The Bowdoin Orient

Pulitzer-prize winning author David Shipler visited Bowdoin on Monday to meet with students and professors, and deliver a lecture based on his most recent book, The Working Poor: Invisible in America. Shipler sat down with the Orient to discuss what led him to research poverty in America and some of the lessons he drew from the experience. Here are excerpts from the interview.

Bowdoin students will go to the polls next week to elect a slate of Student Government officers for the 2005-2006 school year. The election will be held Wednesday and Thursday and students will vote online.

Betty Trout-Kelly's upcoming departure from the College means the campus is losing a trusted leader and friend. Now College officials face the challenge of finding a replacement to fill a revamped position of adviser to the President on issues of diversity and equity.

The proper and strongest argument against the College Republicans' decision to host Vernon Robinson isn't that he was offensive or failed to properly "celebrate" Black History Month. It is that he offered absolutely nothing constructive. In welcoming Vernon Robinson to Bowdoin, the College Republicans performed a disservice to the campus as a whole, and to student conservatives in particular.

Bowdoin Student Government is struggling to implement its ideas and programs, is encountering difficulty in communicating with the student body, and is divided over its current state of affairs, an Orient investigation has found.

An expansion of the financial aid endowment tops the list of priorities in the College's recently-launched capital campaign, a move administrators say will help keep financial aid funding secure for the next five to ten years.

Quietly but with confidence, top college officials have launched Bowdoin's latest capital campaign, setting a goal of raising $250 million by 2010.

Even though the results are just a few days old, it's already hard to keep track of the lessons from, and implications of, Tuesday's election. Here are some early thoughts, in no particular order.

President Barry Mills announced his opposition to Maine's Question 1, the "Palesky tax cap," as part of his remarks at the rededication of the Bowdoin Chapel last night. The event also included a showcasing of the Chapel's organ and a reflection from Associate Professor of Art History Susan Wegner.

After a lengthy debate over a proposed amendment, the faculty failed to vote on the new proposed distribution requirements at its meeting Monday. Time only allowed for the approval of a controversial amendment before a sufficient number of faculty members opted to postpone further debate.

The Bowdoin Men's Tennis Team wrapped up its season last weekend with mixed results at the first round of the NCAA tournament. On Saturday the team faced Tufts. A meeting with Tufts earlier in the season had resulted in a Bears loss, but the team was set on revenge.

For the second time this academic year, Pickard Theater was filled with the sound of blended voices and instruments as the Bowdoin Chorus tackled Mozart's Requiem Mass on Sunday afternoon.