The Bowdoin Orient

Welcome to the 148th annual Ivies, perhaps the most sacred tradition that Bowdoin knows. And yet, it almost wasn’t. The first Ivy Day was held in the fall, on October 26, 1865, when the junior class assembled before the chapel to plant an ivy and recite the Class Ode.

For eight years after that, there was no Ivy Day to speak of, according to a 1976 Orient article. What would have happened if our grand tradition had never been revived? Would Bowdoin have become what it is today? Would we have devised some replacement for our annual festival of inebriated catharsis?

Probably. Whenever Ivies comes along, people like to say that Bowdoin becomes, if only for one week, what other colleges are like year-round. Maybe this is true, maybe it’s not—so long as we are students of this College, we can’t know for sure.  All we know is that Bowdoin isn’t easy (grade inflation aside), and hope that our weekend of coordinated debauchery will make it much easier to re-enter H-L come reading period. Most NESCAC schools indulge in some similar celebration—Nelly and Yeasayer graced the Tufts campus last weekend, and Macklemore has made appearance at Williams, Amherst, and Colby in the past few weeks. When Guster and Hoodie Allen take the stage on Whittier Field tomorrow, students will indulge in bacchanalian revelry like they always do--but this year, it can’t help but seem particularly well-deserved. 

Jose Cespedes ’12 died on Friday at New York-Presbyterian Hospital after battling liver disease for six months. He was 22.

Dean of Student Affairs Tim Foster notified the Bowdoin community of Cespedes's death in an email on Tuesday afternoon. At Bowdoin, Cespedes studied history and government, and completed coursework for the government major and film minor in December. He was scheduled to receive his diploma at this year's commencement exercises, according to Foster. 

"Jose was compassionate and thoughtful," said his father, Jose E. Cespedes of Kearny, New Jersey. "He was kind, and he thought of other people first. He loved his grandparents dearly. He really loved Bowdoin also." 

“In a short story, everything can only happen once...there is something that you cannot name in the story, and will have no consequences...[it’s] something that you can’t quite fathom, and you put the book down for a moment and wonder.” 

So spoke acclaimed Irish author Colm Tóibín on the art of the short story at Wednesday night’s Kenneth V. Santagata Memorial Lecture in Kresge Auditorium. 

Tóibín, who currently teaches at Columbia University, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for his novel “The Master” (2004), which he followed with “Brooklyn” (2009), “Mothers and Sons” (2006), and “New Ways to Kill Your Mother” (2012), a collection of nonfiction essays. His most recent novel, “The Testament of Mary,” was released this November. 

Upated Feb. 18

Karen Mills, wife of President Barry Mills, announced this morning that she is stepping down as administrator of the Small Business Administration (SBA).“After four years as Administrator of the SBA, I have let President Obama know that I will not be staying for a second term. I will stay on until my successor is confirmed to ensure a smooth and seamless transition,” Mills wrote in a message to SBA colleagues.As SBA administrator, Mills worked to support small businesses and entrepreneurs nationwide. ​President Obama appointed Mills to the position in January 2009, and elevated her to the cabinet in January 2012. Prior to joining the Obama administration, Mills served as president of the MMP Group, a private equity firm based in Brunswick. She is also a founding partner of the private equity firm Solera Capital.

Mills is considered a potential candidate for Maine’s 2014 gubernatorial race, but said she had not yet considered a future political career.

In the past few months, divestment has evolved from a burgeoning movement on a handful of college campuses to a nationwide effort, though only three schools have agreed to divest their endowments from fossil fuels thus far. At Bowdoin, members of Green Bowdoin Alliance (GBA) have scaled up their efforts to push the College on the issue, and submitted a formal proposal last week that urges President Barry Mills and the Board of Trustees to divest from the top 200 publicly traded fossil fuel companies within the next five years. In a joint statement provided to the Orient on Wednesday, Mills and Paula Volent, senior vice president for investments, wrote that approximately 1.4 percent of Bowdoin’s endowment is invested in these 200 companies. The College invests in them through large commingled funds that contain hundreds of other stocks. Divesting from fossil fuels would require a turnover of over 25 percent of the endowment, according to the statement.

Susan Danforth, associate director of communications and College editor, died on Sunday at Maine Medical Center after suffering a stroke at her home in South Portland on Friday. She was 53 years old. In an email sent to all College employees on Sunday evening, President Mills wrote, “Sue was a diligent professional whose careful work touched every corner of our campus for more than a decade...This unexpected and sudden loss of a truly talented and dedicated colleague touches so many of us, and reminds us of the fragile nature of life.”

Matt Ivester wants to help. As founder of the once infamous anonymous gossip site JuicyCampus.com, Ivester gained notoriety by selling poison to college students in the form of an online network ideal for sharing damaging and shaming information about fellow classmates. Now he’s selling the antidote in the form of his book, “lol...OMG!: What Every Student Needs to Know about Online Reputation Management, Digital Citizenship and Cyberbullying.” But judging from the paltry attendance at his talk in Pickard Theater last night, Bowdoin students aren’t buying.

In a September 2012 article, “Boys on the Side,” in The Atlantic magazine, Hanna Rosin, author of the recently released book “The End of Men,” casts a critical eye at the “hookup culture” of college campuses, arguing that the prevalence of casual sexual encounters is “an engine of female progress—one being harnessed and driven by women themselves.”

After interviewing dozens of undergraduate and graduate students at institutions not unlike Bowdoin, Rosin concluded that “feminist progress right now largely depends on the existence of the hookup culture. And to a surprising degree, it is women—not men—who are perpetuating the culture, especially in school, cannily manipulating it to make space for their success, always keeping their own ends in mind.”

Over a dozen interviews with Bowdoin students from an array of social groups, class years and sexual orientations suggests that this is not generally the case at Bowdoin, and that many men and women are dissatisfied with the hookup culture here, mostly as a result of an unspoken set of rules that dictate how students go about navigating sex and dating at the College.

As campus band Suck my NESCAC opened Junior-Senior Ball in Brunswick on Saturday night, Toronto-based pop-punk duo Moon King warmed up the crowd for the first of three transporting shows this weekend at Space Gallery, one of Portland’s most versatile art venues. Twin Sister and School of Seven Bells headlined Saturday’s concert, Pearl and the Beard took the stage on Sunday, and Lady Lamb the Beekeeper opened for Kaki King to conclude the event series on Tuesday night.

Space Gallery is known for its esoteric exhibitions, contemporary film screenings and Indie concerts that cater to Portland’s aesthete crowd. The minimalistic space is kept sparse to accommodate all types of art, and has been used for interpretive dance performances and large-scale sculpture installations. It’s always packed come Art Walk, and is known to throw holiday parties worth going to. Tickets rarely exceed $15, and the reasonable price point coupled with a well-stocked bar means that Mainers of all ages frequent the place.

The five-man indie pop group Twin Sister brought the ethereal, listless sound of its debut album, “In Heaven,” to Space Gallery on Saturday night. The bewitching vocals of Andrea Estella and talents of guitarist Eric Cardona commanded the show, but hits like “Bad Street” and “Gene Ciampi” fell noticeably short of the pulsating energy of the band’s EP. At times it felt like Twin Sister’s cool had all but taken the life out of the ensemble, with Estella dreamily pacing center stage, hitting her tambourine as if the beat was only an afterthought. Perhaps all the energy of Twin Sister was siphoned off to School of Seven Bells, whose performance was over-thought and over-styled. Fresh off the release of a new EP, “Put Your Sad Down,” the duo, composed of vocalist Alejandra Deheza and guitarist Benjamin Curtis, was determined to put on a good show but tried too hard to make a dance beat out of their ambient instrumentals. 

When the air raid sirens sounded in Jerusalem on the evening of Friday, November 16, Andrew Roseman ’14 was standing in front of the Western Wall, one of Israel’s holiest sites, along with dozens of worshippers there to observe the Sabbath. “At first we didn’t know what was going on—people were saying there was a rocket directed at Jerusalem, but it landed 30 miles away. There was 15 to 20 minutes of straight panic,” said Roseman, who is studying abroad this semester at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. “People were crying, it was really kind of nuts.”

The Orient spent the night reporting from the Pub, Shannon Room, and Angus King's victory event in Freeport. With video, photos, and more tweets than you can stand.

Enter article body here.The Bates College Chapel filled with mourners yesterday afternoon for a memorial service in honor of Bates first year Troy Pappas, who died last Friday after sustaining serious injuries from a fall down a dormitory stairwell on September 29.

A note from the editors of the 1890 Bowdoin Bugle presents the new edition as if it were a fellow-graduate of the College: “The Bugle, having taken a complete course in the cerebral convolutions of the heads of the several editors, now comes upon the stage to receive his degree from the hand of a criticizing public. We hope it will be at least, cum laude. What is it he says? Vos salutamus.”

When Ian Trask graduated from Bowdoin with a degree in biology, he was not the one to bet on to become an up-and-coming sculptor. He now regularly sells artwork around Brooklyn and Chelsea, and is preparing for his first solo show in New York this November.

Tristan Cabello, a Mellon postdoctoral fellow at the College, resigned from his post this week due to personal reasons, according to Dean for Academic Affairs Cristle Collins Judd. Cabello's departure has disrupted the two Africana Studies courses he was teaching this semester. According to Judd, Professor Olufemi Vaughan will be taking over Cabello's Africana Studies 218 course, The African American Experience in Europe, while Professor of English David Collings will replace Cabello in Africana Studies 221, Race and Sexuality in Modern America.

This week President Mills presented the proposed 2012-2013 budget to professors and administrative staff. The budget is projected to include a 3 percent increase of the comprehensive fee, a 4 percent increase of the faculty salary pool, and a 7 percent increase of the financial aid grant pool. These figures are not final, however, as the budget will be presented to the Board of Trustees in May for final approval. Mills said that based on modest projections for positive endowment growth of 7 percent per year, the College budget is balanced through 2015.

On Monday, the news broke nationwide that since 2005, Claremont McKenna College (CMC) had reported inflated SAT scores to the Department of Education, U.S. News & World Report, and various credit rating firms in efforts to elevate the college's ranking.

Barry Norman's office at Eveningstar Cinema sits perched above the concession stand at the entrance to the theater, hidden from the view of his moviegoer patrons. His desk sits behind the theater's two film projectors, nestled in between old bucket seats and empty film canisters. There, Norman has been busy planning what he hopes will be a film renaissance for Brunswick.

We count on the rituals of college life—walking to and from class, and eating in the dining hall—to see our friends around campus every day, and all too often we miss them in the sea of faces that pass by. But the online world is a completely different story, and I'm not talking about Facebook and Twitter. This year, due in large part to its recent fall out of favor among the student population, foursquare has become a stomping ground for a very special kind of Bowdoin student.

In 1927, Edward Hopper must have set up his easel on the corner of Danforth Street and Park Street in Portland, just across from what was then known as the Libby House, and what is now the Victoria Mansion, a national historic landmark.

Bowdoin became the first institution in NESCAC history to voluntarily vacate a NESCAC Championship following the discovery that hazing occurred at a men's ice hockey initiation event on May 11. The revelation was a dramatic turn of fortune for a team that only three months prior had been riding high after defeating Williams to capture the program's first-ever conference title.

What exactly happened at the initiation, however, remains unclear.

The Dean's Office learned of the initiation on the morning of May 12 and alerted the Department of Safety and Security, which promptly launched an investigation. According to a former member of the team who agreed to speak to the Orient on the condition of anonymity, the players were notified of the investigation that evening. Dean of Student Affairs Tim Foster declined to elaborate on the exact details of the event.

LC Van Savage moved to Brunswick in 1974, and soon after began contributing features pieces to the Times Record. In time, she became a columnist and was still writing for the paper when, four or five months ago, she noticed that her checks were no longer arriving. She initially thought nothing of it, for the paper had been late with payments before. But when weeks of waiting turned to months, she contacted her editor, asking for written assurance that the Times Record would pay up. He said he could not do that, so she decided to stop writing.

With the recent conclusion of the second round of early decision (ED II) applications, approximately 230 students have been admitted to the Class of 2015. Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid Scott Meiklejohn reported that a total of 45 applicants were accepted through ED II. The admitted students join the 184 applicants who were accepted in the first round of early decision; together, the two groups make up a large part of the Class of 2015, which Meiklejohn reported would comprise around 485 students.

A petition submitted last Sunday has stalled the Town Council's ordinance to purchase land for the construction of a new police station. In an 8-1 vote, the council voted to adopt the "Ordinance Authorizing Acquisition of Land and Authorizing Issuance of Bonds and Notes in an Amount not to Exceed $1,175,000" on September 20, 2010. Town Manager Gary Brown reported to the Times Record that the council intended to use the funding strictly for that purpose.

On any given day, you might find Head Chef David Crooker roaming between the serving line and dish-washing room in Moulton, doing his daily rounds.

Though it has only been in place for two weeks, the new printing policy has already proven to be the cause of much debate on campus. The eco-friendly printing system forces students to weigh their commitment to the environment against the convenience of unlimited printing rights. The new system came as the result of the Bowdoin Printing Group's (BPG) long-term initiative to improve the way printing is handled at the College.

The aroma of cloves and bitter orange will waft over the audience in Kresge Auditorium this Friday with the advanced Italian students' production of Niccolò Machiavelli's ""La Mandragola"." The play, titled "The Mandrake Root" in English—a product of the semester-long efforts of Associate Professor of Italian Arielle Saiber's Italian Renaissance Theater class—is regarded as one of the most influential productions of Italian Renaissance theater.

This weekend, an adaptation of Kenneth Lonergan's famous play "This is Our Youth" will fill Chase Barn with the craze of adolescent angst. The production stems from the independent study of Francesca Perkins '10, Nicholas Lechich '10, and John Wendell '11, who star in this weekend's production. Will Bleakley '10, as the director of the play, oversaw its production in collaboration with advisor Sonja Moser.

The Office of Admissions sent decision letters to regular decision applicants for the Class of 2014 on Thursday, March 25, concluding an extremely competitive process that is projected to yield one of Bowdoin's most diverse classes to date.

A particularly violent storm struck the College and caused power outages in a majority of campus buildings last Friday. The storm brought down many trees around campus, threatening the Central Maine Power (CMP) electricity supply lines.

If in pursuit of French humor, dramatic performance and eccentric, controversial narrative, one need look no further than Masque and Gown's production of Orphée hitting Pickard Theater this weekend.

New Bible studies are appearing right and left on campus. The trend may reflect what the Bowdoin Christian Fellowship (BCF) identifies as a rise in the Christian presence on campus. The group itself is experiencing a marked growth in membership, but many of the new studies are being sponsored and attended by non-BCF student athletes and LGBTIQ students.

A uniquely whimsical exhibition is currently on display at the Coleman Burke Gallery in Fort Andross. Featuring giant wood-cuts made from the floors of the now-demolished Brunswick High School, as well as playful sculptural installations from artist Robert Wilson and the Boston-based artist collaborative !ND!V!DUALS, this "Winter Group Exhibition" provides an array of artistic gems.

Senior Yongfang Chen's book "A True Liberal Arts Education" has entered its second printing, generating widespread interest in the College among both American and Chinese audiences. Chen's book was published last May, selling 8,000 copies in three months following its first printing. Figures from the second printing will be available in June 2010.

Though the total is still being tallied, the number of Early Decision I (ED I) applications appears to be up from last year. As of yesterday, the Office of Admissions reported that they had received a total of 506 applications. Judging from this initial volume, Interim Dean of Admissions Scott Meiklejohn projected a five percent increase in total ED I applications, totaling somewhere between 520 and 525—though the numbers are still moving as many applications are pending completion.

The Joseph McKeen Center for the Common Good is approachingthe conclusion of its long-term research on how the Center is perceived and utilized in the Bowdoin community. The study consists of a series of student-led focus groups, which began this summer. The aim of the focus groups was to discover the "perceptions of the McKeen Center and the role it should play in campus and community life," said Director of the McKeen Center For the Common Good Susan Dorn.

Art and science will collide tonight as the Visual Arts Center hosts an exhibition of artwork from the Kent Island Artist in Residency program, showcasing the work of Carina Sandoval '10 and Colin Matthews '10. Both students spent the summer on Kent Island living in a small scientific community of 15 to 20 people, immersed in the distinctive landscape and breathtaking imagery of the site.