The Bowdoin Orient

Last week, Robby Bitting '11 ate a Z-pack, slept diligently, and drained at least a keg of water. This week, he's quarantined in Brunswick Apartments with both H1N1 and a sinus infection. Despite the waves of vaccines rolling through campus and his best efforts to ward off sickness, the Swine didn't seem to care, and carried him off without a hesitation. Who knows when we'll see him again?

Two issues ago, I argued that Bowdoin needs to energize its student body around intellectual growth. While most of us take our education seriously, and while many of us spend summers or semesters pursuing research or independent studies in our majors, we hesitate to challenge each other on these topics. Moreover, we hesitate to ask each other the questions that stimulate inquiry. One way Bowdoin can engender more open passion for learning is to reserve one day each semester dedicated to student presentations on learning outside of the classroom.

Philosopher Thomas Kuhn writes in "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" that scientists need to be committed and impassioned about the problem solving process, for on that process depends the progress of science. I think you can extrapolate to other disciplines, because what is any synthesis of ideas, really, but the solution of a problem?

Bowdoin students are sometimes criticized as lacking an intellectual fervor. Those critics suggest that, because the average Bowdoin student won't engage in impassioned intellectual debate over a cup of coffee at the Station, his attention rarely ascends into the more lofty realms of abstract thought. That position is complete tripe.