation students to apply and matriculate to Bowdoin. These programs have a greater representation of students of color than the actual student body.  

“The Experience and the Explore programs that I did, which I loved… helped me so much and I’m very appreciative because it got me to where I am now,” said Dylan Goodwill ’17, who identifies as Native American. “[But] it seemed so diverse when I came and then I was very surprised when I came and I was like, ‘It’s not as diverse as I thought.’”

Lewis voiced a similar sentiment.

“Both of the weekends that I came up seem like they’re more for minority students so you walk around campus and there are a whole bunch of minorities, especially during Experience weekend,” he said. “And you leave and you show up [for college] and you’re like, where’d everybody go?”

Victoria Yu

Raquel Santizo '19

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As students of color arrive on a campus that is less racially diverse than they had anticipated, many gravitate towards peers of similar racial and ethnic backgrounds. Affinity groups, such as the Asian Student Association (ASA), the Native American Student Organization (NASA), the Latin American Student Organization (LASO) and the African American Student Organization (Af-Am) provide one mechanism for students to connect with others who feel the same way.

“I think it’s natural to kind of gravitate towards people who are similar to you, especially culturally,” Lewis said. “And that doesn't have to be based on race but often times it is. I live in Coles Tower with three other black males....we have similar cultural backgrounds, we listen to the same stuff, we came from similar areas.”

Michelle Hong ’16, who was born in Texas to Korean parents and identifies as Asian-American, is the current co-president of ASA. She joined the group her sophomore year after realizing that she did not know many Asian students at Bowdoin.

“I joined ASA my sophomore year because I think I started wondering why I didn’t have any Asian-American friends at Bowdoin,” she said. “[I realized] there were parts of my identity that I was missing by doing what the majority of Bowdoin students do.”

Like Hong, many students of color struggled to find and maintain their racial and cultural identities as they adjusted to Bowdoin.

Goodwill, who is Sioux and Navajo, has found it difficult to preserve her cultural practices at the College. She also notices herself adjusting her language and behavior to fit in.

“I always knew I did code switching,” she said. “[But] I now notice it a lot more. I don’t talk in my normal slang or in my normal accent at all.”

Jenny Ibsen

Jeffrey Chung '16

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Jeffrey Chung ’16, who identifies as Chinese-American and is also co-president of ASA, noted that affinity groups can help create community among students with similar racial experiences.

“Michelle and I have been working a lot to change the identity of the club... to reflect more on the community and identity of the students within the club rather than promoting an image of ‘Asian culture’ to the rest of campus,” he said.

While affinity groups are a supportive environment for some students, options are more limited for students whose racial or ethnic identification is not shared by as many Bowdoin students.

Irfan Alam ’18, who identifies as South Asian and Muslim, wants to create a formal group for South Asian students to connect.

“We have a reasonable South Asian student population. I think like probably twenty-five,” he said. “We’re hoping to try to make an organization sort of like LASO, sort of like ASA,  Af-Am, things like that, but for South Asian students,” he said.

NASA currently has six members and no faculty adviser. Goodwill, one of its co-presidents, said such small numbers made it difficult for Native American students to respond to racial incidents on campus.

“Cracksgiving happened my first year here and I was so surprised that nothing was being done about it because I was really offended, but there was only me and two other girls on campus who were Native,” she said. “And they were like, well, this has been happening and like there’s only three of us, what can we do?”

Although some students find kinship befriending others of their same race or ethnicity, many students of color voiced concerns about racial segregation on campus.

“Maybe because it’s such a predominantly white institution, that people of color tend to stay together because they’re a part of the minority,” said Strange. “Maybe it’s on both sides...I guess people of color and also white people need to push ourselves to try to get to know people outside their own comfort zone.”

Dana Williams

Michelle Hong '16

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This division along racial lines has reached most aspects of Bowdoin social life. Several students of color said that race impacted their dating and hookup experiences on campus.

“Gay men of color most of the time are separate from gay white men,” said Strange. “I don’t know why that is.”

Chung, who grew up in New York City, found that the trope of Asian-Americans as perpetual foreigners created separation for him in Bowdoin’s relationship scene.

“It dawned upon me as I approached the hookup culture and as I approached the party scene here that I—however much as I could identify as an American—I still couldn’t completely fit in or I still couldn’t completely be seen as strictly the same,” he said.

Simone Rumph ’19, who primarily identifies as African-American but also Greek and Brazilian, added that Bowdoin’s dating and hookup scene made her worry about being exoticized because of her race.

“You can see it in the way people approach you. They don’t approach you in a way that other girls will be approached,” she said.

Many students notice that the parties hosted by College Houses and by affinity groups—both of which are open to the entire student body—tend to have different attendees.

“Af-Am, whenever they have parties, it’s usually people of color that go,” said Strange.

“I didn’t really process immediately that [when I] went into a College House party as a freshman I might be the only Asian person that I could see,” Chung said.

Racial divides at College Houses and other campus events lead some students of color to question whether Bowdoin’s campus is self-segregated. Strange noticed this phenomenon at some of the Bowdoin Student Government (BSG) hearings following the “tequila” party.

“After the meeting at BSG, I noticed how segregated it was,” he said. “People of color stood on one side and then there were all white people on the outside and it was just so interesting to me. I don’t know how or why that happened. And it happens in the classroom too, I notice. And I don’t know why.”

The impact of race is not limited to social groups or student government meetings. Instead, students of color say that race sometimes influences their academic experiences and their relationships with professors.

Many students expressed that the scarcity of students of color at Bowdoin places a burden on individuals to represent everyone of their racial background.

“Sometimes you feel like the class looks to you to act as a spokesperson for black students,” Lewis said.

Some students also worry that their personal behaviors might unintentionally reinforce or inscribe racial stereotypes at Bowdoin and beyond.

“I find that I do very well at academics here at Bowdoin, which is fine,” Chung said. “But I think that at the same time there’s this sort of lingering thought in my mind: Am I sort of just perpetuating the stereotype of the model minority? Like do my peers only think I’m doing well because I’m Asian or do they actually recognize all the work that I’m putting into academics?”

Darius Riley

Dylan Goodwill '17

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In addition to peer-to-peer interactions, race sometimes informs students’ interactions with faculty. While 37 percent of Bowdoin students identify as minorities, only 14 percent of faculty members do, according to the College’s Common Data Set.

“I try not to put race as a factor… [but] the professor that inspired me the most to date on this campus was a professor who identified herself as Latina,” Siguencia said. “Although she helped me so much in the field of study that I was in the class of, we talked so much about our experiences because it just correlated so much, saying that we understand the struggles that we’re facing because no one else here on this campus does.”

Student experiences with race and faculty are not always positive, however. Goodwill said she has encountered several instances of overt racism from professors.

“It was comments,” she said. “And one of them was last semester but then one of them was my freshman year. And being a freshman in your first-year seminar, and it’s your first time on campus it’s like how do you deal with that?”

Other students expressed that their families’ backgrounds—especially financial ones—have added pressure to succeed academically at Bowdoin. Siguencia said he feels he cannot become too involved in Bowdoin’s party or drinking scene because he fears his academics will suffer.

“What if—worst-case scenario—what if I were to fail? What do I have to fall back on?” he said.

Despite the importance of academics, several students commented that the burden of dealing with racial issues can be overwhelming and distracts them from their studies.

“It’s like you come to a place where you’re supposed to be safe and you’re supposed to be able to focus on your studies and you’re experiencing all of this other stuff as well, all this extra emotional baggage,” Hong said.

For many students, racially-charged campus events only added to this emotional labor. Several students expressed that they wished their professors would give greater acknowledgement to events like the “tequila” and “gangster” parties.

“You know that there are students on this campus who don’t even want to go to class because they’re so hurt by this,” said Hong.

“I am a student in your class [who] is clearly being affected by everything that’s going on,” added Raquel Santizo ’19, who identifies as Latin American, more specifically Peruvian.

While students did not expect their professors to coddle them, several said that they wished their professors would acknowledge the difficulty of the situations or facilitate discussions around them.

“My professors are fully capable of giving us not information, but facilitating thoughtful conversation the way they do in a normal class,” Alam said.

Even with the absence of faculty attention, Alam added that he felt campus discussions about race were worthwhile.

“Although [the “tequila” party] has caused a lot of tension and all these different things,  I do wholeheartedly believe that it created a lot of important dialogue,” he said. “I think that we should be able to do that without having it be prompted by incidents where people become upset or offended. So proactive engagement with these issues is important.”

Hong added that campus conversations make her more aware of racial issues in the outside world.

“I identify being a person of color more than I used to and I used to not group Asian-Americans in with people of color. And so now that I do I think I care more deeply about national issues that are going on, like the Black Lives Matter movement,” she said. “I think it would be easier to ignore if I didn’t identify as a student of color… I’m more present I guess for conversations about race than I was when I first got to Bowdoin.”

Racial issues still exist when students of color leave Bowdoin’s immediate campus. According to 2010 census data, the population of Brunswick is 93 percent white, a fact that can be jarring for students who grew up in racially diverse environments.

Santizo, who grew up in Los Angeles, noticed these demographics as she prepared to move in last fall.

“My mom said: ‘Raquel, I think you’re the only Hispanic girl in this whole state,’” she said.  

Alam noted that, while he had not personally encountered racism off campus, several female Muslim students had.

Off campus interactions serve as a reminder that, while the outside world may not discuss race as often as Bowdoin students do, racial issues nonetheless continue to play a role in the lives of students of color.

“When I graduate, part of it will be easier because I won’t be constantly faced everyday where we are so engaged and I’ll probably be able to just go about my daily life,” Hong said. “But I think once you’re conscious about race and you’re conscious about the implications of race you can’t really ever forget that.”

In the early hours of a typical Friday morning, the Orient staff emails PDF files of the paper to a Brunswick printer. A few hours later, printed newspapers appear in buildings across campus. In between, the intricate art of newspaper printing unfolds just a few miles from Bowdoin. Dick Lancaster, sales manager at Alliance Press, has been in the newspaper-printing business for nearly 30 years. His company was already printing weekly editions of the Orient when he joined in the mid-1980s.

The physical printing process relies on both old and new technology. Once the Orient sends completed designs to Alliance Press, pre-press employees check that the files are sized and formatted properly. 

“No RGB images. [We use] CMYK,” Lancaster said. “[Then] they’ll paginate it and put it in the correct order for sixteen pages.”

Order is especially important because the printing press is configured to only print certain pages in color. All images that appear in the Orient are combinations of just a few colors of ink. “You have four different inkwells. You have yellow, magenta, black and cyan,” Lancaster said. ”You [put] your colors all on [pages] one, eight, nine and 16. If you wanted more color, it would go on two, seven, 10 and 15.” 

Once the employees have ensured that the paper is in proper order, they use a special printer to burn the design directly onto metal plates. They then bend the plates to fit into the printing press.

When it’s finally time to print the paper, an operator switches the printing press on. Sheets of newsprint pass through the machine, picking up ink as they come into contact with the metal plates. The machine then cuts and folds the sheets so that they come out the other end looking like typical newspapers. 

Alliance Press has multiple printing presses, so they can print up to three publications simultaneously. The quickest of these presses prints 15,000 papers per hour. For a publication like the Orient, which prints roughly 1,600 copies, the process is relatively short. “Once we’re up and running, it probably takes 15, 20 minutes, to print the [Orient],” Lancaster said. 

The Orient typically prints at around 8 a.m. Since pressroom employees work in three shifts, the printing facilities are well-populated no matter the time of day.

While printing presses themselves haven’t changed much since Lancaster first entered the printing business, the advent of computers has substantially affected the industry. Before email existed, the Orient staff would paste words and images onto physical boards, which they would deliver to the press room. Printing employees would then take pictures of the boards and use their negatives to develop the metal plates. 

“You’d go into the dark room. You’d put the boards on the camera. You’d shoot the camera,” Lancaster said. “The negatives would be burned on the plates.”

While technology has made the printing process more convenient, it has also impacted the nature of Lancaster’s job. 

”Everything pretty much comes to us in InDesign PDF files now,” he said. “As a salesman, I would be driving five to six hundred miles a week, going to different locations, picking up boards and bringing them back to print. I don’t go anywhere anymore.”

But despite technological advancements, the physical printing process isn’t perfect. Lancaster noted that in printing the Orient, Alliance Press will typically waste 300 to 500 copies because sheets weren’t aligned properly. He added that the staff recycles these wasted copies.“Everything we do here, we recycle,” he said. “All of our newsprint is post-consumer recycled newsprint.”

Lancaster said that printing the Orient has typically been a fairly smooth process. He did note, however, that the Occident, the satirical version of the Orient published the last week of each year, once caused problems. 

“It was a little over the top, and a couple of employees were offended by it,” he said. “[But] that was a long time ago.” 

For Lancaster, printing the Orient helps him stay connected to Bowdoin, where he occasionally works as a bartender for campus events. His grandfather—for whom Lancaster Lounge is named—was a member of the Bowdoin class of 1927, and his mother also worked at the College. 

Alliance Press headquarters are located in Brunswick, only a few miles from Bowdoin’s campus. Despite the small-town location, the company not only prints the Orient but also many other publications, including the Times Record, the Bangor Daily News and student newspapers from the University of Maine-Orono, the University of Southern Maine and Colby.

While Lancaster isn’t usually mentioned in the headlines that his company prints, he nonetheless takes pride in the work.

“This is kind of like meat and potatoes. This is the bottom line basic newsprint color printing,” he said. “We have a really good niche here in the state of Maine.”

While many Bowdoin students work with professors in laboratories or as teaching assistants, some find themselves doing a different kind of work: babysitting for a professor’s children. Babysitting isn’t listed on the student employment website, but students and professors nonetheless find various ways to connect.

Genevieve de Kervor ’18 found a babysitting opportunity with Chair of English Department Aaron Kitch and Assistant Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures and Cinema Studies Allison Cooper.

“During my first year I was having a hard time and needed to be part of a family,” she said. “So [Dean of First Year Students] Janet Lohmann said ‘I have a perfect idea,’ so she contacted Allison Cooper.”

Recommendations from faculty members are one way that Bowdoin students begin babysitting.

“It’s a pretty small world, a pretty small campus,” Kitch said. “Colleagues have had students they recommend to us, and we try to get a hold of them. Good babysitters are a valuable commodity.”

Laura Henry, John F. and Dorothy H. Magee associate professor of government, says she occasionally picks babysitters from her crop of former students.

“If I’ve had a student who seems really sympathetic and energetic in a class, then the next semester I might just send a note and say, ‘Are you ever interested in babysitting?’” she said.Henry has also found babysitters through the Bowdoin Children’s Center, where some psychology students work.

“Sometimes it would be clear that my children were really happily engaging with a particular student, and then we might follow up to see if the student was interested in babysitting,” she said.

Aviva Briefel, professor of English and cinema studies, said she doesn’t worry about mixing academic and personal relationships with her student babysitters.

“Whereas I initially made it a personal rule not to ask someone whom I was currently teaching, I don’t worry about that as much now,” she said in an email to the Orient. “I feel that both I and the student are able to keep our classroom and babysitting relationship separate.”

Sarah Frankl ’16, a biology major and an English minor, sometimes babysits for Briefel’s kids. Although she took several classes with Briefel, who was her pre-major advisor, she likewise finds it easy to keep academics and babysitting independent of one another.

“I have her phone number, but I’m not going to text her and be like, ‘Are you late to office hours?’” she said.

A pre-established academic relationship also means that professors understand their students’ workloads.

“I would never ask a student to babysit if they had a paper due in my class the next day,” Briefel said.

The academic relationship also makes it easy for professors to trust student babysitters with their children.

“I have never had a bad experience with a Bowdoin babysitter,” said Briefel. “I feel that the time that my kids have spent with their sitters will be some of their best childhood memories. They are always thrilled to hang out with Bowdoin students.”

In addition, the opportunity to connect with a professor’s family is a welcome break for Bowdoin babysitters. Frankl said she enjoys the opportunity to spend time with people who aren’t college students.

“It’s really frustrating to only be with one age group all the time,” she said. “It’s nice to have a conversation that’s completely off-the-wall random because kids will say the cutest things.” For some students, babysitting can create a bond that extends beyond childcare duties. 

“I feel like they’re my second family,” de Kervor said. “I walk their dog when I have the chance... I always go to their birthday parties and family events, and whenever I need anything I go to Allison and Aaron.”

This connection isn’t limited to a student’s time at Bowdoin.

“We had a student—she must have graduated in either 2010 or 2011—who babysat for us when my younger son was an infant and a toddler,” Henry said. “I didn’t have any academic relationship with her, but she was just amazing and we keep up with her and see her if she comes to Maine.”

While graduation poses one obstacle for professors using student babysitters, another problem is that Bowdoin students aren’t on campus year round. 

“The one problem with Bowdoin babysitters is they go away,” Henry said. “Not only do they graduate, they’re not here during the holidays, they’re not here during Spring Break, they’re not here over the summer.”

Even during the school year, scheduling can be difficult for many students and professors.“[Students] are busy,” said Henry. “So you might have someone babysit once and they’re lovely, but if just turns out scheduling-wise it’s challenging to ever have them again.”

But when babysitting does work out, both students and faculty enjoy the benefits.

“It’s a great perk of living so close to Bowdoin,” Kitch said.

While most Bowdoin students might prefer to spend their wintry Friday mornings indoors, 11 biology students are spending theirs exploring the Maine backcountry, examining trees for sawfly cocoons and occasionally meeting black bear cubs. It’s all part of Advanced Winter Field Ecology, a class taught by Chair of the Biology Department Nat Wheelwright. 

Last week, the group accompanied biologists from the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife on a bear-tracking expedition near Columbia, Maine. The trip was led by the department’s lead bear biologist, Randy Cross.

“It [involved] snowshoeing three miles and being snowmobiled out on through blueberry fields,” said Liam Taylor ’17. “It was kind of crazy. It got cold. But we all did it for the bears.”The group was searching for a female bear that had previously been tagged with a radio collar.“They [were] pinging the collar on the bear to track it down to this tiny little den,” said Ben West ’16.

Once they found the female bear and her two yearling cubs, the researchers tranquilized them and took measurements. 

“They can look at their weight, take measurements, take DNA samples, check out their teeth... That’s just a way that they can keep tabs on the population,” said Hannah LeBlanc ’16. Bear tracking and tagging provide valuable data to inform hunting regulations and manage human-bear interactions. But the expedition also allowed the Bowdoin students to get up close and personal with the furry creatures. 

“They’re yearling cubs, so they [were] pretty big, like 50, 60 pounds, so we didn’t hold them very long,” West said. “The big myth that they were telling us is that bears smell stinky, but they smell more like a dog.”

Sarah McCarthy ’18, who had experience working with bears in captivity before, was nonetheless awed by the experience.

“I’ve never done much with wild bears before, or been that close to a bear,” she said. “I got to kiss it on the nose.”

The trip also provided students with the opportunity to connect with professional ecology researchers. 

“It was cool to talk to Fish and Wildlife bear biologists who do really cool field work,” said Sabine Berzins ’16. “That’s definitely something I would be interested in doing.”

Of course, the upper-level biology class isn’t just about talking with experts and cuddling furry creatures. 

“We’re researching the introduced pine sawfly, which is a little bit less charismatic than the black bear,” said Taylor. 

Sawflies crawl up trees and form cocoons during the winter. Since sawflies are an introduced species to Maine—they are originally from Europe—the students hope that their research will improve scientific understanding of the sawflies’ interaction with the rest of Maine’s environment.

“They are attacking the pines in a way that wouldn’t have happened without their introduction,” said West.

The students are researching how the specific location of sawflies’ cocoons on a tree affects their survival rate. They are also bringing live cocoons back to the lab, where they will carry out predation experiments. They hope to produce a paper with their findings. 

“It would be really nice to be an author on a published paper,” West said. 

The sawflies’ tendency to cocoon during the winter makes them an ideal species to research at this time of year. Nonetheless, winter field research also poses challenges. 

“I had to buy a new jacket because mine wasn’t going to allow me to survive in the cold,” said Victor Leos ’16, who grew up in Texas. “And I had never purchased snow pants until this class. But…after a few hours you kind of forget that you’re in the snow and you’re just diving in.” Advanced Winter Field Ecology follows an atypical schedule, meeting all day on Fridays to facilitate off-campus fieldwork. It is capped at 11 students so that they—and Professor Wheelwright—can collectively fit into Bowdoin’s standard 12-passenger vans. 

Wheelwright first taught the class in 2000; this semester is the fourth time he has led it. Despite the long hours, he said the class typically has a waiting list, though this year he was able to accept everyone who registered.  

Regardless of the timing or the weather, conducting field work is a valuable experience for students hoping to continue scientific research after graduation. 

“I’m hoping to go to grad school and I’m hoping to be a biologist and do research,” said Taylor.But even if the students never conduct field work again, they will still cherish their memories from Advanced Winter Field Ecology.

“We all feel so lucky that we get the experience of getting the timing right and having the opportunity to take this class,” LeBlanc said.

“My parents have never known what it’s like outside a city basically. Like [for me] coming into Brunswick, Maine with all the trees and different colors… It definitely creates two different worlds,” Chow said.  

Chow, like roughly 10 percent of students in the class of 2019, is a first-generation college student. That percentage has been fairly consistent for the first year class over the past five years.

In many ways, “first-gen” students face typical challenges: managing school and work, sleep and stress, friends and health. Some, however, face obstacles other students will never have to deal with, like the lull on the other end of the line when trying to explain Bowdoin to their parents.

“My family didn't even know Bowdoin existed,” said Diamond Walker ’17, who grew up in the Bronx. “I don't even think they understand what a liberal arts school means.”

Even though he was born and raised relatively close to campus in Portland, Maine, Mohamed Nur ’19 said some aspects of college—like the social scene—are entirely foreign to his family.

“My parents, they know Bowdoin, but in a very superficial kind of way. They know it’s a college, they know after four years I’ll get a degree,” he said.

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Many first-generation students spoke of the difficulty of explaining the details of their lives at the College to their parents.  

Anu Asaolu ’19 said that her Nigerian mother has a hard time seeing college as more than just an academic pursuit.

“Every time I call my mom, she’s just like, ‘Remember, you’re here to learn,’” said Asaolu. “Yeah, college is about learning, but it’s really hard to explain that it’s also about developing yourself and really finding out who you are.”

When Asaolu got a concussion while playing rugby this fall, her mother told her she should join a science club instead. Asaolu is interested in a career in medicine.

“It’s really hard explaining that [rugby] is what I want to do, that this is what makes me happy,” she said. “‘Get your degree,’ that’s my mom’s entire goaI.”

Christina Moreland ’17 recalled avoiding telling her parents that the transition to college was difficult, as she felt they wouldn’t be able to relate.

“The nuances of how to be a college student were not something I was explaining… I would kind just leave things out and just be like, ‘Yeah, everything is great, I love everything. I’m doing really well,’” she said. “I think some of that comes from not being able to say, ‘Yeah, the first semester of college is hard’ and have them connect with that.”

Many students expressed concern that if they shared the full details of their Bowdoin experiences, their families would worry unnecessarily.

“When I cough, I cough away from the phone. So [my mom] isn’t super worried about me,” Chow said.

Other first-generation students found it easier to stop communicating their Bowdoin experience altogether.

Michelle Kruk ’16 said she rarely calls home.

“A lot of those conversations can be frustrating because it’s a lot of [my parents] dumping whatever is happening at home onto me and then not allowing me to dump what’s going on here to them, and even if I do dump that, they don’t understand it,” she said. “If I have to explain to you a thousand times what I’m majoring in or what I’m minoring in or what classes I’m taking, it just over time gets really repetitive and I don’t want to answer those questions any more.”

There is no such thing as a typical first-generation student. The label is not necessarily indicative of wealth, nor is it representative of race, hometown or socioeconomic status. In other words, the only thing first-generation students are guaranteed to have in common is the definition of the term itself: that neither parent holds a two or four year degree from a college or university.

Kenny Cortum ’16 is a first generation student from Iowa. He has blond hair, pale skin and wears rectangular glasses.

“It’s hard to be a first-generation student and look like I’m part of the one percent,” he explained. “I’ve actually had trouble connecting with other first-generation students here because I don’t look first-generation.”

Despite not looking like many of his first-gen peers, Cortum said his background affected his academic experience.  

“One of my most distinct memories was when my neighbors across the hall would send their parents their essays to have them look over them, which I thought was kind of unfair,” he said. “I had to really look at these differences and find a way to adjust to make Bowdoin work for me the same way they’re making Bowdoin work with their parents. I had to do it without my parents.”

The academic transition to Bowdoin varies widely among first-generation students, as it does among all first years. Students who attended private schools or strong public high schools often felt well-prepared for college, while students who attended less privileged schools often found academics more difficult, especially in their first year.

"I came to college for academics, first and foremost, and I deserve the best out of my experience like anybody else," said Walker, whose public high school in the Bronx offered few advanced classes and was frequently subject to budget cuts. "I know I could do better, but I'm doing a lot with what I have so far. It's hard to be compared to students who've been challenged like this for years and this is my first time confronting stuff like this."

Walker believes her status as a first-generation student makes her time at the College even more valuable.

“My grades are everything right now,” she said. “To be honest, I don't have anything else. I don't have money. I don't have family with connections. All I have is my education.”

Shawn Bayrd ’19, who grew up in Brunswick, explained that he didn’t fully grasp the prestige of a Bowdoin education until after he got his acceptance letter. While he feels like he fits in academically, Bayrd said he still notices instances where he feels like an outsider because of his status as a first-gen student.

“Since my parents didn't go to college, they don't have this academic standpoint on the world… When I talk to people who have parents who went to get their PhDs or are high in their fields, I've noticed that the kids are also very aware of what's going on around them,” he said. “I haven't gotten the home aspect where we talk about what's going on in the world.”

Bayrd attended Brunswick High School and worked alongside his mom at Thorne Hall in his junior year of high school.

“It was awful. I hated Bowdoin kids because if you're not a student you don't get treated as well,” he said. “One of my jobs was to put the coffee pots in the machines and turn it on so it would filter through. And there was this whole crowd around the coffee thing waiting for the coffee and I was just standing there with the pots waiting for them to move and they were like, ‘Are you gonna make more coffee?’ I'm like, ‘Yes, I will if you fucking move.’”

While intellectual support is one privilege of being raised by college-educated parents, financial stability is another, more widely-recognized advantage. According to data collected by the National Information Center for Higher Education Policymaking and Analysis there is a $26,700 median difference in yearly earnings between those with a high school diploma versus a bachelor's degree.

“Because my parents didn’t go to college, finances are always an issue,” said Zac Watson ’16. “So I actually moved in by myself. My parents weren’t here to help me move in. And that was kind of—it was very different. Everyone’s parents help them move in on the first day. And it was just me here. I had to go to the mail center, get all my boxes, move in, get to the Field House.”

Watson said he still feels different because of his financial status at times.  

“It was the social aspect that I really noticed,” he said. “Friends want to go to Quebec for Fall Break or something, and it’s like, ‘I can’t do that. I support myself.’”

“People said ‘Oh yeah, we went to Europe for a trip or we went to somewhere like Hawaii,’’’ recalled Chow. “A lot of [first-generation students] can’t afford trips like that... Having us talk about our summers is like ‘I worked this summer.’”

Most first-generation students expressed that, while their first-generation status impacted their social life, it also didn’t preclude them from forming friendships with non-first-generation students.

“Despite seeing that there are a lot of differences, I can still be friends with all these other people with a lot of privilege,” said Chow. “I can still connect with them in ways and have a lot of fun with them.”

For many students, the first-gen label often takes a backseat to other, more salient aspects of their identity.

"It's been very hard for me to explain my first-gen experience because until last semester, actually, I haven't really had one," Walker explained. "My experience has always been curtained by being black. If anyone asked me what it was like [to be first-gen], I'd talk about what it was like to be black here."

“You don’t wear your first-generation identity on your sleeve, nobody can really tell. And so there’s many other transitional issues that students here face that are more physical, that I think are prioritized for students,” said Kruk. “Like I’m more concerned about being a woman of color than being first-gen, because that’s what impacts me first.”

For other students, national identity plays a role. Camille Farradas ’19 attended a competitive private high school in Miami where many students were of Cuban descent, like her. She said she sees her identity as a first-generation student as inextricably tied to her Cuban background, because college wasn’t an option for her parents in communist Cuba.  

“Part of being Cuban in particular is that I couldn’t grow up where I was supposed to grow up,” she said. “Part of [going to college] is rebuilding our family from nothing.”

Given the diverse individual experiences of first-generation students, it can be difficult to provide resources to support the entire group. At the same time, first-generation students typically experience more difficulties than non-first-generation students. Nationally, the graduation rate for these students from private institutions is 70 percent, while only 57 percent who attend public institutions graduate. Data on the graduation rate of Bowdoin’s first-generation students was unavailable. 

Bowdoin provides some programming attempts to support first-generation students by bringing them together at the first-generation multicultural retreat, which takes place every fall.

“It [is] really an opportunity to bring first-generation students and students of color off campus after they’ve been at Bowdoin for about a month and kind of get them a safe space off campus to talk about any issues they might have,” said Director for Multicultural Life Benjamin Harris.

He added that the retreat was also a good way to connect first years with upperclassmen role models.

“The first-generation multicultural retreat…was an amazing bonding opportunity,” said Simone Rumph ’19. “Whether it be first-gen, or having struggles with economy, or being multiracial, coming from different backgrounds. It’s just a bond that is there.”

At the same time, the retreat conflates the labels of first-generation and multicultural. And while some first-generation students find support through affinity groups like the African American Society (Af-Am) or the Latin American Student Organization (LASO), connecting with first-gen peers can be more difficult for students who are first-generation college students but are not a racial or ethnic minority.

Cortum recalls feeling isolated when he went on the retreat as a first year.

“There was only one other who was as pale as I was and I felt like we were kind of alienated at first,” he said.

Bowdoin also hosts a couple of dinners a semester aimed specifically at first-generation students. Learning to utilize these resources can be an adjustment too.

"As a first-gen, I think it’s very easy to say—for most of us—that throughout our lives we’ve been doing things on our own," Chow said. “So coming to college, one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned is that it’s okay to reach out for help. It’s okay to use resources around you.”

Though Chow’s parents are thousands of miles away, he managed to find support from connecting with upper class role models.

“People seem like they’re doing alright, but they’re also going through a lot. [For] me realizing, ‘Hey, you know, someone’s been through this,’” he said. “It’s okay to feel that way.”

Born in China, Chow moved to inner-city Los Angeles when he was five. He lived with his family in Chinatown, speaking Cantonese with his parents and working at his godfather's Korean restaurant. Every weekday morning, he would leave his neighborhood to attend Bravo Medical Magnet, a predominately Hispanic magnet high school in East LA where 82 percent the students were socioeconomically disadvantaged.

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Bayrd’s after school job in high school was working at Thorne Dining Hall, alongside his mother. Though he attended Brunswick High School, he didn’t strongly consider attending Bowdoin until he received his acceptance letter. "I'm a first-generation student, so my mom and my dad didn't know colleges," he said. "I was not aware that Bowdoin was a good school. Like I knew it was a kind of good school, and then I got my acceptance letter and started researching it and I was like… ‘14.9% acceptance rate? I didn't even know that.’”

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When describing something as "chi chi" at Bowdoin, Camille Farradas '19 is often met with puzzled looks. "It just means cute, like small or quaint. Like, you're chi chi," she explained. Born and raised in a mostly Cuban community in Miami, Farradas explained that “it was a bit of a shock coming here.” Despite this, Farradas said her transition to Bowdoin has been relatively easy. Education is important in her family; her parents were forced to flee Cuba in the 1960s and never got the opportunity to go to college. In order to pay for her and her sisters’ education, Farradas’ father, created and licensed a patent for a piece of trucking machinery. “Going to college is about validating what they’ve done,” she said.

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Walker tried to challenge herself in high school, taking all five of the AP classes that her high school, the Bronx Center for Science and Mathematics, offered. Due to budget cuts, after school programs and academic support were rarely available to Walker and her high school classmates. But Walker persisted in her education, traveling across the city every Saturday to learn math, writing and critical reading skills with a program called Sponsors for Education Opportunities. "That program changed my life and is the reason I am at Bowdoin today," Walker said.

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Moreland grew up in rural Vermont, but didn’t hear about Bowdoin until a college fair during the summer before her senior year of high school. She was attracted to Bowdoin for its small class sizes and sense of community. “I think a good amount of my friends probably don’t know I’m first-gen, not because I’m not telling them, but just because it hasn’t come up in any particular way,” she said. An English and sociology major with an education minor, Moreland is also a leader in Residential Life at Bowdoin and said she hopes to work in either teaching or higher education access after college.

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Raised by her single mother, Rumph fell in love with Bowdoin after visiting for the Explore program during the fall of her senior year in high school. She credits the Questbridge program—which gave her a full scholarship—with making Bowdoin a possibility for her. “As a little kid even, my mom told me ‘you have to work hard in school, because we can’t afford college and I want you to go because I never was able to.’’ she said. ”So I’m absolutely 100 percent proud to be a first generation student.”

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Though Nur’s family is just 45 minutes away in Portland, he said there’s still a lot about Bowdoin—and college in general—they don’t understand. “The whole social aspect of collegiate life I don’t think they really understand,” he said.

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Kruk said that her transition to Bowdoin was initially easy, because she was so excited to be here. It was only after Winter Break of her first year that she started to feel the disconnect between her life at home and the life she had built for herself at school. She explained that she wishes her parents could experience Bowdoin the way many others do. “These moments, like having your family come with you to a football game, are experiences I will never have,” she said. Her family plans to visit for the first time in May of this year, to watch her graduate.

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Watson attended the Academic Magnet High School, one of the top public high schools in the nation. While he said he felt academically prepared for Bowdoin, Watson noticed economic differences between himself and other Bowdoin students, but didn’t necessarily attribute this to being a first-generation college student. “I didn’t even really know what first-gen was until I started taking like a sociology class here,” he said. Watson credited his first-year floor, which was chem-free and housed several first-generation students, with making his transition easier. “I’m actually still really tight, and really close friends with them, today. And I think they face some similar hardships,” he said.

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For Asaolu, starting high school was more than just navigating a new school. A recent immigrant from Nigeria, Asaolu transitioned to American high school while acclimating to a new country, building a new life in Minnesota with her family for the promise of an American public education. Like many of her peers, Asaolu has struggled to balance academics and extracurricular interests—for her, rugby. "I already knew what life without education could be like and I didn’t want that," she said. "I really didn’t have to like dig deep to find [motivation] because I knew without education there are not so many options."

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Though Cortum completed a one-year exchange program in Poland before coming to the College, he said he still found the transition to Bowdoin difficult, in part because of the cultural differences between New England and the Midwest. While he ultimately overcame these differences, Cortum said he now finds a gap between himself and his Bowdoin experiences and his family back home. “I feel like being a first generation student has kind of sundered me with my family. Because my family is not composed of academics. But more composed of simple farmer-like people,” he said.

Jacqueline Colao ’17 doesn’t recall what happened when she collided with another player during a basketball scrimmage her senior year in high school. 

“I don’t remember any of it because I got knocked unconscious, but I was told that there was another girl and I who both jumped up in the air to get a loose ball,” Colao said. “And my left cheekbone hit into her shoulder which knocked me unconcious. And then I fell onto the court and cracked open the side of my head.”  

Colao suffered a serious concussion. Nearly eight months later, when she tried to enroll at Bowdoin as a first year, she found her symptoms were still too severe for her to fulfill her responsibilities as a student.

“By the second day I couldn’t get out of bed, so I was like, 'OK, probably can’t go to school then,'” Colao recalled. 

She ended up taking a gap year to sort out her health.

Like Colao, Juliet Eyraud ’16 suffered a severe concussion during an athletic competition. The spring break of her sophomore year at Bowdoin, she was concussed during an ultimate frisbee competition.

“I didn’t think it was going to last that long,” Eyraud said. She returned to school and began experiencing migraine concussion symptoms. Her brain whirred when she tried to read and she couldn't look at computers.

Colao and Eyraud’s stories aren’t unique. According to Carri Kivela, a nurse practitioner in health services who specializes in concussions, Bowdoin students go to the Health Center with concussions every week. 

Concussions occur on a spectrum of severity, and certain factors—such as pre-existing medical conditions or previous concussions—can complicate any given concussion. Although concussions have been given increased attention over the past few years, they remain relatively mysterious.

“Even the specialists, the neurology specialists that [I] go to, are like, ‘I don’t really know when you’re going to get better,’” said Eyraud.

As director of athletic training, Dan Davies oversees student-athletes who suffer concussions. Each varsity sport also has an individual trainer, and the athletic department works closely with the health center, as well as with the dean’s office.

“We have weekly meetings,” Davies said. “We have a staff report of all concussions that is sent to the dean’s office, the athletic director, and our team doctor so that everybody is aware of every progression, where they are, where aren’t they.”

During the 2014-2015 academic year, there were 66 concussions reported by athletes according to Ashmead White Director of Athletics Tim Ryan.

The concussion recovery process is fairly strict. Most students who are diagnosed with a concussion first face 48 hours of brain rest.

“That means no cell phone, no computers, no movies, no loud music. It’s really resting in your room,” Davies said. “No loud places of gathering… try to avoid eating in the dining hall for a couple of days.”

Unsurprisingly, brain rest isn’t popular among Bowdoin students. 

“Most people haven’t really had to shut down at any point in their life for that much,” said Kivela.

While brain rest is a start, it does not heal a concussion on its own. Kivela said that most students take one to two weeks to fully recover.

Athletes who suffer a concussion must also complete several cognitive tests before they return to their sport. Even then, they spend a few days biking, running and doing agility drills before resuming full contact.

For many students, missing out on regular college life while recovering from a concussion can be highly stressful.

“Some [students] get more anxious, because they’re not in class. They have to be in class. They have to do their work. Well, no, you don’t,” said Davies. “Health comes first. You're here for your brain. You got in here because of your brain. Don’t do anything to prevent that from healing.”

To help students manage the difficulties associated with brain rest and concussion recovery, several students recently founded a group called the Polar Brain Alliance.

Harrison Carmichael ’17, one of the group’s leaders, understands the danger of concussions. He experienced a concussion himself while in high school, and has seen how concussions have impacted his classmates here at Bowdoin.

“I have a lot my friends who have at this school dealt with concussions on a very wide spectrum of intensity,” he said. “I’ve just seen that it can be a really debilitating, difficult thing.”

The Polar Brain Alliance hopes to provide both logistical and emotional support to Bowdoin students who suffer concussions. They’re willing to complete any number of tasks, from bringing concussed students an express dinner to doing their laundry, texting their friends, or simply talking with them if they are lonely.

“Brain rest can be kind of isolating,” said Carmichael.

Carmichael and his fellow Polar Brain Alliance leaders recently led a training on the danger of concussions and how to support a friend who is concussed. They hope that the students they have trained can serve as resources for any Bowdoin student who suffers a concussion. 

“If a student suffers a concussion, a trainer or a coach can be like, ‘Hey, here is this list of students who are prepared to help you out,’” Carmichael said. 

Colao believes that increased awareness about the impacts of concussions can help Bowdoin students better support their peers. 

“If you know somebody has a concussion, make sure to check in with them,” she said. “Even little things, like the volume of your voice, like trying to keep that quiet, or asking the person if it’s bothering them, like not showing people screens without asking.”

While the Polar Brain Alliance seeks to provide social support, the health center and other resources on campus aim to ensure that Bowdoin students who suffer concussions still find success academically.

For some students, this includes taking time off from the College. Colao took a gap year prior to coming to Bowdoin, while Eyraud took off the spring 2015 semester.

“One of the concussion specialists I talked to was basically like, ‘You should just take a semester off from school. That’s the only thing that could really help,’” Eyraud said. 

But even after time off, Eyraud has found that her concussion symptoms still affect her academics. A computer science major, she struggles to look at bright screens for extended periods of time.  

“Computer science ended up being super inconvenient,” she laughed.

After consulting her advisor, she opted for an independent study to finish her major rather than an intensive programming class, which would likely trigger her symptoms. She’s made other adaptations as well.

“All of my professors know about it. So whenever they do PowerPoints I get the printout from them in advance,” she said. 

Likewise, Colao has found that her lingering concussion symptoms make her classroom experience different than the average Bowdoin student.

“We have this feedback loop in our body where you have a thought and you say something but then you also hear back what you said and process that,” she explained. “But my feedback loop broke… I’m sure people who’ve had classes with me have noticed that I just go on long rants and ramble a lot because I want to make sure that I am communicating whatever I can. But I don’t know whether I am or not.”

Despite these difficulties, Colao doesn’t want to let her concussion hold her back. A government and philosophy double major with an economics minor, she’s interested in both law and business school.

While the majority of people who experience concussions no longer see symptoms after two or three weeks, for some, like Colao and Eyraud, symptoms can last much longer.

For Eyraud, this meant modifying not only her academic plan, but also changing her habits and social life. 

“I have sort of an anti-college lifestyle, in that I go to bed early and I don’t look at my computer all that much,” said Eyraud. 

At the same time, she tries to maintain a positive attitude toward the changes she has made.

“I think one of the positive things that has come out of it is that a lot of the things that help with concussions are also things that just help with normal healthy living,” she said.

For Colao, the most difficult aspect has been learning to accept the severity of her concussion.

“I feel like a lot of people hear the four years that I’ve been through and think that it’s like the craziest thing they’ve ever heard, or the most awful concussion they’ve ever heard of, but it’s a lot more common than people think,” said Colao. “And when I first got my concussion, I didn’t take it seriously. I mean, I couldn’t get out of bed for a couple months, but… I still thought it was going to heal in like six months, a year.”

Now, four years later, Colao has realized that her concussion won’t just go away with brain rest. At the same time, this understanding means that she is now taking further steps to improve her brain function and reduce her symptoms.

She wears customized glasses which direct light to different parts of her brain. And she completes special brain puzzles that are designed to train her healthy brain pathways to compensate for the damaged ones. 

“A lot of it has been me just trying to figure out how to tackle these things on my own when no one else is really going to have more expertise,” said Colao.

She hopes that groups like the Polar Brain Alliance can help Bowdoin students gain a better understanding of concussions.

“If you haven’t been through a concussion or a traumatic brain injury like this, it’s very hard for people to understand.” 

Although trees and squirrels may be the most well-known natural features on the Bowdoin campus, the College’s surroundings are also home to hundreds of species of fungi. Several members of the Bowdoin community are taking full advantage of these resources.

Delmar Small, Concert, Budget, and Equipment Manager of the Music department, developed an interest in mushrooms after noticing their abundance in Maine’s natural environment. 

“We got a dog,” he said. “So I  started walking her every morning, taking her out in the woods and letting her run free in the woods. And I was  like, ‘hm, look at that!’”

When Small began investigating the fungi he saw, he was surprised to learn that many of Maine’s mushrooms are edible.

“Some of the ones that I’d seen all the time were edible—really good edibles. It’s like ‘oh my gosh, five years we’ve had chanterelles in the backyard and [I] didn’t know it,’” he said.Like Small, Chair of the Biology Department Nat Wheelwright’s interest in mushrooms stemmed from his explorations in the woods.

“I was constantly on field trips with students and I could point out the trees and the insects and the birdsongs, but when they would point to fungus, I would have to plead the fifth. So I decided I needed to smarten up,” said Wheelwright. 

Wheelwright and Small both joined the Maine Mycological Association, a group committed to studying fungi and Maine’s natural environment. 

“Picture all these little old ladies in tennis sneakers, bright clothes, [with] great enthusiasm, [a] tremendous amount of knowledge, just picking their way through the woods excitedly, hollering out when they came across some great find… They’re just great naturalists,” Wheelwright described.

The organization, which meets in several Maine towns, hosts panels and presentations on mushrooms during the winter and conducts forays when the weather is more bearable. In August 2014, they hosted the Northeast Mycological Federation Foray at Bowdoin.

“Clubs from Quebec all the way down to West Virginia in this federation met at Bowdoin for three days for excursions and lectures and demonstrations and workshops,” said Small. “So we had 200 people here… we had Thorne Hall full of mushrooms.”

While the Maine Mycological Association certainly brings together mushroom enthusiasts, foraging doesn’t require big groups of experts, only some enthusiasm and common sense.“The king bolete [is] super easy to recognize, very hard to poison yourself with, and delicious,” Wheelwright said.

He frequently forages for edible fungi near his home and also farms his own mushrooms using old aspen trees and mycelium plugs—batches of fungal cells that can be bought on the internet. His favorites include the suillus mushroom, which produces a flavor he likens to chicken fat.  For some scientists, however, foraging is an exercise of intellectual curiously rather than a desire to eat mushrooms. Mycology—the study of mushrooms and fungi—is a very specific field with broad applications in sectors such as energy, ecology, agriculture and medicine, so there is much room for new research. 

“It’s one of those areas that the more you study it, the more you realize there is to study,” said Small. “You never come to the end of it. You never feel like, ‘oh, I’ve completely mastered mushrooms. I know every mushroom I’m going to encounter.’ You just can’t.”

Studying mushrooms here at Bowdoin could help students contribute to fungal research in the future. Several of Wheelwright’s former biology students went on to complete graduate work in mycology and a few now hold faculty positions as mycologists. 

The hobby is not limited at Bowdoin  to Wheelwright and Small. Gary M. Pendy Professor of Social Sciences Jean Yarbrough and Professor Religion Emerita Jorunn Buckley also share an interest in mycology. 

Sofi Lopez ’18, a biology major, is currently researching fungi as part of Wheelwright’s Behavioral Ecology and Population Biology course. 

“It’s very interesting to just look at the different colors of the caps, and whether the caps are slimy, or smooth, or bumpy,” she said. “I have been making a lot of spore prints with them, so you take the cap off the mushroom and put it on like a piece of paper... and it shows you the pattern of gills or pores, which is really cool to see. It’s really beautiful.”

Lopez and her biology classmates will present their findings at an open house on November 30 and December 1. However, enrollment in class or membership in a group isn’t necessary to forage for mushrooms. 

“Around the parking lot edges, sometimes there are things that grow kind of regularly,” said Small. “There are some big trees here on the central part of campus that periodically host some nice edibles.”

Lopez recommends the Bowdoin Pines as a starting place. 

“They’re just all over the Pines if you look for them,” she said. “Just take a walk in the woods and see what you can find.”

Managing academics, athletics, social life and the transition to college can be difficult for any first year student. For Amir Parker ’19, juggling all of this is only half the battle. 

Parker is also enrolled in the Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) program at the University of Southern Maine (USM), the only Bowdoin student to do so.

“I’ve known for a while that I wanted to join the military,” Parker said. His family has a long history of military service—his older brother is currently enlisted in the Coast Guard, and his father is a retired Army veteran.

Though ROTC programs exist at over 1,000 colleges, Bowdoin does not have such a program.Although Parker considered attending college and then enrolling in Officer Candidate School afterward, he ultimately chose the ROTC program so that he could enroll in college and train for the military at the same time. Upon graduation, he will be commissioned as an officer and have a four year obligation to the U.S. Army.

To Parker, enrolling at Bowdoin and completing ROTC at USM was a simple choice. But many of his friends and advisors initially thought he might be overcommitting himself.

“They were a bit skeptical and worried because they felt like it was a lot,” Parker said. His schedule is certainly busy. On Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings, he drives to the USM campus in Portland for physical training.

Workouts include running, sit-ups, push-ups and a practice known as “rucking,” in which Parker and his fellow cadets run with backpacks full of military gear that often weigh up to 50 pounds. While such exercises would be demanding at any hour of the day, Parker and his fellow ROTC cadets deal with the added difficulty of operating on little sleep.  

“I have to get up at 3:30 usually, and if we ruck, I have to get up at 3:00,” Parker said.His ROTC training goes beyond just physical exercise. He attends weekly leadership training every Wednesday and engages in tactical training and field exercises on Friday afternoons.

When the military requirements and the demands of being a Bowdoin student seem overwhelming, Parker makes sure to keep his challenges in perspective.

“I really don’t think it’s hard at all because the way I look at it is that there are people who actually have hard lives,” Parker said. “I don’t think it’s hard. I just think it’s a good opportunity. It’s a challenging opportunity. It’s an opportunity for me to embrace a challenge. When I wake up, I don’t have to worry about where I’m going to sleep or what I’m going to eat, so I don’t really think of it as being hard. That’s the mindset I attack it with.”

Such a mindset helps Parker mentally deal with his demanding schedule. On a practical level, he employs a strategy of rigorous time management.

“Pretty much every minute of my day is planned out. I don’t have much time to waste,” Parker said.

While military service always seemed natural to Parker, his path to Bowdoin wasn’t as clear. 

Originally from Baltimore, Maryland, Parker had never heard of Bowdoin until a college advisor at his high school suggested he apply. He submitted an application despite knowing fairly little about the College, but decided to attend Bowdoin after a campus visit last April.

Parker shares the College’s commitment to the Common Good. In his hometown of Baltimore, he worked to mentor inner city youth through football.

Just in case schoolwork and military training weren’t enough to keep him busy, he is a member of Bowdoin’s varsity football team, too.

Unsurprisingly, Parker doesn’t have much time to attend campus events or parties. 

“The first time I actually even got to go to a party was Epicuria,” Parker said. “That was the first time since I’ve been at Bowdoin that I went out. And I had a good time.”

Although he rarely goes out on weekends and spends significant time off campus, Parker has nonetheless found it fairly easy to make connections at Bowdoin.

“I still have good friends on the football team. I have good friends on my floor. I have good friends that aren’t associated with my floor or the football team,” Parker said. “So it’s not that my social life sucks, necessarily.”

He has also found a good support system within the Bowdoin community, including a group of friends and advisors who help ensure his workload remains under control.

“They have been supportive. They’ve had my back,” said Parker. “They’ve been checking in with me periodically just to make sure things are running smoothly, and they’ve been great about that.”

Parker will continue to rely on such friendships moving forward. He is committed to the ROTC program for all four years. At Bowdoin, he plans to study physics with the goal of someday doing engineering work in the Army.

“I do want to make a career out of the military,” Parker said.

On the surface, Bill De La Rosa ’16 seems like a typical Bowdoin student: he is active with the McKeen Center for the Common Good, conducts research in the sociology department, and usually stays up late finishing his work. But De La Rosa’s path to Bowdoin and his time at the College have been anything but ordinary. 

In 2009, when De La Rosa was a sophomore in high school, his mother went to Mexico to obtain a green card. However, rather than receiving the necessary paperwork to remain in the United States, she was barred from the country for ten years because, years previously, she had overstayed a visa and crossed the border illegally. She cannot return to the U.S. until 2019.

“There’s no waiver, no appeal process,” De La Rosa recalled. He, his father and his three siblings are all American citizens, but this makes no difference in the world of immigration law, where intentions do not matter and exceptions do not exist. 

The separation from their mother placed both emotional and financial stress on the family. De La Rosa’s elderly father was too old to work. His older brother, Jim, joined the Marine Corps to supplement the family’s income, leaving Bill to care for his two younger siblings. 

“I [was] taking care of my siblings, worrying about their school, their food, the house, bills and also my own schoolwork,” said De La Rosa. “I somehow managed to do all these things.”

If the pressures of supporting his family meant less time for sleep or academics, it didn’t show in the classroom. He was the valedictorian at his high school in Tucson, Arizona.

Despite his academic achievements, the college application process presented another challenge. 

“Even applying to college was a stretch for me, because both my parents didn’t even graduate high school,” he said. 

Although he considered other schools, De La Rosa was drawn to Bowdoin’s Government and Legal Studies program as well as the liberal arts focus and commitment to the Common Good.When he was admitted early decision, he turned to his community back home to ensure his family would be alright without his day-to-day leadership. 

“It [was] a matter of really solidifying the support that I would need, so that…my family could be okay,” he said. 

The transition to Bowdoin was not easy. Even with all that the College has to offer, it does not distract De La Rosa from his family’s situation, and the 2,500 miles between Brunswick and Tucson do not lessen his care for them.

“I’m constantly worrying about what’s going on back home” said De La Rosa. “I’m spacing out and I can’t really focus because I’m like ‘How’s my dad? How [are] my siblings?’… It’s just a constant tug of war that I have to internally struggle with. Be here, but also be there. Two places at the same time.”

Although he is far from home, De La Rosa feels that he has found a strong support system at Bowdoin. “The counseling center is a great resource,” said De La Rosa. “I also have a lot of friends that I talk to, a lot of faculty members, a lot of staff members that are good friends that I just go to and I speak to them about these issues.” 

Nonetheless, De La Rosa has excelled at Bowdoin. He received a Truman Scholarship, an honor which earned him $30,000 toward graduate school as well as a one-year internship with a government agency. 

De La Rosa’s commitment to issues of immigration, as well as his passion and work ethic, are visible in his work throughout college, both in and out of the classroom. 

A sociology and Latin American studies double major with a government minor, he has worked with humanitarian groups during the summer to provide aid to migrants journeying from Mexico to the United States. 

His service work often relates back to his academic interests. His honors project examines the human effects of immigration policy based on interviews he has conducted with migrants. “Border policy has funneled people through hazardous portions of the border, specifically through the Sonoran desert, so I’m looking at that experience and how people live through that,” he explained.

De La Rosa co-leads the student chapter of the Volunteer Lawyers Project, which provides legal services to low-income Maine residents. He has also led an alternative winter break trip to Portland, where students worked with the Somali refugee population.  

Next spring, he will lead another trip, this time to his home state of Arizona to expose Bowdoin students to immigration issues at the border. 

The current European refugee crisis is one area that sparks his interest. Studying different migration scenarios might help him work in immigration advocacy or policy making in the future. 

De La Rosa is also considering a career in politics someday. And despite his global mindset, it is a possibility that could take him back home. 

“If I’d run for office, I’d probably do it in Arizona.”